want to gain weight need advice

[nj123]

I want to gain weight and i know yall say eat anything you can.. but i dont want to get fat.. should i eat high carbs and proteins and lift heavy with low reps and do no cardio? right now im 6'0 170

[CaliPump]

Honestly man if you want to gain weight i.e. bulk don't worry so much about putting on fat. People are always worried about putting on weight but gaining fat. Sure you are going to gain some but I am assuming that you would have low bf if you have difficulty gaining weight. I was once like you when I was about 19. What I found worked for me was about 5000 cals a day on a clean diet. By clean I mean lean meet, complex carbs and veggies. And tons of weight gainer protein powder. I used Twin LAbs 2500 and did the 4 scoops every day for the 2500 cals. So if you want to gain forget about fat and just gain. That is why you hear so much about cutting and bulking fases b/c you can't really do both.

[CaliPump]

You also might repost this in the diet forum.

[znak]

Your stats are exactly what mine were three years ago. I am now about 5% body fat and 210 lbs. (I am 47, so if you are younger things will happen even faster.)

Work out: heavy compound exercises- squat, deadlift, bench, seated military, weighted dips and weighted pull up. Add weight all the time. Work with a partner so you can safely do the last two or three. Form, form, form. If you are flopping around like a fish, take weight off, but put on the most YOU can do cleanly. Pay equal attention to the negative.

A year or two from now, you can do single joint exercises, but they really don't put on meat.

Diet: Six meals a day. NO junk. Plan ahead. Protein powder and Meal replacements are a must. Use creatine, water (1-2 gallons a day), glutamine and protein, the rest is hype.

Work out every other day. Like brushing your teeth, same time. Get eight hours sleep. When you're in the gym- work out. Six sets of ten for three of the exercises above should take you 45 minutes leaving 15 minutes for warm up and abs at the end. If you have enough weight on the bar and work out like this, you will be pretty close to puking by the time you leave from the intensity, but you will get results that you can see within two-three weeks. Keep adding weight and they will keep coming.

People will being going "wow" is two months and you will be a gym junkie is no time. I am not sure if a good pump is better than sex like Arnie said, but it beats the shit out of coke.

[DBarcelo]

I'm in the same situation. I'm 6' and 160 lbs. It's been a strugle to get to this weight. But now that I've figured things out, I'm putting on relatively quickly. I've gained 20 lbs in the last two months.

Work out heavy, but with enough reps that you can safely move up. Don't focus on the amount of weight and ignore your body. People with smaller builds tend to have smaller joints, less connective tissue, etc. I've injured myself and kept myself from being able to move forward at all.

Eat well, lots of protein, aminos, etc. I don't really recomend the weight gainers because they tend to be empty calaries. I gained weight using them, but I really had a gut after. Now I use Nepro. A small 8 oz can has over 400 cal. (I drink 4 a day). High in protein, lactose free, etc. It's made for people with kidney failure, but it can be used as a meal replacement, so it's well balanced.

Avoid sweating. Any activity that makes you sweat will work against you gaining weight. For example, basketball. I even work out with the room as cool as I can without risking injuring my joints. That way I won't sweat too much while working out.

And in general, just eating doesn't always do it. I've seen that posted all over the place on this site. When I was younger, that's what people kept telling me. For some people, eating doesn't do it. I would force myself to eat, all good healthful foods, but whatever my body didn't need, it wouldn't store, it would just get rid of it. I could gain 5 lbs in a day and then lose it when I went to the bathroom. My skin was like tissue paper, literally. It was like you could see through my skin to my muscles. I was working out. I was pretty strong. I had a nice build for a guy that was like 135 lbs. The point for all of that is just to say that just eating is not going to work for everyone, though it will work for the majority of people.

[Tuggy]

I would say if you are tht thin, just eat. Worry about the fat later. Its easier to get the fat off than to get the weight on for a hard gainer.

[Warrior]

I just talk to someone about this today. He wanted to know how to gain weight. Essentially, I told him a lot of the advice that was given in this thread - basically lots of compound movements with a boat load of food. If you think you won't be able to shove something down for a few hours and the only thing around is a tub of ice cream - eat it. Ectomorphs have to provide lots of calories for growth... more than other somotypes. And you can't build a house without bricks...

But guess what he did after I talked with him? Went and did some MACHINE upright rows, walked around a bit - then went home!

Sooo my little piece of this thread are these two words: APPLICATION and CONSISTENCY. You have to apply the advice given to you with the knowledge you read in books/mags and keep consistent with new goals.

[realityarts]

I want to gain weight and i know yall say eat anything you can.. but i dont want to get fat.. should i eat high carbs and proteins and lift heavy with low reps and do no cardio? right now im 6'0 170

Do a web search on "Anthony Ellis" and "Skinny." He's got a lot of tips.

In short, you have to consume more calories than you burn. Muscle is about 4X heavier than fat, so eat to fuel your muscles and always challenge your muscles in your workouts.

You are not yet 23 years old -- believe me, you'll one day try to keep the weight off.

Good luck with everything.

[bermich]

Here is proper advice.
First: Write down everything you eat daily for the next week.
Second: Go to a calorie calculator website and find out how many calories all those foods have. IE Eggs. 80 calories. PB&J sandwich: 200 calories.
Third. Add up all those calories for each day.
Fourth: Find out how many calories you burn on a daily basis. The website should ask you your weight and daily routine and age.
You might burn 3,000 calories just playing video games all day. If you are active, you might be burning 3500 cals a day.
This is why you dont gain weight. You might eat a lot one day, then the next you burn it all off again because you arent as hungry.

Fifth: By 3 tubs of wieght gainer. If you only buy one, you will use it all up and then you wont buy another for awhile and all that weight will be gone again by the time you get your next tub.
Sixth: Go back to your first weeks food log and add to it. It isnt good advice to start eating completely DIFFERENT FOODS right off. Your body will not like it and make you not hungry. Eventually subsitute the bad food for more of the good foods.

[DBarcelo]

As far as Realityarts' response, I'm in the same boat, and people used to always tell me that I would start to gain weight when I hit my twenties. I got there and I could still eat all day long and not gain weight. Then people said when I got to my mid twenties I would blow up, because I ate so much. I got there and still couldn't gain any weight. Then people said wait until you hit your thirties. I'm in my mid 30's and still can't put on any weight except for muscle. I was too young to realize how much of a blessing that actually is.

To comment on Bermich, keeping a record of your actual intake is very important. A lot of people just think they're eating enough, but when they actually look at it, they aren't eating as much as they thought. Or they eat a lot one day and hardly anything the next day. Figuring out how many calories you burn is very difficult, because everyone has a different basil metabolism (like Bermich wrote, some people can burn 3000 calories from just playing video games), but it's a good idea to try to get an round about figure. I generalize and suggest that you just avoid any activity that will cause you to sweat.

The only thing I disagree with Bermich about is going out and getting 3 tubs of weight gainer. One reason is that I'm just personally agianst weight gainers. They tend to bloat people's stomachs and they also tend to be full of empty calories. The sources of the calories, protiens, etc. are usually low quality also. But my main reason for disagreeing is because you should have an idea of how the shake tastes for starters. If you can't stand the taste of the stuff, you're just going to let it sit around and you're going to avoid drinking it. You may have a reaction to it. There could be something in it that will cause you to get light headed, dizzy, slugish, all kinds of things. In my opinion, it's best to get a small can or maybe even a single dose sample of the stuff to make sure you like it and you have no reaction to anything in it. Then go for it and get a couple big tubs of it if you want.

I personally suggest finding something that's designed to be a meal replacement. They tend to have better quality nutrients in them, because they are designed to sustain life and not just suppliment calorie intake. Down side is that you can expect to pay a lot more for it, upside, your body will be able to metabolize more of the nutrients.

[znak]

To comment on Bermich, keeping a record of your actual intake is very important. A lot of people just think they're eating enough, but when they actually look at it, they aren't eating as much as they thought. Or they eat a lot one day and hardly anything the next day.

If keep a record for two weeks you will have a baseline. Add 500 calories per day assuming that the calories were calculated when you were working out. More calories in than burned = weight gain.

I personally suggest finding something that's designed to be a meal replacement. They tend to have better quality nutrients in them, because they are designed to sustain life and not just suppliment calorie intake. Down side is that you can expect to pay a lot more for it, upside, your body will be able to metabolize more of the nutrients.[/QUOTE]

Agree big time. I weight 240 lbs (5% body fat) and thus, need to comsume at least 240 grams of protein a day, that is about nine cans of tuna. I work about 50 hours a week. Don't have that much time, but always have time for nonfat milk and Myoplex with a spoon full of Glutamine. (Yeah, I know, some people don't like EAS, but I like the taste.)

I think that the bottom line is that unless you are still at home with a Mom who cooks health food all the time, you will either be preparing food 24 hours a day, using some type of protein powder/mrp or will not be getting enough to eat.

[bermich]

Good point on the 3 tubs of weight gainer. I agree that I dont even like the taste of that stuff.
I think I just use the crap as a filler for when I dont wanna eat. I add ice cream to it to give it a nice cold smooth texture. Eggs also help with the calories.
My theory was basically buy enough of whatever so that you dont run out and then all your progress is haulted because you dont have anymore until the next shopping day or what not.
Good posts though