How I Gained 30+ Pounds Of Mass

How I Gained 30+ Pounds Of Mass

“The Secret of Change Is to Focus All of Your Energy, Not on Fighting the Old, But on Building the New” – Socrates

The Problem

While the majority of us suffer from the problem of losing weight there are those individuals that want to gain weight. These individuals have been skinny for the majority of their lives and want to add mass and size in order to become better versions of themselves.

As a former skinny person who was thin for the majority of my adolescent life, I always felt like the smallest person in the room. When I would look into the mirror I would always see an underwhelming body missing the shape and curves of definition. I struggled to find clothes that were small enough to fit my frame because men’s sizes only go so small. My size was in between a small man and a large adolescent. Very difficult to find. All of these would have big impacts on my self-confidence. I knew that the body I had was not up to par and it would hurt me inside that I was missing out.

As easy as it may seem, gaining the weight is a difficult task if not managed or executed the proper way. When I first tried to put on the pounds I had no idea how much I should be eating or what foods should make up my diet. As such, I would blindly eat everything in my sight. When I saw no immediate increase in my weight after the first few weeks I ate, even more, calories and anything or everything. Suddenly I started to get bloated and fat. Rather than putting on muscle and mass in the right places, I was putting on fat in all of the wrong places. I soon turned into skinny fat. This put me in a much more self-conscious state than before. Altogether, I had no idea what I was doing and so I abandoned the goal and shrank back down to my original weight and build.

It would be years until I would try again. This time I approached it from a pure numbers perspective. I measured and calculated everything. I also figured out an ideal training program that helped to build muscle in the right places and relatively minimize the fat gain. However, this took time and a lot of adjustments. I was only able to identify the best diet after months of borrowing diets from the internet, tweaking and scraping what didn’t work. Similarly, I was able to identify the ideal training program by borrowing exercises and advice from fitness blogs and youtube. Through months of trial and error, I came up with the ideal diet and training program that met my basic criteria of:

1. Sustainable
2. Reproducible
3. Scalable.

Sustainable is the ability to eat and repeat for weeks and months. When you take on a long-term goal of gaining mass you need a diet and workout that you can stick to, will yield frequent and tangible results and something that you will get bored off easily.

Reproducible is the ability to easily re-create meals in your diet and follow a training program without having to constantly refer to guides. In any location away from your home or in any foreign gym, you should be able to stick to your routine. This will help you immensely during vacations or travel when it is easy to veer off course and break your routine.

Scalability is the ability to modify your diet or program to increase or decrease a variable in order to meet your goals, schedule or lifestyle. Your diet should be designed so that you can easily adjust the ratios of fats, proteins or carbohydrates based on heavy days or light days in the gym. Conversely, your training program should be adjustable so that you can defer, substitute or add workouts on any given day. This will help you during vacations or during days where you have limited time in the gym. Limited progress is always better than no progress.

The hacks and principles listed below are what helped me gain the appropriate amount of mass in the shortest acceptable time frame, with limited health risks. The methods outlined before are what worked for me and the culmination of months of trial and error to determine what worked and how to make it easy to implement. They helped me gain over 30 pounds of muscle in a year without a lot of fat increase. I hope that they will serve you well.

Techniques I Used

1. Identify your BMR (Basal metabolic rate)
2. Identify your target weight
3. Calculate your targeted weight per month for the next x amount of months to reach 10 pounds
   • PRO TIPS:
     • Keep in mind that every 3500 calories = 1 pound. Every 10 pounds = 1 clothing size
     • A safe rate of weight increase is 1-2 pounds per month. This is 3500-7000 additional calories above your BMR over 30 days. This is 120-230 additional calories per night
     • Make sure that your targeted weight is not greater than 10 pounds for the first year. Beyond 10 pounds is very difficult to manage or lose in case your diet or program goes wrong
4. Create a meal plan for the weekdays that includes a meal for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and post-workout. Ensure that each meal has a protein, fat and carbohydrate component
   • PRO TIPS:
     • Each meal should be sustainable, repeatable and scalable.
     • For proteins, choose a low or medium fatty meat source. Good examples are: Chicken, Turkey or Fish
     • For fats, use oils and nuts. They are easiest to consume and are the most cost-effective
     • For carbohydrates, use a mixture of complex and simple carbohydrates. For example, brown rice vs white rice. Include sweet potatoes and yams or beans.
     • Post-workout meals should be a quick source of calories and proteins. I use a protein shake with whole milk and a small teaspoon of olive oil.
     • Avoid drinking your calories. Do not substitute meals with olive oil or melted butter chugs.
     • Avoid weight gainer shakes. They have large amounts of sugars and will not give you your daily vitamins, fibers, and nutrients
5. Track the calories that you eat each day. Similar to losing weight, not measuring or sticking to the numbers will result in unwanted weight gain or loss
6. Do not worry if you do not hit your calorie goal for a day. Do not try to overcompensate by cramming in a meal right before bed. One day of under eating will not result in much weight loss. This is about the cumulative gains not the individual gains on a day to day basis.
7. Identify a strength training program that includes the major compound lifts: Deadlift, Bench, Squat and Overhead Press
   • PRO TIPS:
     • Starting Strength 5×5 or Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 are good beginner programs that target the major compound lifts and include accessory work
8. Fill in the gaps of the strength training program with accessory lifts to build support muscles and those not targeted by the major compound lifts. For example, on push days (bench press or overhead press) it is good to work pushing muscles like shoulders and triceps. It is also good to work supporting muscles like glutes and the core.
   • PRO TIPS:
     • For push days (bench or overhead press) do the alternate exercise that is not your major lift as an accessory movement. For example, on bench day do overhead press after your bench press. On overhead press do bench press after.
     • Same applies to pull days (deadlift). Do barbell rows as your alternate accessory movement
     • Leave squats alone. They will drain most of your energy and concentrate on volume (number of reps and sets)
9. Take a before picture
10. Every two weeks:
    • Take a picture
    • Take measurements (weight, body fat percentage, height, chest/arm/thigh/waist measurements)
    • Evaluate your numbers to determine if you need to lower or increase your calories

Guiding Principles

• Make sure your diet is: sustainable, scalable and repeatable
• Make sure your training program is: sustainable, scalable and repeatable
• Measure and track everything. Weight lifted body weight, BMI, BMR, body measurements. “If it can be tracked. It can be measured”
• Eat whole food. Do not drink your calories. Your growing body needs more than just calories. It needs nutrients, fiber, vitamins and other benefits from whole food
• Track progress. You will see your body every day. It will be difficult to see progress through the mirror. You have to track the progress
• Keep the weight gain to 10 pounds per year. Anything more because too difficult to recover from in-case things go wrong. Anything over 10 pounds can also cause irreversible stretch marks because your body is growing faster than it can adapt
• Enjoy the progress. Focus less on the goal and more on the journey. As your body changes, enjoy the newfound confidence and body. Becoming comfortable in your new body is also a process and takes time.

Benefits

As you gain the weight and reach your goal, your body will start to fill out. Enjoy this process and adapt as necessary. You will have to buy a new wardrobe and even change your clothing style. Certain clothes only look good on skinny people, while certain clothes are more flattering for developed people. The good news is that you will now be able to shop in the large or x-large section which means more options at cheaper prices (sometimes). Your self-confidence also stands to dramatically increase. Either by enjoying the way you look in the mirror or the increase in testosterone, you will be more confident in your abilities and will be able to approach new situations without fear. Your diet and training program will be a disciplined part of your life and will allow you to sustain your new body and progress or regress if necessary. Lastly, if you adhere to the principles and hacks in this article you will have a well-balanced body that is not top heavy or bloated. It will have taken a bit longer but it will a body you can be proud of and sustain, rather than a quick and ugly increase in overall weight.

How Do You Put On Mass?

What I’ve shared above are tactics and techniques that have worked for me, however, I am still constantly trying to refine the bulk-up process as I do this every winter. I would love to hear what tactics or techniques have worked well for you. Feel free to comment below with an example or identify an area I might have missed. Please share so we can learn and possibly incorporate ourselves.

Original article and pictures take i2.wp.com site