Putting on weight in the proper areas

[The_Avatar]

As a type 1 Diabetic I need to take insulin to regulate my blood sugar, for a little while I didn't have the money to afford insulin and other supplies I needed. My blood sugar would get very high resulting in me losing a lot of weight. I believe I was down to 125 at my last check, which at my height of about six feet isn't good at all. Recently I've procured all the money and supplies I needed to keep myself healthy. I've started to put on weight again which is fantastic. However, most of it seems to be going to my gut, not to the point that I'm starting to look fat, but enough that it seems like more weight is being distributed there than to my arms and chest. Does anyone have any recommendations about how to correctly distribute this weight I'm putting on? Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, I've just been a stick all my life and putting on any weight at all is entirely new to me.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Pretzel]

Work out. Specifically, lift some weights. You don't have to go crazy, but a bit of bench, squats, chinups, deadlifts (i.e. big compound movements) is about the only way to control how you gain weight. Start off with a warm up or 2 of about 12 reps, then do 3 sets of 10-12 reps not quite to failure, but heavy enough for it to be hard.

Also as far as I know, this isn't harmful to diabetics - one of the guys I train with is a diabetic (I'm pretty sure he has juvenile diabetes, I don't remember if that is type 1 or 2) and he doesn't seem to have any issues, however it would probably be a good idea to check with a doctor before starting just to make sure.

[Skull]

Lots of protein, calories, and working out is basically what it comes down to. I'm sure someone will give you something better than that, but essentially that's your basics.

[Myweponsg00d]

Are you saying that you want to put on fat weight evenly distributed around your body? This isn't possible. There is no way to decide where you are going to store fat, your body will decide. For guys, usually it goes mostly to the gut.

 

But, if you are saying you would like to add muscle mass (which you definitely should) then you can do that around your whole body. Need to work out, though. But it isnt as hard as people think. All it takes is 3 days per week, 30-45 minutes each session. So we are talking like 1.5-2.25 hours per week...not a lot at all. Your workouts should look something like this

Monday--Chest+triceps (bench press, pushups, tricep dips, etc)

Wednesday-- Back + biceps (deadlift, rows, a few types of bicep curls, pullups, etc)

Friday-- Legs + shoulders (squats, leg press, leg curl, shoulder press, shoulder lateral raise, etc)

 

Along with this, just make sure to:

a. eat enough food

b. get enough sleep (7-9 hours per night usually)

 

For food, make sure you are eating a lot of protein. You probably want at least 150 grams of protein, 75 grams of fat, and the rest of your calories should come from rice, pasta, bread, fruit and veggies. Just keep eating enough calories. I'm guessing you need at least 2500 per day to gain weight.

 

Remember, as you gain more weight, your body needs more calories to gain weight. So at 140 lbs you need to eat more than you did at 120 lbs to gain the same ammount of weight.