Some women feel as though they are lacking in all the right places, but all is not lost. It's very possible to gain weight without surgery. It takes consistency and patience. On the journey to getting thick, you should remain realistic because muscle and weight gain will not happen overnight.
Trust us, nothing works better than resistance weight training if your goal is to build a healthy muscle mass. In fact, several studies including the one published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, found that skinny women quickly gained muscle when they did weight training regularly.
Women with a BMI of less than 18.5 are considered underweight. The average woman's height is 5 feet, 4 inches. If you weigh 107 pounds or less at this height, you are considered underweight with a BMI of 18.4. A healthy weight range for that woman would be 108 to 145 pounds.
Here are a few reasons as to why you need to work out even if you are thin. Keeps your heart strong: Cardio exercises not just help burn calories which result in weight loss but also make sure that your heart is strong protecting it from cardiovascular diseases and lowering bad cholesterol.
As sex hormones increase, changes in the body's proportion of lean, fat, and skeletal mass occur. For females an increase in body fat begins at 7 years and continues through ages 16-18 years.
“We all know these people: It's around 1% of the population,” says senior author and University of British Columbia medical genetics professor Josef Penninger in a press release. “They can eat whatever they want and be metabolically healthy.
It may be that you have a fast metabolism (meaning your body burns energy from food at a fast rate than the people around you) or you're just naturally slender. For some people, underlying health conditions and certain medications and treatments can make it difficult to reach and/or maintain a healthy weight.
Wear shapewear to accentuate your curves, and opt for shirts or blouses that add material to your torso, like peplum tops, boatnecks, or cowl necks. Wear looser clothing to thicken your silhouette, like boot-cut pants, flared skirts, or flowy dresses. Use exercise to fill out your figure.
If you are underweight and struggle with putting on pounds, you'll likely need more calories than someone looking to add some additional muscle mass to an already healthy frame. For some, increasing calories by 5 to 10% (or roughly 100 to 300 calories a day) is enough to support additional lean muscle growth.
Fitness experts say, it's possible for a slim guy to put on muscle. The bonus for you here is that your body fat levels are naturally low, so when you do gain muscle, you'll be able to achieve a ripped look.
Squats, lunges, and calf raises are great home exercises for gaining weight in your legs. If you've got a gym membership, leg presses can be a huge boost to your thighs. Diet's also super important, so make sure you go in on the protein and veggies and avoid junk meals, fatty foods, and those with loads of fiber.
“Thinness is a heritable trait”
So thin people not only stay slim “by not having the obesity genes, but they also have different genes that protect them” from gaining weight, she said. The research concludes that “thinness, like obesity, is a heritable trait.”
Body size is not as much of an indicator of health as you might think. Weight and health are not correlated. Your health depends more on what you eat and how well you manage stress than the number you see on the scale. Health can exist in every size.
The typical fat-gain areas for many women are the hips, arms and thighs, giving them what is termed a 'pear-shape'. The other areas where many women accumulate fat are the chest and the abdomen. Such women have slim arms and legs, and are seen as 'apple-shaped'.
During puberty, it's common for a woman's hips to widen and for her buttocks to fill out as she grows and develops. At age 13, you are almost certainly not finished growing. Some women get to be 20 years of age before all the changes that happen during puberty take place.
Many guys and girls are skinny until they start to go through puberty. The changes that come with puberty include weight gain and, in guys, broader shoulders and increased muscle mass.
Some studies have suggested it's better to be thin rather than active. In one such study, women who were thin yet inactive had a lower chance for early death than those who had obesity and were active. However, in patients with heart disease, being physically active, was more beneficial than having a low BMI.
Go light on cardio
“If you're relatively skinny and lean and want to gain muscle as quickly as possible, then you want to do as little vigorous cardio as possible,” says Matthews. So when you're in a mass-building phase, it's smartest to walk but not run.