Gaining weight is a full-time job – NOT a hobby.
At IFAST, we've got a slew of high-school football players whose goal is to get bigger and stronger for the upcoming season. Some are moving from defensive back to linebacker while others are moving from linebacker to the defensive line.
The goal is simple, to get as big and strong as possible while not getting hopelessly fat, bloated, and unathletic along the way. While many of you reading this may be past your athletic glory days, your goals are somewhat similar – you still want to get bigger and stronger.
Here's how we can help.
As we stated up front, if you're serious about getting bigger and stronger, it isn't something that just happens on its own like, say, hair on your Johnson. You have to be dedicated and focused on your goal.
Once you've declared getting bigger/stronger as your goal, how do you do it? Let's start with some practical strategies that we use.
Start the process by taking a picture of yourself without a shirt on and print out 4-5 copies. Place this picture all over the place (on your mirror, in your training log, in front of your computer, etc.) If you're serious about gaining muscle and size, this constant reminder will improve your focus and cement this goal in your brain.
Now it's time to get your mind right. If we hear one more person call himself a hardgainer, we're going to vomit. At the end of the day, lack of size/development comes down to a few basic themes:
Stop telling yourself you're a hardgainer – it's a cop out! Take a critical look at your training and evaluate it; which of the three themes aren't you doing well enough?
It's time to stop making excuses and start getting serious. Figure out what you're not doing well and address it. NOW. The most common issue with skinny guys, though, is food. We've heard it time and time again. We're sure you feel like you eat enough.
Reality check! If you're not putting on weight/size, you're not eating enough!
So if you're not eating enough, how do we get you there?
The following are some of the tools we use with our athletes to help them bulk up. We've had great success stories with them, including two young men who've already put on 20 pounds in less than 8 weeks! Not to mention the fact that if they can do it with school and other time constraints, you can do it as well!
The following are practical, real-world strategies. Some of you may read these and think, "I already know all this." Look, if you're already huge, then this doesn't really apply to you. Okay? And if you're not huge, but that's your goal, we don't care if you know it! The Internet is filled with people who "know" stuff.
The real question is, are you applying these real-world strategies?
Now that we've covered some of the practical tips, let's discuss some of the finer details like WHAT you should eat, along with some pretty tasty recipes we think you'll enjoy!
Breakfast should be a top priority if your goal is to bulk up. We should all know by now that breakfast literally means "break the fast," but how many of you are really taking the opportunity to fuel your body and prepare it for some serious growth?
The recipes below are two of our favorites.
A true mountain man may not have had all these ingredients, but he sure wishes he did. This is a quick and easy breakfast that's chock full of protein, nutrients, and high-quality calories.
This breakfast is a bit more time consuming, but it sure does taste good. If you want to make things a lot easier, triple the recipe so you'll have enough for 3 days instead of just one!
Eating a large meal before bed is one of the easiest ways to get in a lot of calories. A high calorie meal can often leave you feeling bloated with low energy if eaten during the day. Therefore, by cramming in a lot of food before going to sleep, you can tend to avoid some of these negative consequences. Below are a couple of meals to try.
The meal below is very healthy and versatile. We would highly recommend adding some rice and/or beans as well for some extra carbs.
And don't be shy about the oil – make sure to use plenty to get those extra calories in!
Healthy and high calorie!
While this works for breakfast, we really like this as a dinner entree as well.
Let's be honest, while the above meals are tasty, we need quality calories throughout the day if we want to add bulk.
Part of gaining weight is making it practical, and there's nothing more practical than easy to make shakes and snacks!
It's not always easy or convenient to eat multiple times a day so it's important to keep portable snacks with you. Shakes are great for this if you don't have time to sit down and eat and/or if you get full easily from whole food meals. As mentioned above, drinking your calories is also an easy way to avoid extreme fullness.
Hopefully you'll also understand that a blender is involved in creating all these!
This shake is very flexible. Try adding other fruits and nut butters. You can also add oats and/or pumpkin if you want some extra carbs.
And for when making a shake isn't practical, here's a recipe for a portable snack:
We've presented some easy and practical ways to get in more high-quality calories and fill out those s/medium T-shirts you like wearing to the clubs, but we also realize this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ideas about packing in the calories.
If you've got a killer meal, shake or snack, be sure to post it in the Livespill section!
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