In my bodybuilding days, I faced the same problem, and emailed one of the champions from the competitive eating circuit for advice. Funny enough, she advised increased fat intake and frequent movement, along with one huge meal a day.

But rather than become more ravenous, you could add some easy to eat calories. And by easy to eat, I mean easy to drink. A tall glass of chocolate coconut milk has 1000 calories. Yes, 1000 calories.

Eating more carbs will likely leave you hungrier. What is your normal day of meals like? What is your activity level like? It's hard to answer this question without a few more parameters in place...

Hey Melissa,

Here is what I would do if I was you.

Eat your normal meals (I'm guessing meat, vegetables and probably fruits/tubers). It will be very hard to eat more than that and I doubt it's good to overload your digestive system with too much food volume. This is why I would suggest adding ''easy to eat'' calories to each meals. This would be done by adding fat from oils or from animals (olive oil, coconut oil, lard, etc.).

Basically, at the end of the day, you will be getting in more calories without really noticing it. You will still be able to eat healthy while doing so.

As for training wise, you know this is my thing. I think I would focus on building basic strength in moves like pullups, pushups, and squats.

As a final note, feel free to contact me if you need help scaling the exercise so that they fit your fitness level.

I wish you good luck!

GOMAD, just kidding. Liquid calories don't trigger leptin as much however..coconut milk smoothie?

Sweet Flavors make me want to eat more. I can keep packing away things like sweet potato with butter and cinnamon, leaves me craving a little more

Favorite foods... Sashimi Salmon I'll eat past satiety because I love it so... Same with good steak.

High Intensity Resistance Exercise-- I'm always noticeably hungrier afterwards

Make sure you're not forcing calories your body doesn't want tho, or you'll bulk instead of lean mass... That's no good.

I'm convinced that gut health, directly reflects weight gain, perhaps your eating enough intake and signaling as such, but not absorbing it all, maybe digestive enzymes?

Hm, more carb could help. Fat plus carb at the same time could help, like butter with potato. Also, I find variety helps and research backs that up. You might be full but if something new looks very yummy, you are more likely to take a few more bites of the new thing. I think the liquid idea is also good. Could drink a calorie packed smoothie right before bed for instance. YOu will have all night to digest it and still make room in the stomach for breakfast.

Also, you don't HAVE to feel super hungry to eat. Just eat when you don't really feel like it that much. Pick out a favorite food and save it for snacking. There is a time between being hungry and feeling full, when you don't feel super hungry, but you could still eat. So eat! For me, that would only really work at night though, because if I snack in the day, I am too full for regular meals. The only time I could eat more without screwing up other meals would be before bed, when my stomach has somewhat recovered from dinner and yet there are no other meals in the near future to get ruined by the snack.

Also could try more milk sugars, cheese, and nut butters. Those are the things that often make for a weight loss stall, so they might help with weight gain.

If you ever take naps, take them right before meals instead of after. I'm always hungrier after a nap, even if it's a 5-minute one.

I remember that you used to be able to pound a jar of nut butter - have you tried a nut-based, grain-free granola as your breakfast? You could chop up dried fruit and dark chocolate to make it even tastier - it's absolutely moreish! MY partner's not often hungry in the morning, but he'll still sit down to a big bowl of my Nola because he loves the taste so much. For that reason, I don't let myself touch the stuff ;)

A mate of mine is currently a skinny little slip of a guy, and he's doing everything he can to bulk up. He's eating six times a day, and training like a maniac. Like you, he never used to have much of an appetite, and while I don't agree with what he's consuming - lots of processed protein powders, of course - it makes sense to take some extra calories in liquid form if you can handle it. I love cream with cinnamon & ground vanilla as a rich dessert.

Find the flavours and aromas that make you drool, and use them as much as possible. I love the smell of roasts in the oven, fresh basil, and bacon, and the flavours of salty butter, runny egg yolks, and wilted greens. I've just spent months battling a drug-fueled, uncontrollable appetite so I avoided those stimuli outside of my eating window. Perhaps you can use the opposite to your advantage.

Good luck!

Melissa- I'm interested in your exercise regimen. In my experience, cardio doesn't increase my appetite, but heavy lifting makes me ravenous. Other than that, I would recommend a Cordain approach to you paleo; lean meats and veggies. Or even Paleo-Zone! The low amount of carbs with the high amount of food (In paleo zone) jump-started my metabolism. I'm def not an expert, this is all based on my experience. Good luck!

Without wanting to be funny: make every meal delicious! I often eat more than I think I need to (untill the level of feeling enough), just because it tastes so nice.

I have to admit that I think that usually this means that the next meal is probably smaller, though not always.

And I know that paleo and snacks are not necessarily best friends, but butter or coconut oil and shredded coconut, just a spoon of each, are delicious and easy to eat a lot of calories of...

if you can handle it add dairy, always works for me.

Having eaten within 1-2 hours of when I work out and than eating something with fat and protein afterwards also seems to help me a bunch.

However the major major thing would be more calories period for gaining mass. And as others have said fat is the most calorie dense. Protein is interesting because while only about 30 g a day will go towards actually muscle mass, tons more of it is used for energy and repair work which also helps with your goals.

How hard are you working out? if you are lifting things so heavy you can't do more than 5 reps or are doing tabathas or long slow cardio to the point that you are drained (burpees till nauseous/ running long enough at a decent rate that your legs are like rubber), often enough I'd think you'd get hungry more often.

worst comes to worst you can sneak the extra calories in with drinks (protein shakes/milk/kefir etc), because they don't tend to satisfy your hunger as noticeably. (also if you drink coffee with cream you can easily add 500-900 extra calories by going to a shot of espresso with the rest of a mug full of cream instead of coffee americono + cream (jumping from 1-2 tbsp of cream to 5-6 oz))