How to gain weight while living in a hostel

On special demand of our dear readers, Here are some tips on how to gain weight while living in a hostel , or PG . If you want to gain weight and you live away from your family, we have some special tips that will help you in increasing weight while living in a hostel.

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Hostel days are one of the most memorable points of time for most people who have enjoyed their college days or early-employment days in their own ways and have learnt to be self-dependent. Hostel life has its own charm- you get to know many people, make new friends and enjoy all the junk foods. However, hostel life is not so appealing when it comes to “eating delicious” and “eating healthy”.

Hostel food is characterized by its monotonous taste and menu which may force many people to reduce their food intake. The same upma in the morning, the same tomato rice at lunch, and the same mixed vegetable and dry chapattis, days after days, may make you lose interest in eating healthy foods and shift to street foods or expensive junk foods that actually make you fat. If you are trying to gain weight, you should be trying to gain healthy weight and healthy fat and not bad cholesterol that will impact your cardiovascular system at a later stage of your life.

A lot of you may be wondering how to gain weight while living in a hostel, there is no body to cook healthy for you. There are no elders to take care of your diet and you are forced to eat outside foods like cheese laden pizzas, ice-cream buckets, deep fried snacks such as cutlets, samosas, and kachoris. However, as I mentioned earlier, these are the items will make you gain the bad fat. These foods do not have any nutritional value and won’t impact you in any positive way.

How to gain weight while living in a hostel

Gaining a healthy appearance is not the only thing that you want. It’s just one side of the equation. You need to have a healthy inner environment which will in turn give you a healthy outer appearance. So here’s what you can eat to gain healthy fat and the perfect body weight:

• Nuts: Nuts are handy, do not require cooking and you can eat them anytime. Packed with Vitamin E, nuts are a rich source of healthy fats. They have a long shelf life and you can store them anywhere- at home, at your office drawer, in your college bag, or in your car. Nuts are always tasty and you may have them in interesting ways. Mix nuts with dry fruits, add almonds to your breakfast porridge or cornflakes, or enjoy a bread toast with peanut butter. if you find  nuts very expensive , opt for groundnuts.They are cheap and very nutritious.

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• Healthy Fats: I know that you do not get any freedom when it comes to making a choice of diet while living in a hostel, but you can still introduce healthy fats in your diet at your own convenience. Avocados have high amount of healthy fats .You can prepare sandwiches with brown bread, raw cucumber, tomato, and onions and add avocados into it. Olive oil also provides healthy fat and you can spray a few drops of olive oil in your sandwich veggies to introduce olive oil in your hostel diet. Rice is what we all eat  while dining at hostel mess. (Even a non – chef cannot spoil the taste of plain steamed rice .) Add a tsp of ghee to your rice. It will make your bones strong and help you put on weight .

• Whole  Wheat Breads : If You live alone and keep wondering what to eat at mid meal times or for rushy hours of breakfast when there is no one to cook for you, whole wheat breads are rescuers . Keep whole wheat / multi grain breads in stock in your hostel. Start your day with a this bread and peanut butter breakfast. Whole-grains, as we all know, can help prevent heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

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• Dried Fruits: Dried fruits are handy snacks that can help you gain weight quickly and most importantly, healthily. They are non-perishable and hence, you can keep dried fruits in stock.  You can find many creative ways to include dried fruits in your diet. Add dried fruits to a bowl of cornflakes or oats or just snack on dried fruits at any time of the day when you feel low. It feels really nice to munch on these delicious, healthy snacks. If you have to go for a sports trip, pack some dried fruits with you. They will provide you with a lot of energy.

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• Milk: Milk has a high content of carbohydrates and protein which make it an ideal food to promote weight gain.  Go for whole milk that has a higher fat content compared to skimmed milk. Today, milk comes in pasteurized form which is ready to drink. You may not choose to
  boil milk. However, many of you may like to drink hot milk with Bounrvita or Horlicks and I can suggest an easy way to you. Buy an electric kettle and use it to boil water or milk in your hostel room. Also buy tetra pack milk as you do not need a refrigerator to store them.

• Eggs: Eggs are awesome sources of protein. Eggs are rich sources of vitamin A and vitamin B12. The most convenient way to add egg to your hostel diet is to have it in boiled form. Use your electric kettle to boil eggs. Enjoy it whenever you feel like or pair it up with a whole-grain breads.

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• Energy Bars: Energy bars are packed with nuts and calories which can promote weight gain in a healthy way. Choose the ones that contain low sugar content. You may use it as your handy evening snack when you return from your office or college.

• Banana: Banana is one of the most important foods that promote weight gain. A source of instant energy. They also have a high carbohydrate content which makes them a must-have post-workout food item. No wonder why we often see tennis players eating bananas in between the matches.

• Butter: If you are a fan of butter, then you may not try that hard to put on weight. It is a fat-rich food. However, make sure to eat in moderation as a high percentage of butter contains saturated fat that may lead to cardiovascular diseases.

• Soya Bean: We all know the benefits of soyabean . the good part is , the chunks are not very expensive and a lot of hostel mess make sabji out of soya bean chunks. It up to you to make sure you eat it . you can also get roasted whole soyabeans and keep it handy for mid time munching.  Besides allowing you to meet your daily protein target, soya beans can also help you lower your blood cholesterol levels.

• Whey protein Powders : Consuming whey protein is one of the fastest ways to gain weight. You can increase you protein intake by 50-150 grams by consuming whey protein daily. It gets digested very fast and comes in a very pure form. Add whey protein powder in your milk and enjoy a delicious milk shake at any time of the day.

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• Laddo : Yummy is the word for laddos. the best part is you can have your mom or grand mother make a full dabba for you when you visit home. ask them to add a lot of badam, Grated dry coconut and gum to it along with their love.  every time you eat a laddo, you gain a lot of calories , nutrients an feel ” Maa ka pyaar” . So not a bad deal at all.

• Chikki : Chikki is another form of yummy whole some food. these are easily available in the market , so next time you run out of your stock of laddos, buy ground nut chikki or dry fruit chikki or roasted channa dal chikki. make sure you buy the ones made from jaggery rather than buying the ones made with sugar.

• Roasted channa dal with jaggery – Roasted channa dal reminds me o the vendors who stood outside our school premise to sell those bright green and red colored  grams. these red and green ones ofcourse are fried . hence opt for roasted channa dal , it is super healthy and protienicious. when you eat it with jaggery , you can add some taste to these along with good iron content, which is required to increase the muscle content in the body.

Gaining weight may prove to be very easy for some people who complain about their body shape and hard for some people who also complain about their body shape. Most people succumb to unhealthy practices to lose or gain weight and this is something that they need to rectify. There is no quick way to get results. Everything takes time and you need to adopt the healthiest ways. After all, you should be healthy from within in order to look healthy from outside. So now that you know how to gain weight while living in a hostel, do share your experience with us . Please feel free to leave a comment if you have an questions for us.