Peanut butter is good for calorie boosts that are protein dense, same with cheese and dairy in general if you aren’t committed to veganism. Eggs and canned tuna as well!

If you do want to stay vegan (I eat a bunch of vegan stuff), beans (red, black etc), chickpeas, nutritional yeast, soy milk, tofu, seitan etc are all good. I have had bariatric surgery so I can’t eat much either, fair warning that it is difficult to achieve a good protein intake as a vegan but not impossible.

Good luck future Swoletariat, I’m rooting for you 🫡

You want to gain weight slowly but surely if you’re underweight. Since your muscle mass is low you may be insulin resistant and overeating may cause health problems. Avoid saturated fats, eat a moderate amount of carbs at every meal, and do 10-25 minutes easy to moderate physical activity like walking, light strength training exercises that are used in physical therapy, or housework after you eat, especially a big meal, to help move the nutrients into your tissue. Do do normal resistance training with heavy weights as well but increase the difficulty slowly and don’t do too much as you are probably deconditioned. Make sure to get enough rest and sleep as this is the time when your muscles grow.

Fat and carbohydrates are also necessary to help move the protein into place. I don’t recommend getting more than about 10 grams per day from protein powder as it can throw off your microbiome.

As for specific foods I recommend tempeh, olives, lentil soup, hemp seeds, and vollkornbrot. Eat fruits and vegetables too. And make sure to take your damn B12 supplements!

Lol I was about to link my guide before reading your post.

1500 calories is where I’m at currently on a cut and losing weight, so I take it what you’re saying is if you stay at 1500, you’ll lose more weight which is dangerous as you are currently underweight?

I would tell you to snack on nuts during the day. 100g of nuts contain 550 calories, they contain good oils and a lot of protein.

Otherwise, add oil to your cooking. Oil has 884 calories for 100g, so adding just two teaspoons of oil to your cooking quickly adds up to 100 calories. If you cook twice in a day, that’s 200 extra calories.

But high fat consumption also leads to disease down the line, I don’t remember the name right now but it’s a problem known in some populations that cook with oil a lot (and other fats).

Is there something in your life or diet that makes you feel full so quickly, or has it been like this forever?

Everything else should be in the guide 😄

You first goal will be to just focus on protein intake. Try to avoid heavily processed stuff but protein supplements are fine as long as you don’t chug them and don’t make them you main source. I’ll say now, I am not vegan in my protein intake. Not like I am eating a ton of meat and eggs for every meal but I do consume animal products so it’s a little easier for me to get in my protein. I do also eat a ton of high protein vegetables. I basically do not consume things that don’t have some significant protein content unless it’s paired WITH someone with a high protein content.

As far as supplements are concerned I mainly use pea protein. It’s not the best shake maker and is kind gritty but there’s other ways to cook and ingest it. I have some other protein powders I supplement it with too. They are not vegan but there are other vegan oriented ones that pair with pea protein to get in all the appropriate types of protein you need.

As far as whole foods, beans are one of the cheapest and best protein sources from a non-animal based point. In fact, you can lacto-ferment the beans (like you would sauerkraut, pickles, etc) to not only reduce sugars and carbs but make the protein in them more digestible by the body. If you have the ability to do this it’s very easy. Even without that though just beans in general. If you want muscle weight you need protein. Just loading up with carbs or fat will be pointless. Your body eats for protein. It wants protein. If you aren’t giving it that protein you won’t put on muscle mass plain and simple. You CAN build muscle at a caloric deficit IF you get in enough protein.

Peanuts (and nuts in general) are also a good source of both protein and fat while not being overly expensive if you know where to get them. Idk where you are based out of but Aldi’s has pretty good prices. They are high calorie and could be a possible source to help fill up your caloric and protein needs.

When you say you are “mostly vegan” what does that mean? You want to eventually be full vegan or just not eat meat directly and avoid most animal products? Are things like greek yogurt off the table? I assume eggs are out? Seafood etc? It’s hard to give a more detailed advice without knowing specifics.

1. Do meal prep and eat more frequent meals
2. When i was younger, I did Gallon of Milk a day (GoMad) with a weight lifting routine. I don’t recommend it, but I did gain 10 pounds! You could also do half a gallon a day. This is in addition to eating meals, not a replacement.
3. It’s kinda hard to gain muscle without gaining at least SOME fat. You’re going to want to eat a decent amount of protein and add some healthy fats to your cooking (olive oil, etc). I really like curry or butter chicken tofu over whole grain pasta or with naan as a meal prep. Make a whole bunch of a dish and freeze all but three servings and bring them out of the freezer as needed. Lentils are very nutritious and cheap for adding to a flavorful soup/stew, I prefer them on the mushy side but some people prefer texture.
4. https://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=8 has all kinds of routines and many are free. There should be some calisthenics-based plans. Or just search “calisthenic workout program no equipment”
5. Straight-up just eat faster. The slower you eat, the more time your body has to send satiety signals.

Idk if I have advice to share, but you’re definitely not alone in wanting to get bigger! I guess there’s a couple of baseline questions:

What’s your protein intake like? What kinds of food do you eat for protein? You might feel satiated before you’ve eaten enough protein as a vegan, but I’m always surprised by how little protein I’ve eaten when I track. Maybe nutritional yeast could be helpful for a little boost?

You say you work out at home, how often do you do that? What kind of exercises and progression are you doing (i.e., if you can do 3x10 pushups one session, do you do more the next)?

I think there’s something to raising your exercise level to give yourself an appetite. I’m usually pretty hungry in a day that I do a heavy set of 20 on squats!

Personally, I’d want some equipment or gym access. I know people have success with callisthenics, though. And it’s probably better to spend some time establishing habits before dumping lots of money into them!

You might have luck with: https://old.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine

While I see comments about cranking up protein intake, could I suggest a more moderate approach?

If you want to grow at a realistic rate, you don’t need that much excess food and only increasing protein won’t gain you much unless you have a big protein deficiency. Your metabolism can’t change so quickly to use extra without chemical enhancement.

You still need to moderately increase carbs and fats in a balance. You use carbs and fats to fuel your workouts which should be higher load to stimulate muscle growth. A lot of calisthenics is endurance-based which is not that suitable.

As you stated, you were overweight from overeating in the past. You only want to bump up your daily calorie intake slightly now rather than going crazy.

I.e. A 10% increase is 150 extra calories per day which is one small snack with a balance of macros. E.g. since you’re vegan maybe some humus on a slice of bread or similar.

Once you have that calorie excess, then you want to tune your workouts and your recovery time to stimulate growth.

Check out this article for a less protein heavy approach: https://physicalculturestudy.com/2020/03/13/mike-mentzer-the-essential-nutrients-heavy-duty-nutrition-1993-11-14-2/