Your asking the wrong group for advice, you need advice from someone overweight like myself.
Plenty of beer and pizza do a good job of keeping weight on. Also any fast food like Mcdonalds work as well. A good lunch would be double quarter pounder meal, supersize and an extra mcchicken sandwich from the dollar menu.

Quote:

Plenty of beer and pizza do a good job of keeping weight on. Also any fast food like Mcdonalds work as well. A good lunch would be double quarter pounder meal, supersize and an extra mcchicken sandwich from the dollar menu.

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^^^This is horrible advice and I truly hope that they are trolling.

This is very common. A lot of endurance athletes either don't eat enough and lose weight, as in your case.........................

or...............

Eat too much/eat whatever they want because they feel all of the training gives them a pass to do so and gain weight or are unhealthy regardless of all of their training.

As an athlete you want to fuel your body right which means eating whole, nutritious foods i.e. fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, lean meats, whole grains.You are on the right track. The key to maintaining is getting around the amount of calories you need to fuel your training and general life responsibilities and your body will handle the rest.

A simplistic view of caloric needs is:

Total daily energy expenditure or TDEE (100%) = Resting metabolic rate or RMR (60-75%)+ Physical activity not just exercise basically anything you do (15-30%) + Therrmic effect of food(10%)

As a reference, to maintain weight when I am in peak training I am eating 3,500-5000 cal a day.

Edamame is great, olive oil, coconut oil, banana bread, pita bread, sweet potato etc. are other great foods for eating healthy and maintaining weight..

You are on the right track. Keep the focus on healthy nutrient dense foods and figure out your daily caloric needs and you should be good to go!

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"Just don’t abandon everything you’ve ever learned because of something someone said on the internet." - Eric McGinnis

Thanks for the reply. I am not one to scoff at the occasional pizza or burger, or the not so occasional beer...but obviously that is not the route to healthy weight maintenance.
As for your suggestions, edamame, banana bread, and sweet potatoes all sound great, I can definitely work those into my regular diet!

We seem to be some of the lucky few that need to try and keep weight on at times, rather than take it off. Pig out.

.

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Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

No worries! Glad to share my knowledge!

Yea I totally came off opposed to those types of foods and it is far from it. I try to have a something along the lines of pizza, beer, enchiladas, cheeseburger and fries once a week to keep me sane and keep my healthy eating and training in perspective. Plus they are just down right delicious if I am being honest. They just shouldn't be apart of a healthy diet on a daily basis.

Edamame, banana bread, sweet potatoes and pita bread are all low to mid glycemic so you won't get a huge blood sugar spike.

You hit the nail on the head with your original post of eggs, nuts, seeds, avacados, etc. Healthy body weight/body fat% is as much about nutrient timing and macronutrient distribution as it is total calorie needs. Try to figure out the timing of nutrients and macro distribution that works for you to maintain your idea bw/bf.

Beef and bison are great to add to the list as well. Beef gets a bad rap, but as long as you are not pounding a 8 oz filet or burger a day, eating it 1-2 times a week you don't have to worry.

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"Just don’t abandon everything you’ve ever learned because of something someone said on the internet." - Eric McGinnis

A good pizza, broken down to the constituents, is pretty much bread with tomatoes and cheese. For the life of me I don't understand why people make it out as the devil. It's as good a pre-race meal as the traditional pasta dinner, and I enjoy both in copious quantities.

It's the quality of the ingredients that make a difference. Pizza and burgers can be great, healthy choices if you eat from the right source.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

The quality of the ingredients are definitely a huge part! In the U.S. a large part of what makes pizza bad is the quantity of ingredients.

You can munch some healthy pizza. I generally recommend to clients to make a pizza homemade if that's what they want. They are so easy to do these days and you can control both the quality and quantity of the ingredients used.

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"Just don’t abandon everything you’ve ever learned because of something someone said on the internet." - Eric McGinnis

Coconut products (milk, cream, shavings, oil) are a really good thing for this-my go to in stage races. They are energy dense, nutritionally beneficial and can offer an ergogenic aid in endurance performance.

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I'm 6'1" and was 148 for my marathon in December. That was fine when I was just running 50-55 miles a week, but once I got back in the full swing of swim/bike/run, I just didn't have enough energy to hit all my workouts at that weight. I'm up to 153 now and feeling MUCH stronger especially in the pool and on the bike. The key to maintaining that weight for me is almost exactly as you said: nuts, peanut butter, eggs, and healthy oils. I have eggs and whole grain toast 3-4 days a week for breakfast, eat a handful of almonds any time during the day I'm feeling hungry, and I chase almost every single meal with a spoonful of peanut butter (sometimes with a bit of honey on top). On top of that I bring a smoothie to work to consume on top of my usual lunch. I add strawberries, banana, spinach, then 2% greek yogurt, coconut oil, and usually more peanut butter for extra calories. I see this all as far more of a blessing than a curse, as I, like most people, really enjoy eating. Also, as others have suggested, I might have pizza or a burger for dinner 1-2 nights a week with little/no guilt. Dunno if this is the best thing to do from a health standpoint, but hey, life's short.

I'm in the exact same boat with regards to trying to maintain weight. Lot's of good suggestions thus far but one I'll add as it's a staple meal of mine is oatmeal with some whey protein, almond butter, and frozen blueberries.

Dinner:



You're welcome.

you should get de-wormed.

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One of the things that I would like to offer up is to not eat too many raw vegetables.
They fill you up and are not calorie dense.
Try sticking wth a small salad, a small plate of cut vegetables, or better yet some greens braised in veggie stock or similar.
Greens cook down to a much smaller size.
Then you will be able to eat more of the calorie dense foods.

Yeah, I totally hear you, had pizza for dinner last night in fact. But I'm not going to eat pizza everyday, and mostly I am just looking for ideas of other calorie dense food to add into my rotation.

Thanks! I definitely try to incorporate a lot of coconut products into my diet. I do a lot of work on South Pacific islands where coconut is heavily featured in food. How do you use the coconut oil though? As a replacement for other cooking oil, but otherwise?

Thanks, I think the fortified smoothies sound great! And I guess I should start going everywhere with a jar of peanut butter.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I'm 5'10'', and I've been in between 134 and 140 these last years, 136 being my peak fitness weight on the bike: I've recently been to a dietetician to check what I should do to avoid getting too low, and if some extra lean mass would be beneficial for triathlon (olympic and 70.3). I was told to monitor my intake over a short period of time, to know if my protein intake was sufficient, and if my diet was properly balanced.

The advice I recieved was to be sure to get about 1.5gr protein/kg/day (not much less, not much more) - so about 100gr a day for me, from various sources. As you said, eggs, nuts, and also white cheese, meat, fish, etc.. the more unprocessed sources the better. Also, I was told not to train on an empty stomach to avoid the catabolic effect, and, within 30 minutes after every workout where muscle fibers would have been destroyed, to make sure to have recovery food with about 1gr protein / 2gr carbohydrates proportion.

Hope that helps.

My first priority is strength training so it is important for me to keep my weight up (kills me on cycling, but not as important in my fitness goals). To keep my weight up I like using coconut oil a lot in my food. I do use it as a cooking oil, but will typically put it on hot food and let it melt in with a quick mix like in oatmeal. My oatmeal usually has 2 cups of oats, coconut oil, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, Quinoa and flax seeds. On the weekends I will heat and eat, but during the work week I will eat it dry if I am time constrained. I also use extra virgin olive oil on salads and fish oil capsules. I had to drop almonds (more expensive so it was the one I cut) because I started gaining too much weight so I had to cut back a little on the fats. Plus I eat a lot of meat and have to count those fats.

As other stated you can use a variety of healthy fats from avocados, almonds, walnuts, seeds. And of course you have the ability to jack your good carbs up pretty high, which will benefit fueling your training.

I feel ya I used to be the same way. The turning point for me with finding a nice balance b/t being fit and not looking like a Cambodian refugee was simply allowing myself to eat what my body craved. I spent over 20 years in triathlon eating the right stuff, but never allowing myself to eat all I wanted. I don't eat junk food as a practice, but if I'm starving and I am not near a great meal I will get a plain chicken breast sammich at Chik Fil A to fill the gap. I travel non-stop so I keep a bin of Snyders Pretzel Sticks to fill the gaps. In short, when I stopped obsessing over race weight and body fat measurements my performances and even more importantly my health went through the roof. Since I started eating this way I have not had so much as a sniffle or bug in 5 years sans a bout with 2 Lymes tics. THAT sucked, but had nothing to do with my diet:/ In addition my performance has gone up faster and more frequently than it did in my younger days. YMMV. If I had to put one addition to my diet that has made a world of difference it's coconut oil. I take it 2-3 times a day.....coffee, salad or even a spoon full I love the stuff! There are times though when I want something like say a sweet......and I will go kill some banana bread. I don't deny myself much when my body is asking for something.

In short, don't let yourself get hungry if you want to keep weight on. I'm 6'1" and 175ish. Used to be 20 pounds lighter, sick a couple of times a year and out of energy. I swim only now, but am around 10-11 hours a week with swims and dry land classes and feel great! Certainly some of that weight is due to the dry land training as we do a lot of squats, RDL's lunges etc, but overall the diet is what allowed me to keep weight on. In the past withweight training I'd just tire out and get sick with the added stress of weight training, now I just get stronger:)

Thats great advice, thanks! I'll start figuring out exactly how much protein i'm taking in right now, and then adjust from there. Definitely agree with the no training on an empty stomach rule, that is definitely key, although it means a little more planning for early morning workouts!

I saw the title and was going to suggest nuts/avocado/peanut butter. I have the same problem, and it's normally because I'm trying to eat so much quality food that I can't get enough calories in.

The occasional pizza isn't a problem in my opinion and if you're in the height of training each an additional pizza each week is much better than losing the weight.

Other options I go for in peak training but not necessarily day-to-day:

- Big box of trail mix (with dried fruit and chocolate) next to you at work. Graze all day.
- Cheese and fruit at night before bed. Brie and strawberries, for example. Highly caloric.
- Drink more calories (e.g. Nutrament or Ensure). I prefer to eat calories so only do this when I'm struggling to get them in.
- When roasting veg glaze them with honey, or put more oil in than you normally would (same applies for salads)

Provocative: Train 'less'. If you're losing weight that you don't want to, you have to think about the pros and cons of losing those extra pounds versus doing the extra training. You could convert some of your training hours into technique, strength or flexibility focus. For a fat guy I might suggest doing the training and losing the weight, but you're already very lean/skinny so losing the weight might be a net negative. That depends very much on your limiters/goals.

Thanks all for the coconut oil suggestions. I'm definitely trying to work that in as much as possible, had a big scoop in my oatmeal this morning before hitting the pool, it was really good!

Ha, thanks for that! This problem was definitely magnified when I was racing HIM, but last year and this year I am focusing only on Oly. Perhaps if I can get my nutrition in order, I can start to think about longer races again. I do really enjoy Olympic distance racing though!

For oils, just be careful about which oil to use for which case. Different oil have different oxidation rates which means some are more recommended for salad dressings and low heat, whilst others are recommended for deep frying.