How to Gain Weight with Healthy Fats

Are you under weight like I was? If so, a change in diet could help you to pack on the pounds in a healthy way. My experiences can possibly help you to gain weight.

A little about my past
I was horribly under weight for as far back as I can remember. It didn't matter what diet I was on––from junk food to a heavy wheat based diet to growing up eating cheeseburgers and hotdogs, I never packed on the pounds so I just thought that this was my natural way of being––thin.

The GAPS Diet: My Big Aha!
It wasn't until last year through my research to help save my boyfriend's health did I discover the GAPS diet. This diet promotes eating healthy fats and fermented foods. Hmmm, I'd never heard of such a way of eating. So, I went from one extreme to another: a raw vegan diet for about two years and then back to rice, pasta, breads and baked goods and then on to this new GAPS diet. The GAPS diet includes more meat than I had ever eaten in my entire life coombined with bone broths, lard, duck fat and fermented foods. What in the world???!!!

As I think back to my weight growing up, I remember key numbers like 70lbs, 90lbs, 110 and up until last year in my 30's 125 lbs. I would stay at those numbers for years. My doctors told me that I could stand to gain some weight but I was never given an action plan and in this day of "thin is in" I was comfortable where I was and thought that any more weight would make me fat ...weird, I know.

(5 months before starting GAPS diet. May 2011, 120-125 lbs. Thin face & legs)
So thanks to divine timing and finding Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride's protocol for the GAPS diet, after just a few months of introducing lard into my diet, I started to gain weight. I remember very clearly when I first started eating the lard my body felt happy. It was a sensation that I had never felt before. A happiness! And now I know why. For the first time in my life, I was giving my body what it always wanted, healthy fat!

(November 2011, 7 weeks on GAPS. Fuller face, thicker thighs & legs)
The Secret to Gaining Weight
I think people had it half right when they would say: "Girl, you need some meat on your bones." Well, meat is just the side-kick. It's really the fat, the cartilage... the connective tissue (sounds gross but it's healing food) from the meat that I needed. Who knew?!

So I stopped eating anti-nutrients and filler food (grains and wheat) and took on the GAPS diet full-force.

(foods like this tasty bread actually caused me more harm than good)
I am proud to say that I am now 140 lbs. I had always been afraid of weighing over 125lbs. But at 5' 9" tall I carry the weight well. It's all muscle! I feel well balanced and more substantial. The wind can't blow me over so easily now :)

(May 2012, 7 months on GAPS)

So what about you?

Try these Tips to Gain Weight the Healthy Way:

* Take a break from wheat and grain based foods. These foods are very hard to digest but of course, soaking them overnight and fermenting them helps with digestion.

* Add bone broths to your diet. This food is very healing. Make a soup for example, with beef bones or a whole chicken. The fat and connective tissues are very healing for your gut.

* Add an extra source of fat like lard or duck fat to your bone broths or soups/stews. ...Real lard that you buy rendered or in it's whole state to render yourself. We're talking whole foods. No additives or preservatives.

* Eat fermented veggies to help with digestion and absorption.

Eliminate from your diet: junk food, fast foods and foods that you don't process yourself. Give yourself a chance to heal and you will see results. It may take many months, even a whole year. Following a whole foods diet with healthy fats and fermented food can possibly help you to reach your health goals. It's a BIG task to change your diet but, gaining weight the healthy way is definitely achievable.


Resources:

GAPS Diet Links:
http://gapsdiet.com/INTRODUCTION_DIET.html

http://www.gutandpsychologysyndrome.com/gaps-diet/

http://www.gaps.me/preview/

Excellent read on bread and how the entire process including milling and how flour is turned into bread over the centuries has been degraded which has impacted our health:
http://www.foodsmatter.com/miscellaneous_articles/candida_causes_general/articles/bread_staff_of_life.html


Have Fun with Fashion and a Healthy Life!