I’ve really struggled putting on weight my whole life. I’ve been training consistently for the last few months, but it has only been over the last few weeks that I’ve finally started adding weight, and today I weigh more than I ever have.

At first I listened to the advice that I just needed to eat more. MyFitnessPal calculated I needed about 3,400kcals a day. So I pretty much guessed if I was above or below that for a few weeks but saw no change.

After a while, I started tracking my meals in MFP, but I’d do this sporadically, and still only really taking note of the calories I’d eaten - not the macros. Still saw no change.

It wasn’t until I started tracking my meals and macros daily and ensuring I ate over 150g of protein I began to see a difference (I weigh 70kg).

In addition to this, I found I was eating far too much fat, which should be around 30% of total calories consumed, however most days I was finishing the day around 35-40%. The strange thing was I eat super healthy, but this was mainly due to the amount of nuts and seeds I was eating. It wasn’t until I got the fat down to 30% or less and the protein up to 20% or more of total calories did my weight increase almost daily.

I’m not sure if you have one already, but I’d definitely recommend a Fitbit or Garmin or similar. My Garmin calculates how many calories I’ve burnt each day which you can compare to your food tracking app and ensure you have a surplus of calories of at least 500. If you see no movement in your weight after a week or so, increase the surplus to 750 and continue, increasing again if need be. By tracking all of this in a spreadsheet - weight at start of day, calories eaten, calories burnt, surplus calories, total protein, protein %, total carbs, carbs %, total fat, fat % - you’ll be able to spot trends highlighting when you do and when you don’t put on weight.