Does anyone have any tips for gaining and maintaining weight?

Ms. Ehinger, I've read most of your suggestions from the people gathered here to try and help you. Most are good suggestions but it was 1st Sgt. Oscar Llamas that suggested the most sensible approach, "look at what works for you and make your own adjustments to what might be the best course of action for you". Now to do that of coarse you have to try many and varied systems. If you aren't already doing this I would suggest you basically start out lifting weights. Heavy weights, Low reps. NO more than 6-8 reps x 3 sets. You should be spent after or near your 3rd set. Basic lifts at first. Bench press, Squats, Dead lifts. ****MAKE SURE YOU DO THESE WITH CORRECT FORM****** Otherwise you will hurt yourself!! GOOD LUCK!!

I am an Ambassador with Adonis Index (for men), my wife, Kittery, is an Ambassador with Venus Index (for women). http://www.venusindex.com/how-to-overcome-hypermobility-and-still-become-venus-meet-kittery/

I understand you want to gain weight and keep it. If you want to talk with my wife, she can probably give you pointers. It *is* a lifestyle change I cannot over-emphasize the education part. For both of us, it was worth the cost of the program to have access to well documented and researched information. And if you can't tell, some of the information out there is conflicting!

The Venus program includes 3 different approaches:
1) Lose fat (weight)
2) Maintain
3) Gain muscle (weight)

It does not aim for that bulky body-building shape either! For protein, carbs and fats to work right in your system, it needs to be stressed with exercise, turning on hormones that take the intake (food) in the right ratios and build muscle. Again, not bulky muscles, but replacing that little bit of fat buffer we all have with healthy muscle bringing you into that (for women I *think* it is) the 20%-28% fat ratio.

Gaining weight is easy. Im actually really good at it. Generally it involves drinking lots of beer and playing video games instead of going to the gym lol

If any of these have worked for you please let me know. I'm 28 and struggle to stay above 100lbs. I've tried everything and nothing seems to work

Well first understand that for a woman to make the type of gains you want it's going to take a long time due to the fact that your body does not produced the same amount of testostorone as men. With that said if your'e looking to gain mass and can accept the fat gain that comes with mass then this is what's best:
Compound exercises only, this way you utilize several muscles at a time, rep range is is 3-6 reps for upper body with 3-5 minutes breaks between each set with 20-50lb increases with a max of 5-7 sets for your upper body, for legs it's 2x as many as above. Do once muscle group a day do not double up, This allows you to maximize your lifts and tear more muscle fibers which in turn your body will work to build up.

Diet/Lifestyle: To maintain body mass you should intake 1 gram of protien per pound of weight, in order to gain you need to take in 2x as many. Your daily intake of protein should be 220grams a day. You can do this by living an Atkins lifestyle where you intake only complex carbs and eat nothing but fish, chicken, pork, beef 6-7x a day. Additionally you may have to look into supplement replacement for certain vitamins and essential amino acids that your body does not produce enough of, I would suggest researching, female bodybuilding.

Results: Take a picture of yourself every week in the same attire and same post, if your going to flex then flex the same pose with the same amount of desire as your began with, this will accurately allow you to see changes as we see ourselves every day its hard to notice signifficant change.

Hope this helps.

My dad (WWII Navy) was a skinny 150 - 170 lb at 6'. He got up to about 170 when he was older. He was diagnosed with cancer at 75 yrs old and started to lose weight and got down to about 110 lbs. I don't know who suggested it but, among other things he would drink 3 or 4 chocolate shakes per day. He added one or two raw eggs and mix it up. I tried it and it tasted pretty good. the egg is what they used to use to put in chocolate shakes to make it taste like a malt. He never got back up to his regular weight before he passed but he did gain weight.

Try supplementing between meals with a supplememt called karbolyn or vitargo. Its pure healthy carbs. Sold at the vitamin shop and sometimes gnc. Most people will claim that protein is best for gaining weight and while it helps it come 2nd to carbs. Your daily diet should include 3 normal meals a day that are carb heavy such as oatmeal, peanut butter toast, rice, and mashed potatoes. Then drink ur carb supplement twice a day, once between breakfast and lunch and thw other between lunch and dinner, or save one for a nightime drink before bed. You might have to adjust and play around with it a bit because un-used stored energy turns into fat so make sure you are exercising regularly as well. Good luck

I answered this completely backwards...my apologies. Deadlifts and squats put on weight. Many workouts out there, keep it simple, too much counting is not necessary. But eat clean carbs/protein, not junk!

Besides eating right throughout the day/week....do cardio on an empty stomach in the morning. Burns off blood sugar then goes straight to fat burning. If you eat before then its a lot more blood-sugar to burn before your body gets to the fat burn.

There are as many weight gain formulas on the market as there are for weight loss. A friend was turned down for low weight when she tried to join the Army and the recruiter told her to eat a lot of bananas It worked very well and she was able to pass the physical after some 6 or 8 months.