Do you feel bad at that weight? Do you want to gain weight?
Obviously, you could gain weight. No one is immune to the laws of physics, but we’re constrained by our physiology. Contrary to popular belief, the motivation to train, the propensity to enjoy exercise, levels of hunger, preoccupation with food, compensatory non-exercise caloric burn, etc. are all genetically determined to a large extent. People who are “naturally” skinny tend to have smaller appetites and move more subconsciously. People who are “naturally” heavy tend to have larger appetites and move less subconsciously. The variations in pure metabolic rate between people at similar body weights are marginal at best and typically not observed outside the range of 100 calories per day (barring hyper/hypo thyroid).
If you truly want to gain weight, you need to eat more. You’ll probably feel full all the time for a while, and then you’ll adjust to a new homeostasis. If you’re not gaining weight, you’re not eating enough. Some people can compensate for additional food through NEAT to the tune of 1,000 calories per day, but that just means they would have to eat even more to gain.
Personally, I was “naturally” skinny until the age of 15 when I decided to pursue powerlifting. At that point, I had already been lifting for three years, and although I was well trained and muscular, I was extremely lean at 54kg and around 170cm at the time. It was extremely hard for me to gain weight. Even stuffing myself constantly, I felt like the scale would not budge. Then, I started tracking my food and realised that “stuffing myself” subjectively only looked like 3,000 calories per day on average, which isn’t a lot for an active kid. I felt like I was eating a lot, but I really wasn’t. Fast forward 5 years, I had gained 34kg. I was full every day, all day, for those years. It was very unpleasant, but I became very, very strong. At 20 years old I decided to not stuff myself anymore, and I naturally settled at a very lean 78kg, which was 10kg less than my heaviest, though no conscious “cutting” but simply not eating beyond fullness.
When I got into cycling, I decided to lose weight, and I went from 78kg to 62kg in a little over a year. Bad idea. Took a lot of effort, and my body did not like losing that much muscle. I kept fighting to stay that light for a few years, but eventually I decided to stop. I got back to some more gym work in combination with cycling, and I now weigh about 75-77kg. I’m very lean, but I don’t need to pay attention to my diet at all. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full, I just look like I do. My body “likes” being muscular and lean because of the stimuli I give it through training and lifestyle.
So, to my original question, are you actually looking to gain weight? I spent 5 years doing it, and it really isn’t all that fun. Do you think you’d perform better if you were heavier? I’m currently trying to work as hard as possible both on the bike and in the gym in order to achieve a certain goal come June 2026. I want to do 400w for 20 minutes and get back to deadlifting 300kg. I know that I need to stay on top of recovery because of my training load, and although I’m not intentionally trying to gain weight, I really don’t want to lose weight. Losing weight would, in fact, compromise performance for me. My goals are very specific, but I don’t know if you have similar aspirations. Is it a problem for you being that light? If it is, you know what the solution is. It’s really hard to gain weight with a smaller appetite while doing endurance training, but it is not, by any means, impossible.
I don’t have numbers to prove it but I think I eat more than enough for what I do. It is obvious I don’t eat enough to gain muscles but as 