I’ve attempted bulking, 1 and 1/2 months in and very little progress. I eat a large amount every day aswell as taking in liquid calories but my metabolism is fucked and im putting on near to nothing. Was looking for advice? Pics aren’t the best
What weight have you gained in 6 weeks?
What does eating a lotnof food and liquid calories look like? What, for example, did you eat yesterday?
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How are you tracking your calories/macros?
You metabolism is not “fucked”. You are young. There is a difference. The good news is it is not a life long condition.
I would bet that you are falling foul of the 2 common diet pit falls. You are not trying to eat enough. IE you are aiming for 3000 calories and in reality you need 3500. And even if you are aiming for 3000, you are reaching 2500
I do this all the time. It takes a lot of effort to stay the course when it comes to food.
@dagill2 's question about about yesterdays food will help with that. Also let us know what you daily food goals are. Total calories and protein. Or if you have other way to help keep the bulk going.
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This ^^^
Eat more, whole foods, brown options over white (brown rice, brown pasta, brown bread). Plenty of healthy fats, nuts, olive oil.
How are you training?
Plus it’s been 6 weeks, what was you expecting?
I started exactly where you currently are, this is gonna be a long road.
Never failing to give credit where it’s due, it’s a Dan John question.
Like everyone’s saying, details are what we need.
- Starting weight, current weight. (Plus height and age [guessing teens?], for context)
- Daily diet specifics
- Training plan
- What’s your actual goal (and for the record, I don’t consider “get bigger” to be an actual goal. This explains why.)
Also, in just 6 weeks, what kind of progress were you expecting?
Those pics aren’t necessary because A - if they’re Before and After, they’re two different poses or B - if they’re both current, there’s nothing to compare them to. Take pics for your own progress, not for sharing until you’re
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Buy, read and follow the book “Super Squats”
If the $10 pricetag on kindle is overwhelming, I will buy you a copy of it IF you promise to read and follow the instructions of the book AND log all workouts/nutrition on the forum here.
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Naturally long clavicles, wide shoulders a nice bicep vein!
You’re starting at a great spot.
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Ok so, I didn’t actually weigh myself before so I have no clue how much I’ve gained. I also dont log what I eat which i will start doing
But I’m getting a decent amount of protein from meats and also drinking things like protein shakes. Eating loads of fish, rice, eggs stuff like that and im definitely putting on weight, its just really really slow progress
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Thats a mistake of mine, I havent been logging down what I’ve been eating. I’ve just been buying in a load of food which is high in protein and stuff and then eating a bunch of it, like a lot
But I will start
I will take this advice, I’ve definitely been trying to eat more whole foods - always eat brown bread now over my usual choice of white and brown rice
I train 3-4 times a week which might not be the best? I do weights/resistance twice and then the other day I do a big bodyweight session. Aim for like 100 push ups every day on top of this
Kinda what my mates have been saying, but it seems like they made a lot more progress than me. I havent been taking notes of what I’ve been eating which is a mistake on my behalf, but ive just been eating a load of protein (not sure how much, I will start keeping track and will update you) and then eating to the point where I’m completely full throughout the day, the point I literally can’t eat any more
If you’re actually definitely putting on weight (check it, don’t guess or rely on mirrors), then you’re golden. This is going to be slow, despite what Instagram tells you, drastic transformations take a long, long time.
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It should be slow. Unless you are hopping on gear or something a pound or 2 of lean body mass a month is really about all you can do at the best of times. Much more than that and your going to be adding more fat than you need to. On a positive note 5 to 10 pounds of actual lean tissue will make a huge impact on your appearance and performance.
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Log your food. There are lots of great apps out there, most are free.
If you can, buy a food scale so you can be as accurate as possible when tracking. You will soon realize you might not be eating as much as you think.
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I personally would change the way you are training, obviously more food is needed too but doing too much ineffective training is going to kill your progress.
At this stage of your gym life volume is not your friend.
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Interested in your thoughts here.
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This is for naturally skinny people who “can’t gain weight”…I’m sure it’s probably the same for majority of beginners but I only have experience of being the skinny guy!
When you are already struggling to eat enough, taxing the body with lots of un needed work is burning more cals when doing it and requires more cals to repair and grow. So finding the sweet spot of doing enough to grow and dropping all extra fluff can help keep the calorie demands down so you may actually finally be in a surplus! Eat more move less, as skinny people tend to naturally eat less and move more.
Also when beginners train with high volume I feel progress is harder to track and the goal of getting stronger gets lost.
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I dig this. Very Stuart McRobert’s “Brawn” or Super Squats. Both are pretty big on how, if you’re keeping volume low, you gotta make those 1-2 sets BIG sets. There is an issue where beginners simply don’t know HOW to push that hard, and having a buddy to oversee your training can help there, but the idea itself is sound.
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