need to gain weight

G

greenleaf

Member
Joined
Sep 22, 2018
Messages
30
Hello again, I tried searching for this but couldn't find the info I needed.
I need to gain 9lbs in 2 weeks or DoDmerb will DQ me. Has anyone been in this position before and been successful? If so, how did you do it? Also, if I can't quite get there, how likely is a waiver in this situation? I'm not sure if this matters but I'm female. Thank you.
 
I believe that you are referring to the post by @MohawkArmyROTC, who is an Army ROTC recruiting operations officer. He stated that being underweight is not an issue, so long as it is not due to an underlying medical condition or illness. Based on his comment, I believe that he is saying that they would waive your underweight DQ so long as you are healthy. You won't know for sure until you finish the DoDMERB process.

The bigger issue is how well you can perform from a military perspective. Can you ruck 12 miles at your weight? Can you pass the APFT?

My DS is very thin and fine boned, but his sports experience and weightlifting makes up for it with muscle mass. He probably was borderline underweight as an MS-I, and rucking was difficult at first. He has bulked up substantially since then and he had no problem at Advanced Camp with the 12 mile ruck.

Bottom line, just don't gain the weight just to pass. Get fit and stay fit. Build muscle and strength over the long term so you can be the best possible soldier.
 
Last edited:
AROTC-dad said:
I believe that you are referring to the post by @MohawkArmyROTC, who is an Army ROTC recruiting operations officer. He stated that being underweight is not an issue, so long as it is not due to an underlying medical condition or illness. Based on his comment, I believe that he is saying that they would waive your underweight DQ so long as you are healthy.

The bigger issue is how well you can perform. Can you ruck 12 miles at your weight? Can you pass the APFT?

Bottom line, just don't gain the weight just to pass. Get fit and stay fit. Build muscle and strength over the long term so you can be the best possible soldier.
Click to expand...

I've already taken my cfa and nearly maxed it, so I think I am okay in terms of fitness. I definitely need to put on some more muscle for the rucking, but it seems like I should be able to do that over a longer period of time. Thanks for your help, I am much less worried now.
 
greenleaf said:
I definitely need to put on some more muscle for the rucking, but it seems like I should be able to do that over a longer period of time. Thanks for your help, I am much less worried now.
Click to expand...

Agree. Remember that the CFA is to get into an Academy. Once at USMA, the APFT is the standard and there are new fitness tests being rolled out.

Just do the muscle mass growth in a healthy manner. Good luck to you!
 
My DS had a similar dilemma. He ended up eating and/or drinking a protein shake every 3 hours during the day on the advice of a nutritionist. (If you’re continuing to struggle I highly recommend consulting a nutritionist.) Lots of calorie-dense, but healthy food. Peanut butter on everything! The struggle is to gain weight while you are burning calories from working out and running a lot. Timing makes a difference. On the day of his exam, he ate and drank a bunch that morning and chugged 30 ounces of water in the parking lot. That put him 3 pounds in the clear zone. His RC did not think getting a waiver for being underweight would be a problem, since he is fit, but it’s just better to not go down that road if you can help it.
 
Drink a ton of water. For wrestling, we have to gain and lose a lot of weight. Just don't go to the bathroom beforehand, don't consume diuretics, and if you can, consume roughly 5 bottles of water but not too far beforehand so your body doesn't get rid of it. In addition, make sure you're eating a lot in the next week and a half of so and lift as much as possible.
 
BornintheUSA said:
Drink a ton of water. For wrestling, we have to gain and lose a lot of weight. Just don't go to the bathroom beforehand, don't consume diuretics, and if you can, consume roughly 5 bottles of water but not too far beforehand so your body doesn't get rid of it. In addition, make sure you're eating a lot in the next week and a half of so and lift as much as possible.
Click to expand...
You do wrestling?
 
Yeah it’s pretty hard to gain weight if you’re going hard in practice every day (I tend to lose about 15 pounds the first month of the season) but I’m trying to gain weight for this season. I’m doing a lot of lifting and limiting cardio
 
My DS was always tall and skinny throughout childhood. At our first nutritionist meeting, the nutritionist said..."our first goal is to get him on the scale" as he wasn't even on the height/weight scale he used.

DS would eat constantly but it wasn't until his early teens until his body began to change (puberty sure helped). We tailored his diet around high protein/fat with heavy weight lifting. Sports took care of the cardio. We would even wake him up in the middle of the night to drink a high calorie protein shake. We found this to work really well (over a week this was an extra 5,000 calories or so).

Some people are proponents of gomad (gallon of milk a day) to gain weight, others not so much.

Whatever you do, it's rather simple. You simply have to consume more calories than you burn to gain weight. And that might be a lot for a growing teen. Heck, in college I had to eat 5,000-7,000 calories a day during the season or I lost weight and/or strength. Those days are long gone now though.
 
thanks to everyone. Also, any advice on how to keep the weight on? I've heard that people usually lose weight during cbt
 
Protein shakes are a good idea, but make sure that the protein comes from whey and not soy. There are estrogen-like compounds in soy that in large quantities, can be deleterious to men.
 
BornintheUSA said:
Protein, Protein, Protein. And lift before CBT
Click to expand...
Pretty sure my DD gained a couple lbs during cbt. She was so worried about heat cat from sweating so bad she said she was eating the mre’s and drinking water like it was her JOB. Only company to not have a single heat cat, so she didn’t want to be the one. She said each mre had a ton of calories and salt. Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top