Help putting on weight

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Ben99

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I'm so skinny its embarrasing. Is there any crohns friendly foods that will help me put on weight easily?
I eat a varied diet and do occasionally pig out on junk but do not put on an ounce of weight.
The last time i did put on weight was when i was on steriods but do wanna go through that route again as my crohns is under control.
 
Hiya Ben,

Steroids as you rightly say are not the answer for gaining weight...

Basically you need to just up your calorie intake with foods you know you tolerate and enjoy. I know high fats trigger alot of folk - me included - but I dont know if they do you? What about more carbs and protein? Like pasta (gluten free etc if you need to) and potatoes for carbs. Eating more fish, chicken and meat too from the protein angle.

Its just whatever you think you can tolerate. We all have wished at some point or other there was a specific diet that worked for us all depending on where we are in the crohn's "cycle".

Hope you get some joy - I have the opposite problem and need to lose weight again!

Thinking of you
 
You know that old saying, you are what you eat? If you just want bulk, then its just a case of eating any old thing that your body will tolerate... if you want to add some muscle, then protein is essential... that's what the bodybuilders I used to workout w would do... Yepper, when the competition season was approaching, they'd start in on the high protein, low fat/low carb diet. The chicken population really plummeted. course, chickens can't fly anyway, so what else could they do but plummet. Exercise is essential too. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you want to get your weight up in a healthy way, look at some weight training regimen
 
I read in a nutrition book for IBD that a good idea to gain weight is to add some healthy fats to your diet (if you can tolerate them), like:

- flaxseed oil to yoghurt or veggies
- olive oil with food
- Avocados
- Hummus
- Fish oil

I usually eat lots of this if I'm feeling good, but can't seem to gain much weight also!
 
Thanks all.
I'm trying to eat a balanced diet but find it sooo difficult to put on any weight. Trust me I eat a lot and exercise very little.
Maybe its my metabolism
 
Exercise may help build some muscle mass, and that is usually what you want anyway. Some people just are genetically predisposed to a certain weight and with Crohn's thrown in there, it may be a struggle to gain.

Best Regards

D Bergy
 
I'm having the same problem, I'm trying to gain weight as well. I've been told by docs to eat a lot of bread and noodles. So far, it's not working, but I'm not dropping as much. Is there anything perhaps at GNC that would be safe for us?
 
I know there are some folks on here who have said some bad things about Ensure, but when I needed to get my weight back my doc suggested Ensure. It's vitamins and raw calories and at the very least the strawberry one doesn't taste too bad.
 
Jvstin said:
I'm having the same problem, I'm trying to gain weight as well. I've been told by docs to eat a lot of bread and noodles. So far, it's not working, but I'm not dropping as much. Is there anything perhaps at GNC that would be safe for us?
Click to expand...

They sell weight gainers, which i dont think should be TOO bad on your system
 
I used to drink Boost everyday, but the taste became horrible after a while and actually started making me "go" after a few months. I haven't tried ensure but I'm gonna give it a shot and also stop by GNC tomorrow and hope someone is working that knows their stuff. I'll give this all a shot and keep everyone posted on the results.
 
Here's a thought (from a rare source, or at least one for whom thoughts are scarce).

Get married, settle down, have kids. Pretty soon you'll have the weight of the world on your back. ;-)
 
haha, well I am getting close to that already, unless I have children that keep me constantly moving cause they're bad. but hopefully that's still a few years away.
I went to Wal Mart and picked up the Equate Plus version of Ensure, it's exactly the same and cheaper since I plan on doing 2 cans a day for right now until I see a bit more around the old mid section.
here's the key ingredients just for everyones info.
-Per Serving
Potassium 500mg
Protein 13g
Calories 350
Carbs 50g
-Daily Recommended Values
Calcium 20%
Iron 25%
Magnesium 25%
Vitamin D 25%

I got the chocolate, taste a lot better than Boost. I'm picking up strawberry tomorrow.
 
If you are taking immuno suppressing drugs, consuming raw eggs is a risky idea. Any undercooked or raw food is a potential for problems. Commercially prepared eggnog MAY be safer, altho I haven't any stats. Even 'soft yolk' eggs can pose a problem. As a source of protein, eggs are a very good idea... as long as they are prepared right!
 
eggnog has always upset my tummy, I can only drink perhaps a glass around the holidays a few days apart. it's hard not to, it's so delicious.
 
D Bergy said:
Exercise may help build some muscle mass, and that is usually what you want anyway. Some people just are genetically predisposed to a certain weight and with Crohn's thrown in there, it may be a struggle to gain.

Best Regards

D Bergy
Click to expand...

Genetics can be beaten :) I am living proof of that, i was 6ft3 1/2 @ 165lbs all through highschool, started working out in my last year of high school and through 5 years of dedicated training and diet i am around 240-245lbs @ the same height. You just need to find the perfect combination and you can beat genetics any day. I am shooting for 250+ by christmas if my wonderful CD allows me.
 
AbstractDonut said:
Drink some eggnog. Make it with honey, and throw in some peanut butter if you can stand it.
Click to expand...

Umm, unless you want cholestorol problems, IMO i wouldnt suggest downing eggnog TOO often, thats asking for health issues, lol
 
Before college I dropped down to about 114 pounds. I lost weight during my first few weeks and was at or beneath 114 for a while until a few weeks ago my hands and joints all swole up after a beach retreat sitting indian style and putting a lot of weight on my hands along with playing guitar around 14 hours in four days. Since then I bought glucosomine 1500g and I have been feeling much better. My joints don't bother me and I am now at 120.8 or so depending on the time of day. I am also starting to take fish oil as well and I am feeling good and gaining weight. So I'm thinking that the glucosomine may have had something to do with my weight gain. I have also started to eat before I have become hungry and since then I have been able to eat more and over a longer period of time.

Hope that helps
 
Try some of the energy bars out there. There's one called Myoplex that is 300 calories and 30 grams of protein. I get ours at SaveMart, but not everywhere has that food chain. My husband eats them during his drum gigs to keep up his energy levels. I have had some of them when doing a lot of exercise or needing extra calories. They seem to sit well with me, but everyone is individual.
 
AbstractDonut said:
Pepperoni and cheese are both fattening
Click to expand...

You mean they are both high in fat...high in fat doesnt necassarily mean its fattening, depends on the rest of the persons diet and lifestyle. Dont take me as being offensive, i am just tired of listening to all my friends asking me about why they arent losing weight when they are eating low-fat everything, nothing like good ol' media putting into everyones minds that you cant eat any carbs or any fat if you want to lose weight, lol. When it comes down to gaining weight its not the fat content you should be shooting for, its the calorie intake following the Carb:Fat:protein ratio, which i believe is 40:30:30 so 40% of your calories should come from carbs, 30% from fats and 30% from protein. If you follow this ratio but boost your total calorie intake, you should have no probs gaining weight, and fast.
 
Yeah, I know a few people who are trying desparately to lose weight, a national pastime as it were. some are total vegans, others eat so much lettuce in salads, etc., I expect them to turn green. Odd thing is, whenever I ask them of the last time they saw a slim cow or elephant, or an overweight cheetah, they just look at me as if I had two heads. I think mother nature knows the secret to a properly balanced diet... and we're too stupid to take the hint.
 
Yeah Kev. You're absolutely right

But the problem is to determine what is a balanced diet for us humans. Is it :

1) what the dieticians and doctors reccomend i.e 15/30/55 protein/fat/carbs

2) the primitive diet or what it's contenders calim to be the real evolutionary diet for humans i.e high protein high fat, with carbs only from vegies and fruits

3) the metabolic rate diet which claims people should eat as per their metabolic type which is high protein, high carb, or in the middle

4) Blood type diet

5) then there is the ones which are best for Crohn's. Doctors usually reccomend a low residue, low fiber diet, while alternative people and non mainstream MD's push for diets like SCD and low carb with results claimed as below (check the link) and with interesting healing stories beyond them; and it seems to help some people (but I wish I could meet one of them face to face to believe it and then I will have the commitment to pursue such diet!!!):

http://www.healingcrow.com/dietsmain/crohn/crohn.html

- Robert C. Atkins, M.D. states in his book, Dr. Atkins' Vita-Nutrient Solution, that he has a 85 percent success rate of treating CD patients with a sugar-restricted (low carbohydrate) diet and high doses of B-vitamins, including folic acid and pantethine.
- Wolfgang Lutz, M.D., a medical clinician in Austria has a success rate of over 90 percent when treating his patients with a low carbohydrate diet for at least one year.
- Elaine Gottschall, M.S. has had remarkable success at healing others suffering from Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis with a specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), even curing her own daughter.
- John Yudkin, M.D. states in his book, Sweet and Dangerous, that he has successfully used a low carbohydrate diet to treat a variety of gastrointestinal ailments. In one study he acheived a 70 percent success rate.

All these diets are making me crazy:ybatty: .... I mean the scientific thing is to trust the one recommended by doctors and dieticians, but since having this disease I've lost my faith in the medical community..........
 
I plan on it! Oh wait...you were talking about something else weren't you...:blush:

heh!

Actually, I get honey from my Dad. The good kind. He's got a bunch of supers of hives so it's not the overprocessed junk you get in the store.
 
you know, it's amazing that the little old bee is said to be responsible for 80 plus percent of pollenating (sp?) the worlds plant life (not sure on the accuracy of those figures) AND that "something" is killing off the bees at an alarming rate. It's even BEEn speculated that it could be the explosion of cellular telephone use AND if unchecked, it could spell worldwide famine within the next generation or two.
 
Have you tried a liquid diet? When I was first diagnosed they put me on a powdered formula that I was fed enterally. Having a tube up my nose didn't do much for my social life when I was 17, but I gained a lot of weight. I went from being extremely skinny to chubby. I think I gained around 40lbs. There are liquid diets out there that don't need to be fed through a tube though.

Kev said:
you know, it's amazing that the little old bee is said to be responsible for 80 plus percent of pollenating (sp?) the worlds plant life (not sure on the accuracy of those figures) AND that "something" is killing off the bees at an alarming rate. It's even BEEn speculated that it could be the explosion of cellular telephone use AND if unchecked, it could spell worldwide famine within the next generation or two.
Click to expand...

I've read about that before too. The article I read mentioned honeybees disappearing, but as far as I know honeybees are an introduced species, things were being pollinated fine before they were introduced.
 
Think the bees were native... we just domesticated them to gain their honey AND truck them around to pollenate where we want, when we want. Various states are closing their borders, not so much to try to prevent the Africanized strain of bees, but to prevent the spread of known bee diseases (theres a pest that they can catch, spread from hive to hive, etc., but I can't recall the name of it) AND this latest mystery bee killer that has the bee folks scratching their heads... Loss of honey would be a hardship for a lot of us who have IBeeD
 
What we know of as the domesticated honey bees were brought over from Western Europe. There were likely other pollen collecting insects in America at the time, but nowhere near as useful or efficient as the honey bee.
 
you know, the taste of Boost, Ensure, etc. isn't all that great and does get annoying after a while. but Carnation Instant Breakfast, to me anyways, taste a lot better. it has less than the others, but it will help put on weight.
 
You wanna talk about being thin, im 6'8" and i weigh 148 pounds. The funny thing is when i went on prednisone for a while, aside from getting the name "sweet cheecks" my pants went from a size 29 waiste to a 31". Which is huge.............. aside from genetic predisposition the crohn's isn't flattering anything but whatever. long story short its hard finding size 15 shoes, its even harder finding 29"x 35-36" pants.
Oh and as far as weight gain its hard from calorie intake in terms of just eating food. I pretty much work 10 or more hours a day, and just cramming myself full every meal with inflamation doesn't boad well. I tried the smaller meals but more calories then daily suggestion but thats hard even when your crohn's isn't severe.
 
Weight, man I'm 5'8" and went down to 107lbs. before surgery and tried everything to gain it to no avail!
 
after all my surgeries and a prolonged hospital stay many years back, i was down to 5stone. the team wouldnt let me home until i reached at least 5.5.

so each day, attached to two drip stands, i made my way down to the hospital shop and bought crisps (potato chips). i made myself eat a packet a day.. this put the weight on bit by bit, and i eventually reached my goal. i started off on the softer maize type, until my digestion proved to be strong enough to take the potato variety...
 
the prime of my youth during high school, 10th or 11th grade before symptoms really set in, I reached 200lbs. I was around 6'1" at the time so this was pretty average. When my crohn's kicked in full blast I shot down to 145lbs and held that for probably half a year of hell. After diagnoses and medication, I've been able to keep a decent weight varying from 175-185lbs. I'm 6'3" now

crohn's ftl
 
New User, veteran Crohnie

What about gaining weight with a short bowel and ileostomy? I have no large intestine and am short around 6 feet of small. I get partial bowel obstructions now and then, sometimes just from eating too much. I understand that between having a small frame, high metabolism, and severe calorie malabsorption, I have quite a challenge! Any ideas?
 
Oh yeah, 5'3" and 99 lbs at the age of 30! I'm female, btw, which really doesn't make that any better. My normal weight is about 105. I've plateaued here, tho, and am stuck!
 
What have you been doing so far to gain weight? If you can answer that then it would be easier for me to help you out on an exercise/food ideas.
 
Calorie increase, nutritional drinks, omega3 like olive oil, butter, small frequent meals.
 
I just put on 14 pounds in 3 weeks.
Steriods is the reason that I've been so hungry, but I was trying to gain back at least half of the the 45 I lost with a bad flare, so I just over ate.

For breakfast I had a carnation instant breakfast drink, then I added about 1/4 cup of butter pecan flavored dairy creamer. Mmmm... delicious, and high calorie too!!
I ate a regular lunch, then every day after work I went and got a large milkshake. I ordered a lot of take out for dinner in those 3 weeks. I figured that if I liked the taste of it, I would overeat. I kept a lot of junk in the house - cookies, desserts, and soda. I had an ice cream sandwich or two before bed too. Mmm... it's been a nice ride - eating whatever I want.

I know that this is not a healthy way to gain weight, but I just wanted to do it quickly. None of my clothes fit, and if I had another flare again before I gained weight, I would have been WAY too skinny to stay out of the hospital. For the short term, I think it was okay - and I feel great. THAT'S what really matters.
 
Caloric intake is a part of it, but if one a.) wants to gain weight AND b.) prepare for the next battle, downturn, flare, what have you.. Then just increasing 'empty' calories ISN'T the 'best' choice. Fats, sugars, etc... will fatten you up, but adding lots of protein WILL strengthen you up, give your body 'essential' building blocks, and maybe help you thru the next battle. Least, thats' the rationale behind the hi protein diet my IBD nutrition counselor has me follow... And it's what athletes, body builders, weight lifters, etc., all do.
 
You guys just wait til you get off the steroids, gain the weight back and STILL feel like eating like a pig... bites ya in the butt... I'm currently 15 lbs heavier than I'd like to be because of it. :)
 
Here are a few things you can do to gain weight healthily, don't know if thats a word. One is to do a lot of weigth lifting and what you will start to crave is a lot of carbs and proteins. You are really going to want to eat about 60 to 70 percent carbs. About 15 percent fats and the est proteins. Remember that fats are important for our cells and withour fats we won't be able to gain weight at all, just make sure it is healthy fats. Tuna is a very good food for the protein and fat just don't eat the stuff out of a can because most of it is really bad for you, you don't want all of that salt. Eating hearty breads are great for carbs but make sure it is freshly made and not the stuff in the supermarket bags, like wonder bread. Potatoes are good for starches. You want foods that will give you long term energy and not short term energy so processed sugars should be a no. Of course don't kill yourself and if you really want a piece of candy have it because you will not go very far if all you are thinking about is eating a 3 muskateers bar.
 
i would like the opposite
i wish i could lose the weight i have put on because of crohns.
i play soccer so i exercise at training and at games.
training is two times a week, games twice or once on the weekend and it wont budge i eat all the bloody time because im hungry lol.
i have a fat face (stupid steroids)
this is the fattest i have ever been in my life and it sucks, i dont look good fat lol :( i use to be slim! :depressed: about this crap :(
 
I am a little more like Darryl in that I was weightlifting/bodybuilding, so I was putting on weight, and trying to ensure as much as possible was muscle, was actually losing a little fat while doing it....was doing very well at that too. I was at around 180 lbs and 5'11"....then the flare started mid August, and all went to hell....dropped to 148 or so at my lowest around the holidays because of my 400 cals a day diet that I unintentionally commenced due to being so bad, and my body wasn't even absorbing much of that, as it was shooting right through me....I had been as high as 210 or so when bulking in spring 2006, but then the first flare interrupted my goals then too...Crohns and bodybuilding are quite the polar opposites...I am ordered not to work at the doses of pred I'm on and am so eager to start getting some, ANY, muscle back, I hate having "girl arms" and a pudgy face that looks like a pumpkin. I want to ultimately be about 220 lbs. or so with sub 10% bodyfat, and I bet I'd be there too if this damned disease was harassing me. I have put back on a few pounds as I'm back around 160, and everybody's like "oh good, you were getting too thin". Why is it society doesn't grasp the concept that weight is not weight, I put on fat and water weight (was dehydrated), not good weight people. Get a clue.

As far as gaining weight, calories in calories out, isn't any more complex than that. Eat more than you burn, you'll gain. Of course if you're anabolic, you can make sure it's more muscle.
 
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my fitness regimen

Hi all, when I am reaching my goals diet and fitness-wise, my aunt or my former best friend will say something like "you're still top heavy" or "you're losing your butt" or even "your left leg is bigger". I know I shouldn't care, but it really bothers me. I work really hard in my fitness regimen; and as anyone who has ever lost weight can attest, it's hard to sacrifice things you love for the greater good. It's like they don't want me to feel good about myself. If they love me, why do they do that?
 
Get a new Aunt, some people only see how things can improve. Helps if you have a few friends that are trying to get into shape with you.
 

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