How to gain weight from eating almost exclusively bread and potatoes?
I don't know where to post this, so I'm posting it here.
I need to gain some weight because I'm borderline anorexic. But I can't afford much more than bread, potatoes, eggs and cheese, That is my diet. And I hate eating it. It's the only thing I can stomach that is cheap, but I hate it. I don't want to eat eggs and potatoes for the rest of my life. I would rather die of malnutrition, like I am currently doing.
I have no appetite, but that is a symptom of something else. Ideally, there is a way to gain weight while eating less mass. Something calorie dense.
I might be slightly exaggerating. But for the last couple of years I've been eating potatoes and eggs for almost every single meal of the day. And yes, I eat one warm meal a day. Sometimes I suppliment with some bread to stop the hunger pains. Sometimes I also eat a piece of vegetable.
156 replies
At risk of going off-topic, exercise?
I don’t mean run marathons, but just stuff at home. Knee push ups, sit ups, squats, standing on your toes, sitting in a chair to lift your leg with your biceps; whatever you can manage until you are little winded.
You will gain some weight, keep more of the calories you ingest, and eating will feel better too.
I’d recommend some beans too. I like black bean bowls with rice, and both are cheap.
Depends on how much you eat. If you have some idea of what your "ideal" calorie consumption per day is, your goal is to eat more than that. Bread is easier than potatoes because it's more calorie-dense, i.e. you don't have to eat as much of it.
You don't really have to "cook" as in dirtying a lot of pans to make potatoes and bread more appealing.
Hi I have basically the same problem.
a) take a fucking multivitamin before you get fucking
scurvy(til dv vitC of potatoes), anemia, rickets, Wernicke's encephalopathy, or some other crazy shit in 20 fucking 26.b) find a high calorie protein shake you can stomach enough to keep down. If you're only eating like one meal a day anyway you can splurge a little on something premixed and tastier. There's a weirdly ritzy gas station chain near me that does a lovely strawberry banana smoothie that sits real well on my stomach, and I always get the yogurt scoop and protein shot.
b) start mixing your white sauces (anything that would normally have mayo or sour cream) with plain greek yogurt to give you a better fat / protein balance to all those carbs.
An easy calorie dense meal I used to eat in college was milk powder, honey, oats protein mixed and put into a tray and cut into slices. Each slice is tasty and high in calories.
With oils, it is extra virgin olive oil or bust imo.
Olive oil has substances equivalent to ibuprofen in it, along with plenty of other even better things.
There is a problem in this industry where most oils unless they have a harvest date are like playing the lottery with what you are actually consuming so you should absolutely make sure to get on with it even though it might look more expensive it is by far the most calorie dense and well rounded thing you can consume and you only need to consume it in quantities of a shot glass or less a day so even a medium sized bottle will last you months.
Make sure to store it away from sunlight, this breaks down all of the more useful substances in it.
Yeah you kinda need to add some things.
Bake potato, keep skin or not comrade. Put in fridge over night. Fry in butter the next day. Put in bowel, add in mayonnaise, bacon if you have it or doctors sausage, egg, pepper, a drop of vinegar or hot sauce if you like. Mix it up. Put on bread and enjoy. Bonus, fry bread in olive oil.
Make a small salad. Simple, cucumber, raw onion, tomato, vinegar or mirin (or a mix of vodka and vinegar and sugar). To stimulate appetite.
But yeah jokes aside you just need MSG.
ARFID?
Hey my dude, you need some recipes and some mental health. Im happy to help on both fronts if you need.
Eggs and potatoes are easily the two most versatile substances on the planet, other ingredients to make them into things are actually equally as cheap, spices look expensive until you realize that $4 lasts up to 6 months. To add to that, I was once an incredibly picky eater and found personally and through feeding others that, outside of phobia and dietary constraints, the majority of food preferences is based on a history of bad cooking. Give me deets on your dietary limits and I'll give you every recipe I know. If there's anything you're willing to experiment with, I'll teach you everything you need to enjoy it. Anything from dry beans, to tofu, to grinding your own amaranth or acorns for flour.
If you're in the western world, mental health services are decently accessible, even in the US without insurance. Shoot me a DM me your location and situation and I'll do all the leg work, all you'll have to do is make the appointment.
As for the information provided, the recipe that springs to mind is cheese gnochi bites.
You'll need 3 large russet potatoes 2 eggs 1 cup shredded chedder or other strong cheese 1 cup flour Salt, pepper, garlic to taste Oil to fry in
Microwave the potatoes until baked, immediately shock in cold tap water and peal by hand. (fantastic trick for any mashed potatoes as it not only takes less time but does not add any moisture leading to fluffier potatoes)
In a large bowl, mash the potatoes and add the cheese, mix so that the cheese melts and spreads evenly.
Once incorporated, feel mix, if still hot, let it cool until luke warm or cool to the touch then mix in the eggs and spices.
Finally, add flour until it holds together when scooped.
Heat oil on medium in either a pot or skillet depending on oil availability and intended shape.
If using a pot with at least an inch of oil, scoop a glob of potato with a spoon and use another spoon to scrape it into the pot. Fry until golden all the way around.
If using a skillet with shallow oil, put the glob in the pan and gently press it flat leaving some thickness. Then flip like a Patty when golden.
If you have access to gallon bags, you can put the mix in the bag, cut off a corner, and squeeze the mix into the fry like a piping bag. Either making dollups for deep oil or doing a tight spiral for shallow.
Let cool on a wire rack but eat warm. Oil can be strained of bits and stored to fry with later.
You can also add extra cheese and cook in an air-fryer but the texture won't be fried so much as baked. The extra cheese gets more oil in the mix to help the exterior crust up.
Thanks for being a great and kind person! o7
You are a wonderful human being. I hope you always have equally awesome peers by your side whenever you need them.
That sounds like food. If I don't get literally crucufied for trying to fry something I will try it.
I wonder if my aversion to cooking has something to do with the constant criticism and threats I get... Oh well.
Tried that. Cheap beer is what finally slowed down my metabolism enough.
But peanut butter is super cheap per calorie, and is super calorie dense.
I gues alcoholism DOES solve SOME problems. But I don't want to tempt the toothless snake. He'll be upset I get to drink beer and he can't. Too many problems that can only be solved with the blunt end of a bottle.
why not beans and seeds and nuts. they can be pretty cheap especially beans? why not rice or oats? do you eat a variety of potatoes? My brother used to make a potatoe casserole that was just differen potatoes layerd with butter and salt and pepper (maybe some other spices but really just seemed to be pepper). squash and other vegetables are cheap when in season.
Why not beans? Simple. They are disgusting, and I would rather starve.
ok. I get that. Remember though that some things can be cheap when they are in season even if they are not year around.
Yes. I am aware of seasons and shifting market value of produce.
I just remembered I forgot to buy fruit for jam this year. So I guess I'm not as aware of the seasons and shifting market value of produce as I assumed.
Oh no! Beans are my favorite!
What do you like that you can't afford? Might be able to make more suggestions with more information.
Potatoes are actually expensive where I am.
"Like" is a strong word. These days it's more of a tolerate. I tolerate potatoes. I definitely don't "like" them. And I don't really know what I like. I ate like 7 kinds of food my whole life, and one of those kinds was a birthday cake. I still remember it. It was almost 8 years ago.
Where I live, potatoes are a staple food. Everybody eats them because they are cheap and they are cheap because everybody eats them. The wonders of Central Europe. You can buy 1 kg of potatoes for like 20 cents. That'll feed you for literal days.
Are you perhaps interested in an exchange of goods? What is the baseline/staple food where you're from? And what is the average price?
I'm in the subtropics so bananas grow here, lots of different fruits, rice is pretty cheap, it's more common than potato in our food. Potatoes just have to travel I guess.
I'm surprised you haven't gotten scurvy or something. I had restrictive eating disorder when young but it wasn't like this with the pickiness, more like I still enjoyed the taste of things but sort of wanted to chew them & spit them out because calories. I just didn't want to eat but still could enjoy when I did, until I felt like I had done something wrong, if that makes sense. If it was a small serving I could without fear.
Recovered for decades and I really enjoy flavors and textures, still can't really overeat without anxiety but certainly can eat well and feel ok about it. Few things I don't like - ham, raw tomatoes, sweet vegetables like squash, bland cheeses.
Did you like the cake? Do you think you might like a sweet bread, if you like bread? I do wish you could afford butter, that makes a lot of things better. Also do you want to enjoy more foods or no?
Nicotine and Metabolism
I've known people in shockingly similar situations that turned their life around by quitting smoking. Mostly from money savings, weight gains, and they, eventually (after withdrawal symptoms went away), got a lot less irritable and felt sick less often.
That is objectively good advice. I cannot fathom even attempting it.
Like, I have two things to live for, and smoking is the only one that doesn't make me feel ashamed.
Source: I had to manage on 30$ a month and still managed to build muscles.
Lentils and rice. They are both dirt cheap. They complement each other as they have a different type of protein. If you throw some carrots in there you have a more tasty meal. Add some salt for taste.
Oil is more expensive, but a must. Oil is 9 kcal per gram, carbohydrates and protein is only 4 kcal per gram. So even if oil is twice as expensive per gram it is still cheaper. It also makes you full for longer.
Ideally if you want to actually have a healthy and good tasting meal. Then add some dry boullion and some frozen vegetables. Potatoes is also an option. It is still dirt cheap, but slightly more expensive.
Peanut butter
Can’t go wrong here. High calorie density. Best tasting food; fight me. And actually pretty healthful.
Some of the food packs that were created for humanitarian organizations when they go into a place with people suffering from severe malnutrition are basically peanut butter fortified with vitamins and minerals. It's great for getting nutrition back on track, and easier to stomach than most calorie-dense foods such as meat.
If you get pure peanut peanut butter. A lot of the shelf stuff has tons of sugar and salt added. Usually I'll buy the pure stuff and cut it with a small amount of the other to sweeten it
In a thread about how to gain weight, you are advising against sugar sweetened peanut butter.
In a thread about how to survive on very little money you are advising the most expensive peanut butter option.
Get the cheapest, sugariest, oiliest jar you can find. Salt is not evil either.
Good point. Salt DOES drive away evil spirits. It can't be bad.
::: spoiler spoiler Not for the body anyway. Maybe for the spirit. :::
I know we're downvoting non-cheap options here but if you can, try to find one without palm oil at least, purely out of ethical concerns
Are you eating these unseasoned straight out of the water they boiled in or was this taken during the process of cooking? Because I'd suggest some spices. Can make potatoes & eggs taste a lot of different ways with a few spices.
Egg or potato salad is decent & cheap if you can get your hands on some extra ingredients. Egg Salad Sandwich used to be one of my go-tos and you can literally make it with just egg and mayo/mustard if you wanted to (but I'd recommend adding spices & pickle)
Would add beans to your list of things to eat since they're also pretty cheap, filling, and would help you out with protein, which from your post, it sounds like you may be lacking.
There are only so many ways to eat eggs and potato. When you eat them for a decade, you can still find new ways to make and eat them, but when you eat them for two decades, the novelty kind of dries out. Even for me, someone who eats the same thing every day. ::: spoiler spoiler That is a lie, about once a week I get a piece of chicken. :::
tuna salad works with the same basis as egg and potato salads if they wanna spice it up
Hi, I recommend beans (soak them overnight) and rice. Also, I would look into buying oats. They are a very good source of calories and are healthy for you. Put them in a blender and soak in water for 15 minutes, add sugar and blend. This can be a supplemental meal in itself.
Fry potatoes, boil potatoes, bake potatoes... They will taste very differently. Use seasoning. Don't be shy on salt/pepper/whatever your culture uses. Eggs can be very different too besides fried or boiled: soak bread with egg and fry it. Very tasty. Add some flour or whatever you have in the fridge to make an omelette. Not a fan of cheese, but I am sure there are many ways to use it too.
Seasoning is the key - i was in a similar situation to op, I figured out how to make breakfast sandwiches that I love out of ingredients that are palatable to me. I use rotisserie chicken, spinach, eggs, and previously ovened cubed potatoes, broccoli or whatever veggies I could afford and bought that week. I’d used salt, pepper, smoked paprika, garlic powder on the ovened veggies and put them in the fridge, buy bulk eggs for cheap, buy bulk croissants, but any carb will do or just skip it and make an omelet.
I toast the bread in the pan. Cheap pan spray, throw in hand shredded chicken pieces, cold veggies, eggs on top of that, and here’s what made the difference for me - then sprinkle Tony’s Cajun on that while it cooks, flip, top with bulk cheese of choice, sprinkle nutritional yeast on top for gut health, bam, now it’s delicious thanks to those added flavors. I actually now love having my same meal every morning and the leftovers a few hours later for lunch. I vary my dinners, but breakfast and lunch are always the same aside from varying veggies in the mix.
Sandwitches and fried bread requires chewing. My teeth are coming loose (probably because of the malnutrition). It's a bit hard/painful to bite and chew things.
Chicken is expensive. So is cheese. I can afford up to two to three slices a day when rationing for the whole month.
But spinach and broccoli do sound nice. I'll buy some next month, when I can afford anything aside from the very basics. And eating those will help me gain weight?
Based on your diet you might have scurvy
Her some vitamin c in you! Better yet: take a complete multivitamin daily.
Based on your responses here I think you will object that they are too expensive. But they're cheaper than the dental care you will need for the rest of your life without meeting your nutritional needs.
I get vitamin C. Oh wait, the energy drink I supplement with has every vitamin under the sun EXCEPT vitamin C. Thanks. I shall raid the medicine cabinet in search of those precious yellow tablets.
And do not worry. Dental care is free.
No, drop the energy drink completely. What are you thinking, that's your problem right there. It's expensive, and probably accounts for half your food spending. It's also fucking terrible health wise especially if you aren't eating much of anything else. There is no such thing as "supplementing" with an energy drink.
Things that are cheap and good imo: rice, lentils, bulk nuts, canned beans, tuna tin cans and veggies in general. Porridge sucks but it's easy to make and cheap. If you want to avoid energy use while cooking, look into cooking in a thermos, stuff like couscous, porridge or noodle soups.
Hunt specials and change where you buy thing if needed. If you don't like veggies, boil and blend. Ration of like 1/3 potato, 2/3 veggie, stock, plus some onion and garlic.
Get the oil, it's basically where people get half their calories.
What's your budget anyways (food total, include the money spent on fast food and energy drinks).
Wouldn’t a multivitamin be cheaper than an energy drink?
Per day a multivitamin is way cheaper. But per container it probably seems like a "big" investment for the multivitamin jar.
A medium potato has 30% of daily vitamin c but you need to eat the skin. So scrub potatoees and leave skin on when cooking. It will also be better to bake or fry. Even if making mashed potatoes, you can bake them and then mash with skins on. They’re better this way imo.
I’m glad you’re looking into vitamin c deficiency. I wasn’t listing my ingredients as suggestions, I was explaining what worked for me and hope you find some analogous recipe for your own meals. I hope you land on something affordable, maintainable, healthy and delicious!
Butter on potatoes if that's an option too.
Oil is expensive. So is electricity. Boiling is cheapest.
And I'm looking to gain weight, not make my food less miserable.
On a calories per dollar-ratio, oil is probably at least one quarter of the price of potatoes.
The difference in electricity costs is not going to be significant in the context since you'll make back the money on the calories you ingest from the oil instead of more potatoes.
Cooking potatoes in oil is also very significantly less miserable than eating boiled potatoes, and this is coming from someone that actually likes boiled potatoes quite a bit
Gaining weight requires consuming more calories than you use . If you hate everything you cook you will not eat enough. Simple as.
I don't hate everything I cook, I hate eating. It's a chore. I have no appetite. I need a way to cram more calories into me without needing to do so much chewing and swallowing.
Been on the no chewing journey, how are you with meal replacement shakes? The bulk powders come in lots of flavours and cand be very cheap per meal. It's usually got dietary fibre, vitamins, minerals, and will healthify you far faster.
For potatoes, you need the skin included to keep nutritional value, which can be hard with no chew but doable.
You're essentially thinking newborn diet, you need calorofic nutition that's easy to eat even when you don't want to.
You got this, it'll get easier.
My meal smoothie is basically banana, white beans, spinachs, frozen fruits, lemon flavored yogurt and soy milk. I'd also add hemp hearts (expensive but super dense), nuts and a few other things. Also vanilla and almond extract for taste.
Thick blended soups are also an option. You can just drink them.
Then you need to make your food more calorie dense. The only way to gain weight is to consume more than you use. There is no other way.
Oil is calories. Oil helps you gain weight. Same for butter, margarine and lard. If you can find a good price on any fat, buy it and use it.
You need 50g of oil to roast a kilo of potatoes, and you can buy 4L jugs of it.
Okay, and how do I gain weight from that?
It makes the potato have more calories because it has oil in it.
Same amount of chewing and swallowing. More calories. It's what you want!
Oil is very calorie dense
So why not just do a shot of rapeseed oil and be done with it? Why even involve the potato?
Am I going too far? Maybe. Will that stop me from trying? No.
did that some time ago, it's not particularly nice tastewise, but you can just chug one or two shots a day - that's about 700kcal if you do 40ml per "serving" the YouTuber "DougDoug" did something similar for his diet. if you buy the cheapest oil (here it's sunflower I think) you'll get extremely many calories per unit of Money. in Germany that's about 3000 kcal per 1€
You absolutely can, if that's what works for you. Nutritionally, there's no difference between eating oil with a meal or separately. Lots of people take olive oil shots or mix butter in coffee or whatever and that's OK. That approach can be particularly good if it's helpful to think about it more like a supplement than a meal.
People may recommend against that in favor of working it into a meal you won't hate eating, and there's some merit to that for some people. But if eating is going to suck either way, just start by doing the thing that gets you calories. Work toward getting a mix of protein, fat, and carbohydrates (with potatoes + oil + eggs you have all 3) and fiber too. (potatoes have a bit) The rest can come later.
This page has a table of cheapest cost-per-calorie foods alongside some other general recommendations that may or may not be helpful. Notable items from that table are flour, bread, sugar, pasta, rice, olive oil, ramen, peanut butter, pinto beans, and lentils.
Ultimately though any food you'll eat is always better than any food you won't. A calorie is a calorie pretty much no matter what form it takes. You got this!
Fat goes a long way in both seasoning and adding calories. Any kind of vegetable oil, butter, lard, whiever is cheap where you live. Get the pan hot with the oil, turn the heat down and add the potato and let it brown. The browning, also known as the Maillard effect, adds a lot of flavor
Add oil into the mix. Also cheap. Who doesn’t like fried stuff? Fry everything and gain weight short term, then taper off and watch cholesterol long term.
Try making potato tacos next!
Potatoes are actually super filling per calorie, one of the first and best foods I recommend for weight loss. The potatoes/eggs/cheese combo is especially filling, basically you’ve dialed into a budget conscious survival meal.
But you need to gain weight without spending much more money. What do you have to cook with? Knife cutting board pots pans stove?
First great option is soup. Pre fry aromatics directly in the pot (carrots, celery, onion, whatever you can get). Be HEAVY with oil, I recommend light olive oil. Heavier than you probably think with salt too. Then add mass (potatoes) and water. Dried lentils and split peas don’t need to be soaked overnight, just add them in and let them simmer for the last half hour. Tons of cheap calories and seasoning. Season with anything you have.
Then get into white rice. There’s a cost barrier here but if you can save up enough for a large 20lb bags the cost per meal is extraordinarily low. Tons of calories and doesn’t really fill you. Have it with the soup or as a bed under other veggies. Overdoing it with the rice can cause some health issues relating to blood sugar but it’s an extremely easy and cheap way to add 2-400 calories to a couple meals a day.
Check clearance for oily sauces. This is basically the reverse advice compared to weight loss - a lot of innocuously small jars can easily contain over 2,000 calories. If you can get them at 25% cost that’s a ton of weight gain potential and will help give you flavor variety and make your meals more calorific.
Just a few thoughts. Wish I could help, I know this situation sucks
Your sound advice and my visceral reaction to it have been a wakeup call for me. I need therapy ASAP. They need to cure my autism so that I can eat poor people food like I deserve. Because just thinking about eating lentils and peas makes me retch in disgust. I hate peas. And lentils are related to peas, so I hate them by association.
Thanks for the advice. Despite my reaction, it is more than reasonable. I will attempt consuming more nasty... nasty rice. School food really made me hate rice...
Just remember: the school rice is not your rice; make the rice your own with butter, tumeric, a little bullion cube or dust, maybe some black pepper. Those very basic spices are relatively cheap (typically less than $5 for all three).
Considering your teeth situation soup may be your best bet since they mostly have liquid and soft veggies, but consider this: the crappy peas/lentils/chickpeas or whatever you had previously can be made to your own personal taste standards until you think it tastes good.
You can put spices on rice? You have opened a new dimension of cooking to me. Why did I never think of that? Probably because I never seen anyone doing it. Or because I'm stupid. Depends on who you ask.
Put a bouillon cube in the water with the rice while it's cooking, a knob of butter on top when it's almost done, and some tumeric when fluffing it. Add garlic you're golden!
Have you heard of ARFID? A close family member, as well as my close friend's autistic child have this disorder. Low appetite and the visceral reactions to various food items are common with this disorder
Interesting. That would explain why I shiver and want to vomit from the mere smell of fish. And I actually do vomit when I eat meat and the texture isn't uniform. That's why I am no longer capable of consuming sausage or canned meats. The texture literally makes me throw it back up.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Now I'll have more things to bother my doctor about. 🙃
I'm reading more of your comments in your thread, and I really hope your doctor can help you out. Treatment for this can range from having a feeding port installed to therapy. My family member needed both a port and therapy, but is thriving now.
I also do really understand the texture thing, I have both AuDHD and a sensory processing disorder. If I'm severely stressed about anything, I end up living off safe soft food for a few weeks until my stressor has resolved. Because some textures feel less like food that will nourish me, and more like random objects that might cause me health issues if I try to digest them. That rubbery canned meat texture, especially if it's accompanied by a layer of fat at the top of the can... 🤢 Yeah I totally understand that :/
Have you tried eating more butter with your bread and potatoes?
Butter is too expensive to buy consistently. It's for special recipes only. So no, I have not tried that.
You are experiencing diet fatigue (which is a potentially fatal condition)
Buy sugar and spices; start growing some micro greens to supplement your diet (to prevent scurvy and folic acid deficiency)
Okay, what if literally everything I try to grow dies in like a week? Because it does. And I don't know why. At this point, I'm surprised anything can survive in my home.
Yeah, cool, micro greens, variety, but I'm not buying greens every time. If I can't grow them at home, what do?
Can you get mustard or radish seeds? These grow in under a week and don't even need dirt, just damp paper towel or similar.
Mung bean shoots are probably out of your flavour range.
Try searching for 'sprouts' rather than micro greens. Many are just grown in old jars on a windowsill. Zero gardening talent required.
Great news, some microgreens are ready for harvest in under a week.
But if you can provide some regional information; I can provide some plants that are local to you that would be weeds and thus impossible for you to run out of them and could be obtained for free.
For calorie dense you can't do better than fat. Oil might be 'expensive' but it is one of the cheapest things to buy on a per calorie basis and you only need a teaspoon to fry an egg or make mashed potatoes taste half-decent. You would be surprised how much better potatoes and eggs can be with a little fresh chill pepper or coriander if you can find it. The better it tastes the easier it is to eat. One more tip... Canned condensed milk. It's cheap, calorie dense and delicious. A spoon a day will last weeks. Delicious in tea and coffee. Good luck!
I second oil. There was a time in my life where I had some health issues and I had zero appetite and was underweight. Sometimes, when I could not bring myself to eat anything, I would just eat one or two spoonfuls of oil or peanut butter. It's way easier to get down than most other things.
This settles it. I will drink half a shot of rapeseed oil and see what happens. Wish me luck. Hope I don't crap myself in my sleep.
Update: It is now in me. It feels strange. I feel lubricated in places that aren't usually lubricated. And it is NOT where you might think. Is it really worth it for 180 Kilocalories? I guess we'll see.
Where do you live where condensed milk is cheap? It's the price of liquid gold where I live. Also, I am unfortunately lactose intolerant. And I have not seen lactose-free condensed milk anywhere.
(Calories_in>calories_out)=weight_gain (Calories_in<calories_out)=weight_loss (Calories_in~calories_out)=weight_stable
Yes, thank you. I might be stupid, but I'm not THAT stupid. I'm looking for ways of getting calories into me, not a way of calculating how many I need. I know how many I need. And that number is "more". Approximately.
Wow, that's a little more assertive of a response than seems necessary.
I hope you can figure it your problem, sounds like you already know what to do.
One of the pillars of Spanish cuisine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette
https://www.themediterraneandish.com/spanish-tortilla-recipe/
You convinced me. I will try this. Ever tried it with boiled mashed potatoes instead of potato slices? I have access to a lot of leftover mashed potatoes. ::: spoiler spoiler No way I'm letting that snake eat all the potatoes for himself. :::
No, but the potatoes can be cut however you want, the slices are only to make them faster to cook.
Mashed is technically sliced. In pieces so small they form a homogeneous mass. It shall be attempted. I'll update y'all on how it went.
Update: I didn't have the energy to cook today. I just made scrambled eggs. I hated them. Every time I hate them more.
If I were to try with mashed potatoes I would make small balls with the mashed potatoes and then try not to stir it to not mix too much the eggs with the potatoes.
cheese and joghurt is a good source of protein. try to eat a lot of protein and do muscle work out to not only gain fat mass but lean mass aswell. because if youre ana it might be that your body already "consumed" a lot of your muscle mass to retain enegery.
PS: coming from a former ana
I try my best with protein. Eggs, cheese, sometimes dairy or meat. Even an odd protein bar every once in a while. But I have noticed no difference.
Actually, I chipped my tooth on one of the protein bars, so I guess there IS a difference now, if you really look for it.
Quesadillas
You mentioned vegetables, thank goodness, but also have a piece of fruit whenever you can afford it. Good for vitamin C to help you get the iron out of those eggs, a calorie boost from the sugar, and an assortment of other nutrients especially if you vary the fruits. Also a little fiber for your heart and to help move those other foods along in your gut.
If there's a farmers market in your area, go before closing and ask if they have some seconds they can sell you for half price. This goes for vegetables too.
Can you drink milk?
Gallon of Milk a Day Diet
I can. But there are terrible consequences. I assume lactose-free works too?
Yeah it's the milk fat and protein you're going for.
The biggest thing you can do is to make the food you eat more enjoyable and eat more of it. I would have no appetite and starve if i had to eat your diet. The good news is that it's possible to eat a lot better, but still very cheaply. Also you really need to eat two or preferably three or even four meals daily if you want to gain weight.
I would remove eggs and cheese as they aren't a good value. Add black beans, chickpeas, and lentils, which are good over rice (very cheap, especially if you buy them dry in bulk). Pasta too. Add spices, cheap hot sauce, tomato sauce, etc and it becomes a good meal. Try oatmeal for breakfast too. I would also make sure that you are getting as many fruits and vegetables as possible (apples, bananas, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, etc. not too expensive but will complete the meals and provide good nutrition). Also consider pan frying the potatoes - it's tastier than boiling.
No offense to you, but I read all the "bean-centric" comments as: "Yes, just add raw sewage to your food. It's great!"
And you said "make the food you eat more enjoyable" and then gave me a meal plan written by Satan himself. BEANS AND RICE!!!
I would rather die than live off beans.
Thank you for the comment.
Do you like hummus? That's not actually a suggestion in itself, I just know you've mentioned texture issues elsewhere in the thread.
If you do like hummus, that indicates that the bean aversion may be a problem with the way beans are prepared. Part of why they're always recommended is how easy they are to flavor. They're also pretty easy to make disappear into a dish. Although navigating that as a newer cook on a shoestring budget could be very challenging.
Add more sugar to everything for cheap calories that will generally trigger more hunger. Also liquids are a good way to add calories without triggering fullness as much.
I do want to feel full. It's just such a chore to eat enough to be satiated. And then I get hungry again and have to eat again. It's so annoying. So, less liquids, and watch the sugar. Got it.
If you want to gain weight though drinking a ton of calories could help.
Eat some right before bed.
How about bananas? If you can get yourself to eat a banana some time during the day separate from your main meal, that's all bonus. Plus it's got lots of vitamins you definitely need.
Corn and corn meal are also cheap and high energy. Grits are a poor person food staple in parts of the world for a reason.
Onions aren't the highest energy density veggie, but they are cheap and make other food taste MUCH better. Green onions in particular are one of my favorites. The best part is you can take the green onions and put them in a glass on your window sill with an inch of water. Trim the tops and cook with them. They will keep growing back for quite a while, so very cost effective. Just make sure you change the water every couple days so they don't get slimy.
Onion is are also a reasonable source of vitamins.
Use more oil, butter and sugar.
Potatoes are not ideal when trying to gain weight, is pasta / noodles so much more expensive? If so, buy flour and mix it with 1 egg per 100g and add some water or milk. Cook chunks of it in salted water.
Try to get your hands on the cheapest nuts you can find and eat as much as you can.
It's not that I can't afford food. I can't afford food that is nutricious and is also considered edible by my autistic/retarded brain. I could just eat lentils and rice. But they would have to force feed me to get it in me, because I would not eat that voluntarily.
And despite being straight, I would rather put someone's nuts in my mouth than eat nuts.
You can make some Tortilla Española very delicious. There are other variations that are simpler. Just look up tortilla for recipes. You can add onions in there too.
You can add some suggars to your diet too.
Alternatives:
Bread and cheese sandwich. Bread and jelly sandwich. Tortilla with some chicken in there. Chicken omlette.
Cook eggs in all kinds of ways possible, like omette, plat, poached, japanese style, souflé ... Mashed potatoes, cooked potatoes. Fried potates, roasted potatoes; roasted potatoes with chess filling. Roasted potatoes with egg and cheese filling.
You could of course add other vegetables like tomates and onions. A moroccan salad could help you change a bit. This salad could be reduced to only two ingredients.
As much as you really can gain weigt with potatoes and bread, you need to add some proteins. Like lentils, very cheap, or just a little bit of chicken to spice it up.
One important thing is to eat more than once a day. If you really need to gain weight fast, eat at least 3 times a day. Bread and scrambeled eggs in the morning. Torrtilla for lunch, and some other kind for dinner. and a cheese sandwich for 18:00.
The only thing you're really missing is some pulses/beans/legumes, and some more veg.
Buy yourself some more grains (jumbo oats go well as a porridge, they go well in soups, and you can use them to make flapjack (250g oat, 125 butter, 125 sugar, 3 table spoon of golden syrup, mix flatten in a tray bake at 200c for 15-30 mins, or in a covered pan on the hob), energy dense and can have other stuff added (dried fruit, ginger, choc chips, etc))
You could also add pasta and rice as two other carbs that effectively cost next to nothing, lentils and beans can give you the protein that you need, alongside the eggs
And buy an A-Z multivitamin+mineral if you don't have them already, if you're malnourished you won't be feeling great to begin with.
Keep tins of tomatoes and beans around for when you do feel adventurous
Try lentils and Dahl if beans don't agree with you
Find a local Asian/Indian supermarket and stock up on essential spices: ginger, cumin, pepper, paprika, chilli flakes. This is how the rest of the world doesn't become bored living on potatoes/rice and lentils
I am the same as you, I eat 1 meal in the evening and don't have an appetite for the rest of the day
That is A LOT of food to eat. I can barely stomach one full meal (a day) consisting of two eggs and two to three large potatoes. That is too much food to eat. But if I ever regain my appetite, I will attempt to try this. Correction. I currently intend to intend to attempt to try this.
My advice was going to be peanut butter, but someone beat me to it. Make sure it has sugar in it (almost all of it does).
Also, the expression is "hunger pangs."
No. It is hunger pains. I feel pain from not eating. I don't have pangs of hunger. I'm not hungry. My stomach hurts from being empty. Hunger pains. It might be because of the contraction of the stomach, but they are definitely pains.
You're describing hunger pangs. You're just using a (community confused) wrong word to name them.
Could be. I'm not a doctor. But if it's that, then I'm fine. Hunger pangs never killed nobody. It's just the body reminding me to shove something into my stomach so it shuts up.
sounds like you need a medical diagnosis for whatever disorder you have.
Nah... I'm fine.
I bought multivitamin. It was on sale.
You are very much not fine.
Okay, I may not be exactly "fine". But I have been worse. So it's not that bad.
Since you mentioned that you hate cooking and have no interest in making it tasty but want efficient more calories: Pint of ice cream. Let it melt, drink it. 1000 calories per pint. Most of them useless, but if your goal is weight gain....
Otherwise, protein heavy diet (beans, rice, vegetables) plus a workout routine to actually build up muscles and not just fat
Lactose. I will shit my guts out if I do that. Also, ice cream is expensive. Would love to bulk up on it, but it would kill me. First with diarrhea, then with a heart attack once I see how much I paid for that ice cream.
And I need SOME fat. I am literally a skeleton. Going to the gym WILL kill me in this state. Not even exercising, just GOING there.
OK, here is the thing. If you are for real, get help. Real one, not internet strangers. Malnutrition will fuck you up long-term. Find out any program that can help you get real food. Get help.
In would also recommend to find a job to give you structure. Not some gig economy scam, something real. Wash dishes, help your community, anything that gives you structure and something to do. You don't need to get rich, you need a foundation you can build on, because if you are for real, there is some serious ground work missing.
cant you ask your parents for some money to buy something unique?
No. I could ask grandma. Maybe she has enough cash left over from paying for meds to buy some better groceries. But I REALLY don't want to bother grandma. She won't let this go until one of us is in the grave. I'll hear about those groceries every Christmas...
Are there food shelfs (food assistance for people who can't afford it) where you live?
Not desperate enough for that yet. And what they give away is mostly rice and shitty pasta, and even shittier canned meats. As stated before, I would rather starve to death. Even if I went and got the food, I wouldn't eat it.
I wouldn't say I'm hard to please, just hard to keep alive and healthy.
Do you not like pasta at all, or is there something about the pasta they give that's particularly shitty?
Literally any noodle + oil, salt, and maybe a couple spices (e.g. garlic and onion) and you get hella calories that you can shovel your way through quickly without much if any chewing.
This was the majority of my diet for a couple years. Def not good for you long term, but it's easy calories if you don't mind the texture too much
Try these steps:
Actually I've found that amphetamine is more effective in my case. If I have the energy to cook and chew, it is much easier to eat.
I'm sorry, are you for real? Amphetamines have been used to trigger weight loss and treat obesity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339040122_A_Historical_Overview_Upon_the_Use_of_Amphetamine_Derivatives_in_the_Treatment_of_Obesity
> cannabis
> cheap
Pick one.
It doesn't work like that anyway. I'd have to smoke at least a gram a day for it to affect my appetite. And if I did that, I wouldn't be able to do anything else. It would be a blissful existence, but a short one.
Best of luck Gilgamesh, great hero-king of Uruk!!!! What people are saying seems sensible.
It always does. That's why I don't usually listen.
I used to live with someone who said seemingly sensible things. Now, they are the bane of my existence, and I am theirs. Although that may be due to early-onset dementia. Can't be sure.
Eat more and move less. Weight gain/loss isn't exactly simple thermodynamics, but it's close. Do whatever you can to increase the amount of calories you're getting per dollar. Unfortunately that's probably gonna mean cheap, processed, very fatty stuff. With such little diversity in your diet I'd be eager to beg, borrow, and steal for multivitamins since you are likely deficient in one or multiple important micronutrients.
I am a sedentary life form. I don't think there is a way to "move less". And eating more is already making me nauseous. Isn't there some sort of nutrient slop I can make and just swallow like a goose being fattened? That'd be so much easier.
Peanuts are a good way to slam calories cheaply, though you should make sure you get unsalted or lightly salted. If you continue your current diet but add a half cup of peanuts each day, you'll be adding 3000 calories per week which should be enough to at least stop you from losing more weight if not gain some back slowly. You'll be getting some protein from them too which will help a lot. When I was really underweight, I snacked on peanuts all day in addition to what I was already eating.
I mean, I guess nothing's stopping you from shoving it all in a blender and making some unholy baby food/potato smoothie
edit: oh wow there's actually a recipie
Would you look at that... They call it a "smoothie" 'cause it's "smooth". That is so funny. Although at this point, isn't it just soup? Cream of potato? Or something. I really need to get back to growing mushrooms to make some cream of mushroom soup.
Humans measure our food in dietary calories, and our caloric food can be broken down into four groups. In order of ascending caloric density:
Those of us in affluent countries tend to have too much caloric intake, so strive to limit using fad diets like dropping the bottom or the top while keeping vitamins and those proteins human bodies can't generate.
If you have the opposite problem and limited funds, you need to think in a budget of "calories in vs money spent." Bread and potatoes are relatively low-calorie, so may not be enough to have an effect.
Two actual suggestions:
2: if you do have a kitchen anyway, consider beans. Good bean recipes can be very cheap if you start with dried instead of canned, are relatively calorically dense, and respond very well to long cooking. Especially if you need something easy to chew.
I CAN make my own bread. But I am not allowed to. And I refuse to eat beans.
But thank you for the advice.
Potatoes are very versatile. You should cook the potatoes with skin intact as that's where most of the micronutrients are at. Roasted smashed potatoes are fantastic with skins intact. I made a potato cabbage gratin dauphinois the other day with all plant based ingredients and it was superb. You can also shred them to make a breakfast hash. You can boil them and make mashed potatoes. You can mix in a bit a flour and make gnocchi. There are so many great options with potatoes. If you have access to a Costco or similar bulk store, buy them from there, it's usually much cheaper to grab a 10lb bag from a bulk store than a smaller bag from somewhere else, assuming you can go through it all. Maybe you have some friends you can split the purchases with to further save money?
Have you considered dried beans, they are very cheap and shelf stable. You soak them over night, rinse, then boil for an hour. Alternatively you could quick soak by boiling for 5 minutes, then letting them rest for an hour, then rinsing, and cooking for about an hour.
Rice is cheaper than bread, will do a better job of managing hunger pains, and help you gain weight more so than plan white bread.
Have you considered a food bank to bolster your nutrition?
I'm surprised you're eating eggs and cheese with how expensive they are. I would recommend replacing with nuts as they are much healthier and they have a higher caloric density, if that's possible for you.
Eggs and cheese are the cheapest and most nutritious foods around. Bread is a staple of any healthy diet. People used to live on just bread and water for months or even years. How much do you pay for 100 grams of cheese on average? And how expensive is a loaf of bread where you live? Whole grain, obviously.
Bread pudding? S-tier desert in flavor and easy to make
That is A LOT of sugar. I'll need to consult with the family if I am allowed to use that much sugar for myself.
Give them some bread pudding too!
Why not other cheap foods like beans, vegetable oils, sugar? Sugar isn't that healthy but it's probably better than being borderline anorexic. There are even more possibilities if you add flour, which is cheaper than bread. Cake, pancake. Fried potatoes. Potato gratin or noodle gratin.
I can't afford a bottle of coke. It's as expensive as two loaves of bread. Two and a half loaves if I buy the cheapest bread. In my country sugar has a tax on it. Making products with sugar even more expensive.
Beans oil and sugar don't sound great. I already eat oil when I fry the egg. And beans usually make my stomach hurt.
For weeks I've been fantasizing about eating a donut. But I ain't paying an equivalant of more than a dollar for a single donut. Back in the day I'd buy 4 of them for the same price.
Doesn't the Polish sugar tax only apply to beverages? I'm talking about buying raw ingredients and making cake or pancake with it, if you can afford eggs and cheese I can't quite believe that you can't afford the flour, sugar and fat/oil for a cake.
Does it? Everything that contains sugar got more expensive once the tax went into law.
Also. I never said I "can't afford" these things. Just that they are expensive. I said I can't afford a bottle of coke. Because the price will put my family in generational debt. Although my budget is about 12 cents when adjusting for currency. So I guess, yes, I can't afford them. I am being fed and housed by family. I don't get to be picky, I either eat what is given or not at all. And often I prefer to not eat.
If beans are making your stomach hurt you probably aren't cooking them right. If you're getting them from a can you have to rinse them very well to wash off all the garbage that they pack them with, but after that they're good to eat right away.
The best and cheapest option is to buy them dry. About 1/2 cup of dried beans is equivalent to one 16 oz can. You have to either soak them overnight or quick soak them (boil for 5 minutes with some salt, then let sit for 1 hour), rinse, then cook for at least an hour, until they are soft.
You might also be having problems because you don't have enough fiber in your regular diet, so the extra fiber might be a shock to your system. After about a month of consistently eating more fiber you shouldn't experience that any longer.
They give me gas. And that is painful. Like, can't fall asleep painful.
Are you from Slovakia? We have a 5% tax on basic food, while 23% on sugary food.
To be honest, I have no idea what the percentage is. I live in Poland, and they have some weird system where how much sugar a food has changes the tax. And they are planning to raise that tax by 900% (nine hundred percent) in the next year, so... I should invest in suger, I guess. It'll be the next Bitcoin in a year.
I do not believe any of it.
That is fine. You don't have to. But it is my life, and the fact that someone finds it unbelievable is kind of funny. In a tragic way.
Some people born into privilege simply cannot empathize.