A normal person can gain around 1 to 2 pounds a week on average, depending on different factors. Let’s delve into it to know those elements affecting your weight gain.
Some people try to gain weight as fast as possible. They might wonder, “How much weight can you gain in a week?”. The short answer to how much weight you can gain in a week is around 1-2 pounds per week. This might seem like very little, but it eventually adds up. If you ate unhealthily and did nothing for weeks, how much weight would you gain?
However, it should be noted that different people of different body compositions, fat percentages, etc., will influence the total weight they can gain. In addition, there are many other factors affecting this process. Let’s discover in the following sections.
What Are Factors That Affect Weight Gain?
As I mentioned previously, there are different factors affecting weight gain, including sex, height, age, genetics, muscle-to-fat ratio, hormones, activity levels, body type, etc. In this part, I will discuss some of the most important elements that can influence your weight gain process.
Age
As we age, our bodies begin to lose muscle and bone mass. For those who don’t know, the replacement of muscle and bone mass is slower as we age. So, if your body fat percentage stays the same, you will lose weight.
Knowing your age can be a helpful factor in determining your ideal weight. If you want to calculate your age in years, months, and days precisely, use the age calculator.
Genetics
These factors can all affect the total weight you can gain in a week. For example, men often tend to gain more weight than women because they have less estrogen. Women usually have more water retention than men because of their estrogen levels and their typically smaller size. People who are taller have more surface area, while those who are shorter usually have more fat on their bodies. All of these will affect your weight gain.
Muscle-to-fat Ratio (which looks at a fat percentage)
All of these factors influence the amount of weight that you might gain. These are some of the factors that can increase or decrease how much weight one gains. A lot of people think they will gain more because they are male. However, for a male between 20 and 29 years old, he can gain around 28 pounds of fat-free mass in a year. This means that if you have a good muscle-to-fat ratio, then you can potentially gain more weight than someone who does not have that ratio.
Calculating your body’s lean body mass and body fat percentage is crucial for determining your muscle-to-fat ratio. Use our lean body mass calculator to determine your lean body mass, and our body fat calculator to measure your body fat percentage. These tools are essential for understanding your muscle-to-fat ratio, which plays a significant role in overall health and body composition.
Hormones
Hormones can affect how much weight you can gain in a week. Estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone levels are the major hormones that affect weight gain for people of all sexes. Weight gain is common for people going through puberty and those who are pregnant.
Activity levels
How much time you spend in physical activity will affect how much weight you can gain from gaining calories from food. The more active someone is, the more muscle mass they can build up to replace the fat loss that occurs with dieting.
Physical exercise speeds up your metabolic rate, meaning that your body uses more calories to do basic functions. The more active you are, the better chance you have at losing weight and gaining muscle mass as an adult.
To determine how many calories you burn during exercise, calculate your calorie intake and convert it to daily energy expenditure. The results can guide you to see how much energy is needed to maintain, gain or lose weight. Use this tool in combination with other measurements like body fat, BMI and BMR to fully understand your metabolism.
Body Type
Body type can also play an important role in gaining weight. There are three main types of bodies: endomorph, mesomorph, and ectomorph. Endomorphs gain fat very easily; therefore, endomorphs must be very careful with how much they eat and exercise using a method that focuses on burning fat.
Mesomorphs have an easier time building muscle mass. People who are in the Mesomorph body type typically have the easiest time losing and gaining weight by mostly focusing on what they eat.
Ectomorphs find it difficult to put on weight. They tend to lose weight very easily and have the hardest time building muscle mass. Because of the ectomorph’s difficulty losing fat, many ectomorphs will go on strict diets where they barely eat anything.
How much do you need to eat to gain weight?
Your weight gain will depend on how much you eat. Your body needs calories to do basic functions that include exercise, metabolism, and breathing. If you want to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than you consume through eating food.
To maintain your current weight, your diet must provide the same number of calories as the number of calories burned. To gain weight, you must feed your body at least 500 to 1000 calories over your daily needs every day.
For example, a person that burns 2500 calories a day trying to gain weight by eating 3500 calories will gain a one-pound weight gain per week because the body must use energy to digest and absorb nutrients from food.
How Much Weight Can You Gain In A Week?
Weight gain is affected by a variety of factors, so the amount of weight you can gain in a week will vary from person to person. Your height, activity level, age, and sex will affect your rate of weight gain.
How long it takes to gain one pound also depends on whether you are gaining fat or muscle mass because muscles weigh more than fat.
On average, a healthy person can gain one-half to two pounds per week by eating 500 to 1,000 extra calories each day and by exercising for 60 minutes each day. Some people will put on more weight than others while following this plan. Adding muscle mass will also cause you to gain weight faster than just adding fat.
The amount of weight you can gain in a week will depend on your body type, your diet, and how much time you put into exercise each day. If you want to lose weight, try cutting out at least 500 calories from your daily calorie intake and burning off an extra 500 calories by exercising every day.
To gain 1 lb per week: Eat 500-1,000 calories more than your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) every day and make sure to exercise for at least 60 minutes each day. You can expect to gain an average of 1/2 – 2 lbs each week by following this plan.
It takes about 3,500 calories to make up one pound of fat; therefore, eating 500 extra calories each day for one week will result in a one-pound weight gain because it takes your body about 3,500 extra calories to turn into fat. However, adding muscle mass instead of just gaining weight by eating 500 calories over your daily needs each day will cause you to gain more weight than just 1 lb per week.
Conclusion
How much weight you can gain in a week will vary depending on your body type, sex, age, diet, activity level, hormones, and many other factors. Your height also affects how quickly you gain weight because taller people usually weigh more than shorter people of the same sex and age.
But in general, the average weight you can gain in a week is 1-2 lbs. To gain weight faster, eat 1,000 calories more than your body needs each day and exercise for 60 minutes every day. However, try not to gain more than 3-4 lbs over a three-week period because you could run the risk of gaining fat weight instead of muscle weight.
