The truth is not everyone who goes to the gym is looking to lose weight. In some cases, “getting thick” and gaining muscle in order to be stronger and feel more confident is a top priority. While it is as important to get your reps in, what you put in your body plays a huge role in reaching your fitness goals. And ever since rap princess Ice Spice famously coined the phrase, "I'm thick 'cause I be eating oats," it has us wondering, can eating oatmeal really be the secret to making gains in all the right places?
“Oatmeal or oats is a nutritious food, but it’s not primarily known for its protein source compared to protein-rich foods like meat, chicken, fish, and other plant proteins like legumes,” says Johna Burdeos, a registered dietitian. “Oats are made up of carbs, including moderate amounts of fiber and some protein. There are about 5 grams of protein in a half cup of oats. Typically, people who want to gain muscle will increase their protein intake as protein is the building block for the tissues, skin, hair, and muscles.”
Does Oatmeal Help You Gain Weight?
In order to understand how to incorporate oats into your diet and maximize its benefits, we’ll have to break down what this grain can offer the body on a nutritional level. “Firstly, understand that the carbs in oats help fuel you with energy for workouts and strength training. Oats also provide fiber, which can help support your digestive tract,” Burdeos says.
She continues, “A healthy digestive tract is needed for proper absorption of nutrients, regardless of weight or health goals. Oats also offer various nutrients like copper, phosphorus, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, and vitamin B1. All of these nutrients are important for many bodily functions and overall health, including metabolism, bone health, blood health, and heart health.”
How To Use Oats for Weight Gain
While oatmeal alone does not directly contribute to muscle gain, it can play a beneficial role in a muscle-building diet due to its nutritional properties. According to Burdeos, in order to incorporate oats into a diet for muscle building, “it’s important to pair oats with protein-rich foods.”
She says that if you want to build muscle, there are many ways to incorporate oatmeal into a meal plan, but it’s going to take a little more assistance from other food groups that are a key source of protein.
The Best Ways To Eat Oats for Weight Gain:
Grab a Greek yogurt.
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Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet along with regular exercise is essential to our overall well-being. According to Burdeos, allow yourself the liberty to try out different ways to incorporate lean proteins such as chicken, eggs, fish, and tofu into your diet, along with whole grains, fruits, and vegetables that offer essential fiber, nutrients, and phytonutrients for optimal gains.
Still, if you're intrigued by the idea of including oats in your meal plan, here are a few delightful recipes you can experiment with!
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak