My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a Registered
and Licensed Dietitian with The Austin Regional
Clinic and I'm going to talk to you about
how a skinny woman can gain weight. Now if
you are a very thin woman the first thing
to identify is if you have a poor appetite.
If you just don't ever feel like eating and
you have a poor appetite the best thing to
do is actually go see your doctor first and
find out if there is an actual medical reason
why you have a poor appetite. Sometimes there
is some underlying condition. You may be deficient
in different vitamins or minerals or you may
be anemic and it is just causing you to not
have much of an appetite for eating so if
any of those conditions are in place you have
that treated first and then your appetite
will actually increase and you may be able
to eat a more normal level. Now if you are
a woman who has a very high metabolism and
you don't have any problem with your appetite
and you feel like you are eating on a regular
basis the thing to do is to concentrate on
high calorie foods. Now that doesn't necessarily
mean you want to go out and eat a lot of junk
food but you do want to eat more of your healthy
fats. For example nuts, seeds, avocados, you
want to prepare foods with oils like canola
oil or olive oil so again those are fats in
fatty foods but they are very healthy fats,
they are very heart healthy and you don't
have to worry about them raising bad cholesterol
levels or raising triglycerides. They are
still very healthy for you. You are still
going to be getting a lot of other nutrients
and a lot of other vitamins and minerals.
Some other high calorie foods that you can
use are full fat yogurts and cheeses. You
may also want to use whole milk. Now even
though these items do have some more saturated
fat in them than the other fat sources I was
talking about previously, they generally if
you are just using them short term to gain
weight will not cause a significant increase
in your cholesterol levels. The thing is just
to monitor your intake, monitor your weight
and once you get to the weight that you want
to be then you can cut back a little bit on
those high fat dairy products and rely primarily
on those plant sources of fats and again the
nuts, the seeds, the avocado and olive oil,
canola oil or even olives themselves and then
make sure that you are still eating plenty
of your other foods. You still want to include
your fruits and vegetables, you still want
to include sources of proteins such as fish,
meats, poultry any of those types of things
but make sure you are getting a daily source
of those healthy fats.