Ideally healthy weight gain is a long term plan. This where drinking your calories can help as it’s not a difficult habit to form.

If you’re a hard gainer, you’ve seen for yourself how easy it is for the weight to fall off when you’re sick, stressed or busy etc.  But trying to get it back on is difficult and can feel impossible.

 For some hard gainers, ramping up the calories short term may result in gaining some weight. But this is unlikely to last if that increase isn’t sustained.

Why Liquid Calories?

In my About page, I mentioned a strategy that I was able to use to gain weight with great results. So what is it? It is drinking some of your calories. Let me explain.

Anyone looking to increase their body mass needs to consume more calories everyday than what their body needs for daily function. In other words, more calories in then calories out.

However consuming those extra calories does mean chowing down when you may not be hungry. There really isn’t a way around this. This is where drinking your calories comes in handy, because it can be a lot easier than eating them.

For lots of people it is easier to drink down a cupful of calories than it is to say, eat a sandwich for morning tea, then nuts for an afternoon snack, on top of the usual meals. Not everyone can manage this.

Now notice I did say, drink some of your calories. Just to be clear, your regular meals are eaten as usual, and these liquid calories are on top of that.

If you’re trying to gain weight, regular meals at a minimum means breakfast, lunch and dinner.

You’ve likely seen lots of advice before on gaining weight by snacking in between meals or eating 5-6 times a day. And really, that does work. (Though it can feel like hard work.)

But you can sip on a nutritious smoothie over the course of an hour in between meals. That works well for those with a small appetite or those finding it hard to increase their solid food.

What Sort of Liquid Calories Are We Talking About?

There are several types of nutritious liquid calories including smoothies, juices, other hot/cold beverages, soups and porridges.

What you choose depends on personal taste, produce availability, ease of preparation, and the season.

Personally now, I prefer soups, porridge and hot milky drinks when it’s colder, and juices and smoothies in the summer. But when I first started drinking calories, I relied mostly on smoothies and juices.

Fun Fact: Australia is in the Southern hemisphere and experiences winter between June-August, while summer falls between December – February?

Liquid calories and solid calories. Are they different?

So far the focus here has been on making it easier to achieve a calorie surplus by drinking some of the extra daily calories you need rather than eating solid food.

From the viewpoint of weight loss, it is recommended to avoid drinking your calories, or to count high liquid calories as a meal.

Studies suggest the human body doesn’t note solid calories and liquid calories in the same way. Rather the body handles thirst and hunger differently.

The argument is eating solid calories causes the stomach to reduce the hunger hormone, ghrelin, and bring about the feeling of fullness. Most people will eat until they feel full.

Whereas drinking calories signals to the brain that while you may no longer be thirsty, it doesn’t seem to satisfy hunger cues as found in a study on the effects of different food forms. (Mattes & Campbell 2009)

Liquid calories are also just less filling. People generally don’t cut down their daily food intake despite drinking juice, smoothies or sodas, because liquid calories don’t have a great effect on appetite psychologically.

The average person isn’t thinking, “Well, I’m having a glass of orange juice with my lunch, so I’ll have to skip the fries/ rice/grilled chicken breast.”

So this shows how we can use fluid calories to our benefit. But I am talking about healthy calories, nix the sodas.

Quick and Easy Banana Shake:

Using the example of a banana shake, you could tack on 300-600 calories or more, to your daily diet depending on what you add. And it takes next to no time to make.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of full cream milk
• A medium sized banana
• A tablespoon of honey                 

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend for 2 minutes. Pour into large glass and enjoy! It’s easy, convenient and good for you.

 This basic recipe =approx. 309 calories

 Add an extra ingredient or two to increase calories in your drink. For example:

• 2 tablespoons of plain yogurt                                     +60 calories
• A tablespoon of peanut butter                                  +94 calories
• A tablespoon of almond butter                                 +98 calories.
• 3 tablespoons of unsweetened coconut flakes   +110 calories
• 3 tablespoons of raw oats                                            +114 calories.

It comes down to personal preference what you’d like to put in but experiment with some of the combinations to see which you like best. You could use a range of different whole foods in this way.

With this basic recipe, in addition to calories you’ll be getting calcium, protein, vitamins and minerals, fibre and antioxidants.

My suggestion is to drink these calories in between meals; for instance mid-morning, for an afternoon snack, or an hour or more after dinner. To have it with a meal may seem too difficult.

What About Doubling Up On Liquid Calories?

So, you may be all excited to speed up the weight gain process by having liquid calories in the morning, AND afternoon, or night. After all, you’d double the number of liquid calories in a day, right?

Wrong! If your body isn’t already used to these amounts, a double dose of the combination of fruit/dairy/other ingredients, can result in you getting the runs. You could just end up becoming very well acquainted with the toilet. It’s best to take it slow. Trust me, I know!

So there you have it. Drinking your calories is easy to begin, with many healthy options you can make using ingredients already in your home. Get started today.