eating slightly above maintenance (+500cal) for gradual weight gain shouldn't be too hard, considering your a student.
Ha.... the problem is I'm not a typical student. Wednesdays throw me off the worst.
6:30: wake up, get dressed, pack stuff, drive to campus
7:30: trumpet routine
8:30: Music theory (which I've been having a snack during lateley)
9:30: Conducting (no food here, I'm waiving a stick around)
10:30: Trumpet lesson (can't really eat while I play)
11:30: Trumpet masterclass (again... no eating)
12:30: tiny break where I get a chance to eat something small before playing again)
13:00: Jazz Orchestra (definitely no eating)
14:00: First real break. Lunch time
15:00-16:30: Wind orchestra. (Director of bands would probably revoke some of my scholarship money if I was eating during his rehearsals)
16:40-18:00: Symphony orchestra. (No food allowed again)
18:00-21:00: Vacuuming at work. (With a backpack type vacuum, drains a lot of energy)
You tell me it's easy to eat above maintenance on a day like that. Most days aren't quite that bad, but I stay pretty busy. Excuses aside, I've been doing a lot better with eating habits, and I'm getting on the upside of things again for the first time in months.
I meant that as a student, you should have an insatiable hunger because of the amount of work that you do on that hectic schedule......... almost an 8 hour gap between meals! no way I could do that.
What I'd recommend is to maybe try a pseudo-leangains style approach. 2-3 Massive meals a day, when you can.
Your meal frequency is limited, so, the obvious option would be to up your portion sizes.
Maybe try:
-Massive breakfeast. Get up an extra 2 hours early, 1 hour for preparation, and the other for the actual eating part.
-Meal 2 @ 2pm during the lunch break. Make it another monster. Just sit down relax and eat before you return to orchestra practice.
-Meal 3 straight after work. another monster.
-Meal 4: Post workout meal. should be the biggest. (I'm assuming you train at night).
-Sleep
With lower meal frequency as well you have less meals to prepare for the day, they are just massive and take time to actually consume.
Get on shakes as well man, a blender is going to become your best friend.
This is a shake I do on training days that I sip on in the bus or while driving on the way to uni:
-2 scoops protein powder (50g protein total-pref a blend)
-2 cups rolled oats
-1 cup baby spinach leaves
-1 cup blueberries
-1.5 cups water (I'm not good with milk, but if you can digest it well I would opt for it)
-2 tablespoons peanut butter
Now the above are not absolutes, and in your case I'd even double everything on that list, and even throw in more stuff (banana's, apples ect).
You can always go for mass gainer shakes as well if you got the cash and can stomach it. Mass fusion by nutrabolics is a good one that I've tried myself, and I've also heard a lot of good things about the cytosport ones.
There aint nothing to it but to do it!