Gaining weight.

Most of these threads are about losing weight but I need some help gaining weight. If anyone posts on this thread with a one liner of something like "eat a lot" or "protein shakes" or you know that useless bullshit that doesn't help anyone and only is used to up your PC, I'll report you for spam.

Anyways, so I'm a skinny motherfucker. And I mean really skinny. I'm 6"2, 17, and weigh 125lb (56.7kg) (yikes I know). I recently went to the gym and got a personal trainer to help me out and he basically told me that my biggest priority should be gaining weight and until I can do that it won't be very helpful hitting the gym. All these protein shakes that he recommends and shit is just awful and hasn't helped at all in the past 2 months. Weight hasn't changed one lb.

Now I know the best way to gain weight is to obviously eat a lot. But I want to know what my caloric intake should be and what to eat personally. For example don't just say "eat 4000 calories a day" since I won't really understand that alone. I'd like some help from someone who can be like:
"Take ____ calories a day. That's basically ____ meals a day. Eat every ___ hours. You should eat ___ and ___, avoid ____ and ____. For breakfast have ____, lunch ___, dinner ____, etc. etc. etc." I would really like to avoid protein shakes but if you have a recommendation of a specific one then I'll give it a go. I've tried everything but I basically only gain weight when I get taller aka bone mass...

This might be a bit much to ask but I'd really appreciate some help from someone who knows their stuff. Help me out, yo.

 

1. Use an online calculator to calculate your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure, ie how many calories you use).

2. Eat 500-1000 calories more than that per day. Use the MyFitnessPal app to track calories.

3. Go to the gym and work your ass of at least 3 times a week. Research routines, find one you like, and stick to it.

It takes effort, but that is really all there is to it.

 

I gained 15 lbs in 2 months by eating 3 decent meals a day, and 3 peanut butter sandwiches, don't be conservative on the peanut butter. Basically eat every 3 hours and you should be good. Try not to do cardio, or fap excessievly.

Also don't check the scale everyday or you'll get discouraged!

 

Alright. My TDEE is ~2300 if I were to workout 3 times a week, 2000 without working out so I'll estimate 3000 caloric intake per day? I just downloaded the app and hopefully will be able to keep track.

Hittin' the gym will be the hardest and possibly most discouraging part since I'm always the skinniest guy there but I'll definitely try my hardest.

 

How much do you/did you weigh?

 

Take a look at this. its a shake but its efficient and cheap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JaJv90L0ao

sounds like you have an ectomorph body type, wont be easy gaining weight but dont be discouraged.

 

I weigh'd 133 when I started, now I'm 148, still wanna gain more though.

 

when you were following your trainers advice, did you actually follow it to the T or just did as much as you could?

you just need to "eat a lot", as soon as you wake up until you go to sleep. eat maybe 6 times. what type of foods you can figure out yourself. you might not see gains very quick if you have high motabolism, but just stick to it and you should see gains. work out at the same time (weight lifting only i'd suggest).

how tall are you? how much do you weigh now? when you tried gaining weight before, what did you do?

 

Every single answer to your question are in the OP if you even read it...

 

I never had this problem but I am into lifting, health, and fitness what I would say is eat 6 meals a day (not including snacks). Eat healthy foods/fats/carbs. But if you are very skinny eat any carb after a workout it will help you gain weight and put on muscle. Make sure the meals you are eating adds up to about 500 over your daily calorie limit so you actually gain weight instead of maintain. Hope this helps even a little Good luck!

 

Ehh, I would give you few tips/lessons if my English just were better to explain those kind of things...

However I would prefer to you, just read, read, read before doing anything... There's loads of people which have/haven't tried a shit, and they can just talk talk talk... Every exercise, every meal you have/they do... Might work differently. It might be perfect for me, and shit for you.

Do exercise, but do it for strength/technique... 3 days a week is more then enough at the beginning... But do it differently. 2-3 muscle groups per session. Push/pull/lower body then... 5x5 to failure, that's how I would train if I would like to gain weight and also strength... Don't forget the technique, it's most important thing... Do negative reps and you'll get there!

But training is not the main part...

Depends what you're working, how active you're... how long do you sleep, if you rest enough... most important is food.

you have to now the difference between bad & good calories, fast & slow react proteins... What to eat in the morning, before, after gym.. Before sleep.... Eat 5-8 times (depending on your schedule)

Morning - Fast protein, so your body won't suffer
Midday - Long lasting protein/carbs
Before gym - quick release protein / some carbs
After gym - quick release protein ( I would prefer shake (with water) then eat some food with quick release protein / and good fats)
Before sleep (I would prefer some gainer (with bcaa) taking it with milk (stays in your digestion longer, so your muscle will be growing at night)

Ehh there's loads of different aspects I can say... But like I said my English isn't perfect when it comes to explaining that sort of things...

My Advice to you? READ ON INTERNET / ASK DIFFERENT OPINIONS! (at the beginning try different things, you'll find one which will work for ya then better for others)

I've been excercising for about 2 years for nothing... 2-3 hours in gym, eating crap... I didn't got anything except strength/tech in that time, now I've been doing it professionaly for 3 years

Comp season - 174CM 81 KG - 6-8% bf
Bulking season - 87-90KG 11-14 bf

At the beginning I were about 58KG too....

Goodluck

 

The best way is to determine what you should do with your diet/exercise regimen is to find out how many calories you ate, on average, per day that resulted in you being 56kg.

So if you calculate your calories to be 1500, we know that you've been under-eating. If we calculate your calories to be 3000 then you probably have an underlying condition. No one can tell you specifically what to eat and when, since that would require knowledge of your lifestyle and how you as an individual respond to food. For example, I can't eat much in the morning (I feel like throwing up), so I tend to eat lots of liquid food in the morning (chocolate milk).

On that note, a good way to beef up the amount of calories you eat is to consume milk, flavoured or otherwise. It's relatively calorie-dense, fairly healthy, and will fit into a strength-training lifestyle. If you consume 500ml-1L of milk a day on top of what you normally consume, you should notice a difference in your weight overtime.

Nuts are also extremely calorie-dense, but they contain loads of fats. Not that I am denouncing the consumption of fats, but its something to keep in mind, since you generally don't want to consume more calories in fats than carbs or protein.

This is perhaps the easiest way to gain weight. Take what you are doing now, and consume more milk, and a small bag of nuts every day. I guarantee you will see an increase in your weight. Another way to facilitate this is by going to the gym. An untrained person, when they first go to the gym will naturally gain muscle, strength, and thus weight no matter what they are eating in the beginning. As time goes on however, what you eat will matter, and by eating more calories, the weight you gain will be from both muscle and fat (as opposed to mostly fat if you didn't go to the gym). As for the routine, I would recommend a full-body workout 3 times a week. If you are determined, make each workout at least 2 hours long. Post workout, from my earlier advice, consume milk, chocolate milk is fantastic according to the studies I've read.

As for protein shakes, you don't need them, they are just an easier way of consuming protein. Getting protein from a protein shake is a lot easier than cooking a chicken for example.

As for when to eat, these are the specifics that honestly won't be very relevant to you. What's important is that you eat more, and find ways to eat more that are easily incorporated into your lifestyle. After you've done that you can begin to further tweak your lifestyle with when to eat your meals, how much to eat per meal etc etc.

 

Literally get off the computer and just whatever you see, this is the fastest but unhealthiest way to gain fat... being skinny isn't as bad as people make it seem... you're faster and will most likely survive on low food supplies when you get lost in the jungle.

 

After a conversation on Skype, going to detail out a couple things here for you:

First, with your issue, you are eating a lot of junk food. With a fast metabolism, this will hinder you from gaining any real amount of size for weight. Therefore, you're going to need to clean up your diet to see any amount of real gains. To do so, I'd recommend starting slow, and building up. Try for 2 days a week to have a good diet. Then as that becomes easier, go for 4 days, and then finally 7. You can decide how exactly you'd like to do that, but baby steps is key. You aren't born running, you have to learn to crawl before you can walk before you can run. Make sure you apply that to this.

-- Diet --

I'm going to list a breakfast - lunch - dinner plan for you, and have some variety. I recommend searching online for some more options as well, these are just some I had before.

Breakfast:
Protein - eggs / greek non-fat yogurt / milk / peanut butter
Grains - cereal (low sugar) / oatmeal (low sugar) / whole wheat/grain toast

Lunch:
Protein - Extra Lean Ground Turkey / Chicken / Fish (tilapia filets I recommend) / canned tuna / protein bars (low sugar) / protein shakes
Carbs - Brown Rice / Quinoa / Sweet potatoes / potatoes / squash

Dinner: Same as above pretty much

-- Working out --

I recommend you do 3 days a week. Do a leg day, a chest day, and a back day. For exercises themselves, you can request I make a quick workout plan for you; however, I HIGHLY recommend you look online as well. There are some great sources, from buff dudes to Athlean-X. They all have plenty of good exercises to provide.

 

Tbh, your trainer is right, before adding some weight, hitting the gym would be kind of useless (FOR NOW).

I used to be quite skinny and wouldnt get bigger by hitting the gym 4 days a week, till a dad's friend of mine gave me advice. Eat big, get big. You may think well thats bullshit, i already eat big. Well then eat bigger. This is what I did, even when I wasnt hungry. If i really couldnt eat, i would chug down a lot of whole milk. By the 1st month, you could tell i had gotten bigger, + i didn't hit the gym. The only sport I did at the time was MMA and other fighting martial arts. If you want i can show you pictures of the skinny to bulked I did, and then the cutting down process.

Oh and if you're wondering, well what did you eat?
Fucking everything I can get my hands on, papa johns, dominos, anything there was for dinner, etc. (inb4 health police after my ass).

You got my Skype I think, ask me for pics if interested.

 

eat over maintenance

plenty of calculators to determine maintenance, eat 500 above it and gain weight

www.myfitnesspal.com

 

I've been trying to gain weight for football season. What I did was work out a lot and eat a lot of white rice, I literally gained 10 pounds in 1 month from this.

 

Rice and meat is the best gainer.

 

Here's a real basic guide to slowing gaining weight and getting toned.

1. Wake up and do 50 pushups. (If you can't do 50, slowiy build uop)
2. Try and start eating 5 raw eggs after doing pushups +glass of water and some fruit and carbs
3. Try and work in 25-50 pushups as often throughout the day as you can
4. Put up a pull up bar in your doorway and do 5-10 pullups/chinups every time you go through the door way.

Your chest and upper body will start becoming larger.

5. Work in some home leg work outs with dumb bells.

 

Start eating 4 times per day , eat 2,5g protein per ur weight kg. Eat before going sleep protein and some carbs. Go into the gym forums u get help from there