How to Gain Weight in College. - September 15th 2021

First, if you are a college kid struggling to GAIN weight, you are doing college all wrong! I am pretty sure I was up 5 lbs after 1 week.

You need to think about calories and protein. You need to be getting close to 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, if you are struggling to gain weight you probably don’t need to worry too much about carbs/fats just yet so lets hold off on those.

I am assuming you have been eating roughly the same amount of food each day since you have been on campus and if you are losing weight lets just assume you are in a relatively large caloric deficit. If we want to start packing on some muscle, we need to add 500 to 1,000 calories to your daily totals. Unless your parents sent you to school with bags of cash ill assume you are a typical broke college kid who can’t afford steaks and chicken breasts, so we need calories on a budget.

Hello peanut butter sandwiches and olive oil. Peanut butter and olive oil pack on hell of a caloric punch, PB is relatively inexpensive and your dining hall should have olive oil available to you. Olive oil is great because 2 tablespoons contains nearly 250 calories and you can mix it in pretty much anything. A single, 2 tablespoon, serving of PB is nearly 200 calories and no one in the world only uses 2 tablespoons on a sandwich. If you eat 2 PB sandwiches per day and add a serving of Olive Oil 4 times per day you are adding nearly 1,000 calories to your diet per day.

Try to stick to this plan for a few weeks and see how things go. It probably isn’t the best diet for a lifetime of eating but it should help you pack on some size on a budget!