Hi, I am Jyothi Chabria. We would be discussing about weight gain. Weight gain is really challenging
even for a nutritionist to handle because weight is tougher to get results in rather
than weight loss. If we were to assure patient of two, two and half kilos per month, we would
be really happy and say good job. Weight gain is a slow process, we encourage patients to
take high protein diet for weight gain. In fact its not about eating a lot of butter
or a lot ghee that people believe, if you eat lot of chocolates and ice creams and junk
food they tend to gain weight. Its more about a body constitution. Many people indulge a
lot of carbohydrates and yet don't seem to be putting on weight. It is basically their
metabolism that probably is too high that works far more than in any other person of
normal height and weight. In weight gain patients we would normally recommend things like eggs,
in fact there is a banana milk diet that I recommend to most of my patients which is
a concoction of milk, eggs, banana, sugar and vanilla essence. This does two things,
one, its a high protein mix, so it ends up making the patient feel hungry, it increases
the hunger quotient and secondly it helps them gain weight. The other thing is that
we again even in weight gain patients encourage them to have 6 frequent meals through the
day, but its all about the right combination of the foods as mentioned earlier. Now we
would encourage them to have about 2-3 glasses of milk per day, we would encourage them to
have combination of meals like if they were to have eggs, we would enhance it with probably
cheese, that will give them a little protein and it will get fat in to their diet. We would
encourage them to have granola bars or nutri bars, we would encourage them to have multi
grain mixes of porridge so that all the nutrients that are deficient or insufficient are taken
in to consideration and you know made up. Weight gain patients are also encouraged to
exercise not with the perspective of losing or burning out those calories, but they are
encouraged to exercise to improve blood circulation. Because the minute the circulation improves
in the body they themselves start feeling more hungry and they start eating better.
Lot of patients who are very lean, I mean they do have a pretty good appetite really
speaking but it is just about the right combination of food that really does the magic.