A high-calorie diet provides the energy the body needs for muscle growth and weight gain. Eating certain foods after your workout can help enhance your efforts to bulk up through exercise.

While conventional wisdom suggests you eat breakfast daily -- no matter what -- you don't necessarily need a morning meal to avoid gaining weight.

You might be the envy of your friends, but a high metabolism that makes it difficult to gain weight isn't always a gift, especially if you want to gain a few pounds. Weight-gain supplements might be a convenient way to add calories to get your weight up, but they might cause side effects in some people.

Approximately 40 percent of Americans are overweight. Usually people gain weight at a slow, almost unnoticeable rate over months or years. However, some conditions can cause sudden weight gain in a week or so.

To put on pounds the healthy way, you'll need to increase your calorie intake and do some strength training. You may have tried a weight-gain supplement as an easy way to boost calories but then found the flavor to be lacking.

With a high metabolism, you take in calories but don't see the instant gains on the scale that others who have different hormone profiles and genetic dispositions register. You're likely an ectomorph, a body type characterized by a lanky, long frame, narrow shoulders and little body fat.

Chantix, the brand name for the prescription drug varenicline, is used to help people stop smoking. It works in the brain to lessen craving, nicotine withdrawal, and satisfaction from smoking. Chantix treatment has been associated with weight gain.

OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, is anxiety characterized by unreasonable fears and thoughts that lead to compulsive behaviors, such as repeatedly checking whether you locked the front door or washing your hands.

Walking one mile a day is an excellent way to start a fitness program. Walking raises your heart rate and burns calories. However, a slow walk for a short distance does not burn a significant enough number of calories on its own to promote weight loss.

When you follow a vegan diet, eggs, dairy, meat, fish and chicken -- as well as processed foods containing these ingredients -- disappear from your menu as you replace them with vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans and fruit.

Although obesity is a nationwide epidemic, some people need to gain weight to reach a healthy size. Weight gain may be required after illness or surgery. An older adult may unintentionally lose weight due to diminished appetite and food intake, subsequently experiencing poor health and frailty.

Sodium doesn't actually make your body gain fat -- it causes bloating and water retention that causes the number on your scale to rise. You can't predict, however, how much these numbers will increase when you overindulge in salty foods.