How To Gain Weight with Celiac Disease

For most people with Celiac Disease, switching to a strict gluten-free diet will help someone to naturally regain their normal weight. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. If you eat calories which balance out your physical activity your weight will remain the same.

In order to gain weight with Celiac Disease, just like anyone else, you need to consume more calories than you burn up in daily activity including exercise. However, if you are trying to gain weight you need to think carefully about what you eat and what you do. It is still important to take healthy exercise to ensure you do not develop other problems.

Even when trying to gain weight it is important to eat healthily and stick rigidly to a gluten-free diet. Although fats and oils contain the most calories ounce for ounce make sure you eat a sensible amount of fat and as far as possible eat fats found in oily fish, vegetables and nuts. You will need to be consistent and look for results over time rather than quick gain, which is lost as soon as you stop the eating regime.

Some healthy ideas for putting on weight:

• Eat regularly throughout the day making sure you have a good breakfast.
• Enrich the milk you use with a spoon of extra dried skimmed milk, use full fat milk and add 2-4 tablespoons of dried milk powder to a pint of milk.
• Eat a snack of dried fruit and nuts or full fat yogurt between meals.
• Use build up meal replacement milkshakes and drinks to supplement your diet.
• Avocados are rich in nutrients and calories – they taste good too.
• Eat complex carbohydrates rather than lots of sugar but eat them regularly.
• Eat lots of fruit and vegetables but you can enjoy them with butter, grated cheese a dressing or sauce.
• Eat protein with each meal – fish, meat, eggs, cheese, pulses etc.
• Add ice cream, cream or evaporated milk to all cold puddings and add fortified milk to hot puds.
• Add a beaten egg and or grated cheese to mashed potatoes.
• Make a smoothie using fortified milk, a banana, strawberries or any other fruit you have available, add a yogurt or a scoop of ice cream for extra calories. Ring the changes with the fruits or add some chocolate for a change.
• When making up packet soups or sauces use fortified milk rather than water.
• Use a gluten-free protein powder to sprinkle into sauces, shakes, and sauces.