How to gain weight the healthy way and a Hong Kong ultra athlete’s counter-intuitive trick

Hong Kong-based Mayank Vaid’s way of adding weight is not for everyone. Hong Kong-based dietitians recommend safe ways to pile on the kilos

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Ultra athlete Mayank Vaid raises or lowers his weight depending on the sporting event he is taking part in. He gained weight (above) for his attempt to swim around Hong Kong Island twice in April 2024. Photo: courtesy of Mayank Vaid

Published: 11:15am, 2 Mar 2025

When Mayank Vaid was training for the gruelling Arch to Arc Triathlon in 2019 – an almost 300-mile (480km) race from London’s Marble Arch to Paris’ Arc de Triomphe billed as the hardest triathlon in the world – one of his aims was to increase his body weight by several kilograms.

That was mainly because of the swimming leg of the challenge: a near 13-hour slog across the English Channel from Dover to Cape Gris-Nez near Calais, during which the Hong Kong-based Indian ultra-athlete would burn up to 7,000 calories.

His weight-gain method? Eating lots of ice cream and drinking a bottle of wine – just before going to bed.

“Anyone would think, ‘What the hell are you doing to your body?’” Vaid says.

“It’s counter-intuitive to what an athlete should be doing. You should be eating healthily, lots of protein, and drinking a lot of water. But this has worked for me repeatedly and assisted me in avoiding injury through losing too much muscle or fat.”

Mayank Vaid en route to setting the Arch 2 Arc triathlon record: running, swimming and cycling from London to Paris. Photo: Handout

Vaid, the intellectual property director for Asia-Pacific for Louis Vuitton, is an ultra athlete. In 2020, he became the first person to complete the three-stage HK360Xtreme, a 45km swim, 215km cycle and 100km run around Hong Kong Island.