Weight Gain Tips (2)

I recently made some lifestyle changes and found this website while researching weight gaining strategies. I'm 32 years old, 5'7" and have all ways been around 110-115lbs. using combinations of exercise and increased diets I've upped my weight to 133.5lbs in 2 and half weeks. My waist is still a size 28 so its definately not turning into a spare tire around the midsection. I will post again after 2 or 3 months to let you all know how it's going.

Tips

I finally broke down and figured out that I was averaging about 2800-3000 calories for 3 meals a day. I am now taking in 1000-1200 calories at every meal with 6 meals a day. I exercise every day for 30-45 minutes as I'm trying to build strength for other activties, but after a workout I suck down a milkshake of around 700 calories to help combat any calories I burned off. I stay away from candy bars and fast food. I pack my lunch to work and eat relatively wholesome foods. If you want weight do the math and figure your intake out as a first step; for me I simply doubled my intake while maintaining the same exercises.

Ed. Notes: Now, that is some serious eating and some serious gains. Just goes to show that due to individual differences, some need to really go to extremes to get their body's attention. But once you get its attention, you can really grow.

I've been a big cardio/long distance runner kind of person for most of my early teens. In the later stages of High School I got more into weight lifting and I did gain in strength and could bench a lot more than I started at, but I never gained any weight really (wasn't really my specific goal at the time either). My not so solid workout plan eventually fell through the cracks and I was still a measly 125 or so pounds while on my first workterm during my freshman year in university. This was early January 2007 and one day I just realized I was tired of being skinny and wanted to take a serious well thought out approach to working out and gaining weight. Luckily as I typed "gain weight and muscle" into my google search the first site that popped up was this one!!

Obviously I was very skeptical at first, but I spent a few days just reading everything I could find on this site and mostly because of the logical no BS approach of the site it was more convincing, especially since it tied together a lot of exercise science I already knew about, but never applied. After reading this site and most of Sean Nalewanyj's story on his site I was finally motivated.

It's amazing how little most people really know about exercise and gaining weight or losing weight/fat. There's just soo much marketing scams out there and I was lucky to find this site. Anyways, on to my "success story".

I wasn't sure how well the whole plan would workout, but I took it very seriously and planned out my diet (the most work for sure!!) and a 3 time a week split workout routine. I didn't want to get into any supplements or fancy stuff because I'm a "stick to the basics" kind of person and I thought I'd upgrade with supplements only later if I felt they could seriously help make things easier and more effective for me. So I was eating 5 meals a day (6 is hard to fit when you're doing only whole foods) and workout days I would eat 6 (including my post-workout meal). I also tried to really track all my exercise/weight lifting stuff by having all the exercises I did in an excel spreadsheet with the weight I started at and my current max. I'd always try to either increase the reps or weight the next workout where I'd do the same exercise. After only a few weeks on this plan I saw gains of about 5 pounds so my motivation definitely increased and I kept up with everything. Eventually after 4 months I had gained 30 pounds and was now 155 from 125. I definitely could notice clear visual differences.

The big things I really learned were the importance of diet and making those 50-60 minutes working out really effective and intense. I was another one of these skinny guys who thought they ate a lot, but when you really pay attention to your diet you realize you're not eating a lot because 3 meals a day just isn't much. You really have to have the motivation and that's definitely the most important factor. I've always been a lazy person who could never stick to anything for long, but for this I was serious and the fact that I wanted to break this lazy habit I had with commitments really helped. Also you have to be honest with yourself because you know when your pretending so don't try to fool yourself. Buying a gym membership means squat unless you use it. I was the home gym guy anyways just using my bench and various weights and dumbbells in my basement. I really like the home gym just because of convenience and time saving plus you're not worried about what others think and
  you're completely focused and not trying to show off for anyone.

Also don't be afraid of getting fat! I'd have people telling me this and that about me eating too much when I was on this plan, but don't let that junk bother you. I wasn't eating just because it was part of the plan.... after a while of working out and being on the meal plan your body will CRAVE the food and just after 4 hrs of not eating I find myself getting stomach growling hunger pangs. I think your body knows when it needs nutrition so just listen to it and not others. A little fat won't be a problem with the bulking and cutting phase strategy so just keep with the diet even if it feels like a lot of food (good non junk food ofcourse). Also you don't need supplements either I think because I haven't used anything fancy and I've packed 30 pounds in 4 months. Stick to the basics and expand from their as you gain experience. I plan on using a bit of supplements now that I'm progressing and know just to what extent they are important (hard to meet that protein quota without
  supplements!!)

Sorry that this has turned out soo long, but I just thought I'd put a decent effort into it since this site has really helped me a lot.

Tips

Well my story was long and probably had most of the tips within it, but I'll do a better clear cut summary here.

- Get Educated because knowing exactly what you need to do to reach your goal makes it that much easier (although its still definitely no cakewalk). The most useful days of my workout strategy were the first few where I spent every free moment reading more from this site or others becuase there really is a ton of info to know.

- Make sure you're truly motivated and don't try to kid yourself, if you want to make a difference you have to be serious because nothing this good comes easy

- Diet is really the big thing and the average person thinks a diet means you're out to lose weight, but diet is just as important (if not more) when you want to gain. Gotta keep up atleast 5 or so proper meals a day and forget what other people are telling you because you'll easily prove them wrong once you start seeing the results.

- Stay serious in the workouts and don't waste time and get straight to business and stick to it the whole 50-60 mins. Compound exercises as others have said are the key, don't waste time on weird fancy junk. You can do all the exercises you need with a simple home gym and its far more convenient if you are strapped for time or embarassed about working out infront of people.

- Patience!! probably the most important thing... Just stick to the program. Sure it won't be the best as you start out, but you'll see results if you keep it up and you can tweak things as you go along and learn more.

Ed. Notes: A great point is made in there - if you keep at the diet, it gets easier. The body starts to get ask for the big diet. You just have to keep at it and make it through the early days. Great story and great tips.

I stumbled across JP's site back in September of 06.
Now, I used to work out a fair bit but always quit because I was frustrated at the lack of gains or at the plateaus I would "seem" to hit after a few months of training.
Using some of the tips and tricks and training programs on this site I was able to literally throw on my first 10 pounds (from 142 - 152) in about 2 months.  Increasing my caloric intake and lifting HEAVY (thanks to my newgrips - and JP for recommending them :D ), getting my strength up there wasn't that difficult at first.  These results were expected, however, and I knew what was coming.  Sure enough after the 2 - 3 month mark I hit my plateau and getting my weight up over 152 was just something that WASN'T going well.

I hit the books.  I delved DEEPER into gain-weight-muscle-fast.com and found more tips / information.  I re-read the stuff I had read before and eventually found what I was doing wrong.  As is so often stated here, tracking is probably one of the most important things you can do when trying to pack on the size.  Tracking your food, tracking your size, tracking the weight you're lifting on each rep / set / etc.  The important thing is to KNOW exactly what you're doing every time you go to the gym (or kitchen) and how its either different or the same as the week before.

As soon as I stopped estimating my food intake (and upped my daily caloric intake by another 500 - 1000 calories / day) I noticed the plateau dissapear and the weight started piling on again.

After another 2 months I added in some creatine into my daily routine and I'm about to top 162lbs of what is essentially pure muscle (my body fat has barely increased the entire time)  Thanks to JP for keeping it simple and for pointing out that muscle doesn't happen by accident.  Hard work ... in the kitchen and the gym are required to see the gains you're looking for and thats about as complicated as it gets.

Tips

Some things that DEFINATELY were required for the gains "I" noticed were:

1) Finding a good mass gaining shake with enough carbohydrates to offset my rocket fast metabolism.  Prolab makes a GREAT product in my opinion but the NLarge2 formula just didn't have the carbs necessary to power my body day after day and I had to switch to a more carbohydrate laiden product.

2) Lift heavy and make sure you go to muscle failure as often as possible (which should be every time).  My workout partner and I have a standing joke that "If you can lift this ... it means you're still small".  In other words keep lifting until you can't lift it anymore and you know the gains you're looking for are not far behind.

3) Empty calories are not the answer.  Sure I could sit there and eat 6 bowls of lucky charms every morning and be taking in 1200 calories (or whatever it is), but eggs / toast / lean meat is definately a better alternative for balance and nutrition.

4) As so many others have said, use the suppliments for exactly that ... SUPPLIMENTING not REPLACING your diet.  Whole foods as often as possible is always a good thing.  Using protein shakes / mass gainers / between meals and after workouts is good, but make sure you're getting your 3 squares every day ... breakfast, lunch AND dinner.

5) Estimation is the enemy ... TRACK TRACK TRACK!!!

Ed. Notes: Excellent tips throughout. Tracking is something that beginning trainers tend to ignore. But if you do track, you'll find yourself in much better shape when things start getting hard. Listen to Aaron. And Newgrips are indeed great product.

It all pretty much started last summer at the end of sophmore year in high school when i was sick of tired of never even being over 133 lbs after a meal. I tried up until the winter trying to gain weight without any success. I wrestled during the winter leaving 128 lbs with 10% body fat(at 5'10"). Even though i was pretty cut i still hated being so light so i tried again once i found this site (basically everything you need to know is in here). I started in the beginning of march this year and since then i have gained 18 pounds leaving me at 146 lbs looking much better and bigger. I'm hoping to get around 160 by the end of may and then cut down a little for summer. 

Tips

If it wasn't for my diet i wouldn't have gained the 18 pounds that i did, NUTRITION IS KEY!!! NEVER FORGET IT!!! It doesn't matter if you have the greatest work out plan imaginable but if your not putting in the nutrition your body needs it ain't gonna grow, its like building a house without bricks, not possible. For me nutrition is particularly difficult because i can't exactly whip out some chicken and rice in the middle of class so i'm pretty limited as to what i can eat during the morning. I usually have a meal replacement first thing in the morning, a bar in-between classes, and then pizza during lunch which takes care of my meals during school. When i get home i have chicken with rice, a couple gainers, and then a meal replacement right before going to bed. I'm taking in
 around 4,000 calories a day and its been working so far getting me past some hurdles i'v had to deal with. I have used Met-RX before with some good results but i like Xyience better because of taste (strawberry for xyience X-M2 is unbelievable) and nutritional reasons. While i do love supplements they are not always the answer. They should never be your diet, only at max like 40-50%. For my schedule in particular, i don't have a lot of time for whole food and thus use supplements a little more often(still consuming at least 50% of calories as whole food). If theres anything that i want you to take away from this is:

- Work-out like you mean it(don't puss out)
- EAT, EAT, and EAT some more
- Do everything right, not half-ass becuase then your just going to get frusturated like me before.
- DON'T OVERUSE SUPPLEMENTS!! The only good ones are multivitamins, whey protein, meal replacements, weight gainers(in some cases), creatine, and last but definately not least glutamine.

Ed. Notes: Excellent tips - especially the part about not being able to build house without bricks. That is said a million times in a million different ways but it remains a top reason for failure - trainers continually get baffled as to why they don't gain when the answer is simply that they need to learn how to consistently eat big to get big. Once you learn to do that, gaining weight becomes a heck of a lot easier.

Check the Bodybuilding Supplement Guide for more on some of the supplements Diego mentions.

Since i was a child, i was always very skinny, you know the type of kid who was just "skin and bones" beneath that t-shirt. I had always been conscious of my weight, and it was always embarrassing to take off my shirt when i went swimming (which just led to more criticism of how skinny i was). However, last summer, when i was 16, i decided i had enough of it. At 5'10" and 130 pounds, you could definitely say i was an ectomorph. I searched all over the internet, and looked especially at this site, for tips on gaining muscle and getting bigger. I wanted to be the kid who people admired. Previously, i "thought" i was eating alot, but after i realized that the amount of  food i ate would not even satisfy a 3-year old. Therefore, i started eating as much as i could, and after the first week i gained 4 pounds. After that first week, i knew i was hooked onto bodybuilding. A couple of months passed by, and i was up to 150 pounds. I could not believe it. This training still continues, and i currently stand at 165 pounds, at 10 percent bodyfat. I am still ambitious, and i hope that i can reach 180 pounds by the end of the year.

Tips

Many things contributed to my success. I think the most important things were this site, as well as the book Scrawny2Brawny, by John Berardi. In these two things i learned the fundamentals of bodybuilding. I learned that compound exercises are a helluva lot better than isolation exercises because they recruit both your type I and type II muscle fibers, allowing you to pack much more mass on than just isolation exercises. I only used one supplement, and that was whey protein because I didn't want to put too many supplements into my body. I learned that proper rest and nutrition are keys to your success. You should only work out on a specific bodypart once a week, to allow maximum rest and growth of your muscles. Also, i learned that people like us, ectomorphs, need to have at least 5-6 smaller meals when compared to 3 bigger meals.

My advice to others is to focus on what you want, and don't let anyone take that goal away from you, no matter what. This is YOUR life, not anybody else's, and they should not be telling you what to do to your body. Reject all the negative comments you get from others, just let it go through one ear and out the other. At least you know that you are making gains, and that is the only thing that matters. Finally, be smart when it comes to weight training. Find all the information you can, and then create and plan a workout tailored to your specific needs. Planning is the key!

Ed. Notes: Great gains. As told above, the key to success is simply being "smart" when it comes to you approach. Once you get that in your favor, get ready to be amazed by your results.

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