People have been saying for years that you can gain five pounds in a year if you eat one extra cookie a day with an additional 50 calories. This is a theory that has been floating around for quite some time. In this article, we have discussed the answer to the famous question, “How many extra calories cause weight gain?“.
According to the research, the cookie theory is not credible. This estimate is derived from some basic math: one additional pound of body fat requires around 3500 additional calories; therefore, 50 extra calories multiplied by 365 additional calories equals 18,250 additional calories, which is approximately 5 pounds when divided by 3500.
This makes no sense at all. It is impossible to determine how much food you consume daily while staying within a range of 50 calories, let alone how many calories you expend through typical activities. People used to be able to maintain their weight without having to give too much thought to the number of calories that they consumed daily. Therefore the question arises how many extra calories cause weight gain?
The body possesses its mechanism for controlling weight and can quickly adapt its metabolic rate in response to even modest variations in the number of calories taken in or produced. Because larger bodies take up more space, more calories are burned when moving them compared to moving bodies of a smaller size.
For a long time, I believed that for people to acquire weight, they needed to consume more than an additional fifty calories per day; I guessed hundreds.
Calories Needed to Gain One Pound
For your body to gain one pound, it takes 3,500 more calories. To gain weight at a safe rate of about 0.5 to 1 pound per week, you need an extra 1,750 to 3,500 calories per week or an additional 250 to 500 calories per day.
A nutritionist or online calculator that considers your age, height, weight, gender, and level of physical exercise can give you a rough idea of how many calories you need daily.
Add 250–500 calories to your food daily to start gaining weight. Depending on how you’re doing, you might need to change your calorie intake. If you’re not gaining weight fast enough, try increasing the number of calories you eat.
If you’re trying to build muscle but adding mostly fat, try keeping a smaller calorie surplus. As your weight increases, you must change your food intake. As you gain weight, you’ll need to reevaluate how many calories you need because bigger people need more calories to stay the same size. It would be best to eat enough protein to grow muscle and get bigger.
Muscle tissue comprises amino acids, which you can get from protein. How much protein you need depends on your weight, how often you exercise, what exercise you do, and how active you are. The amount of protein you need depends on how much you work out, but an average adult who doesn’t work out needs about 0.4 grams per pound of body weight.
That’s about 50 grams for an adult who weighs 125 pounds and doesn’t work out and 60 grams for an adult who weighs 150 pounds and doesn’t work out. Strength training is needed for muscle growth, and up to 0.8 grams of protein per pound is needed. If you weigh 125 pounds, that’s about 100 grams of protein.
If you weigh 150 pounds, that’s about 120 grams of protein. Meats and fish are high in protein, so they are great for a diet that helps you gain weight. Three ounces of salmon or roasted chicken breast can give you a lot of the energy you need for the day. There are 21 grams of protein in each of these things.
Along with eggs, cheese, and beans, nuts like peanuts, almonds, and other tree nuts are high-calorie protein sources that can help you gain weight. For example, there are 6 grams of protein in a large egg, 9 grams in a glass of milk, 8 grams in half a cup of canned black beans, and 6 grams in an ounce of nuts.
Working Out for Weight Gain
Obesity could be helped by making some changes to how people live. Walking an extra mile daily, you burn about 60 kcal, the same energy as in a small cookie. So, working out for weight gain is the best thing to do.
Physiological factors show that most people in the United States have an energy imbalance five to ten times bigger than most people can handle alone. Instead, a public health plan that works to stop obesity must make big changes to both the food supply and society.
This is because, on an individual level, you need to cut your calorie intake by several hundred per day if you don’t want to gain weight. No matter how helpful, getting more exercise won’t solve the problem. We need societal changes that make it easier for people to cut back on how much they eat.
Conclusion
Summaries of our answers to your question, “How many extra calories cause weight gain?” are as follows:
- Weight gain depends on your body type.
- Working out for weight gain is the best thing you can do.
- How many calories needed to gain one pound? – For your body to gain one pound, it takes 3,500 more calories. To gain weight at a safe rate of about 0.5 to 1 pound per week, you need an extra 1,750 to 3,500 calories per week or an additional 250 to 500 calories per day.
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