T Nation

Cant Gain Weight

Bodybuilding
#1

Ok so maybe you hafe heard it all before, and probably way to often but here goes:

I am 18, 6’5 and only 150 pounds. I have tried different things in the past to gain weight but nothing seems to work. I am serious about gaining some weight but have not found anything to work as of yet. I recently found the pound’o week diet here on T-mag. I am thinking about trying this out for a while. Has anyone had good experience with this diet? Any others I should try instead? Another quick question is should I be eating 5 or 6 meals a day or 3 big ones. I have been told both. Recently a trainer told me because of my fast metabolism I should not eat 5 or 6 meals a day as that will just speed it up even more.

This forum is great. Thanks for the help so far on all the exercises.

#2

I have used “Massive Eating” with great success, it allows me to do whatever I want whether it’s losing weight or putting on fast lean body mass, just by adjusting the calories. The program gives the basic calorie guidelines, the rest is trial and error. If you aren’t gaining fast enough, up your calories and vice versa.

That trainer needs to go back to school. By eating more meals not only are keeping your metabolism up, but also keeping your body in an anabolic state, which is what you need to put on muscle mass. If you only eat three meals you are going to have calories that remain unused by the muscles and are stored as fat, that’s not the kind of weight gain you want.

#3

how often you eat will not have an effect on you matabolism, I know alot of people say it does but the most recent research I have seen was done(I don’t have it in front of me so bare w/me) w/ people consumeing the same amount of cals. in either 3 or 6 meals and there was no change in wt. or body comp between the groups, they also measured the stool of each group and again no difference, I think the reason you should eat 6x’s a day is because YOU NEED THE CALORIES. no cardio, relax as much as possible, and leave a day between workouts, stick to basic compound exercises. hope it helps. peace

#4

Come under my wing grasshopper…I was once in your shoes…at 6’5" and 160 pounds. Today at 31 I am 6’5" 250…so it can be done. You have to EAT bro…don’t worry about massive eating…your 18 and have lots of T running thru you…just EAT…everything. My favorite thing back then was a gallon of whole milk with protien powder mixed in…that I would sip from all day…aside from my meals. If it doesnt move…put it in your mouth…if it does…kill it then eat it. Lift heavy…and eat like a horse…as in 5000 calories a day…no joke…you want to get big…you gotta eat big. Dont worry about getting fat…at your age I doubt it will happen…so Micky D’s double bacon cheeseburgers…are GREAT! Anything you can shove in your mouth…is great!

#5

my take on massive eating is that it is effective for gaining quality lbm as opposed to the eat everything in site approach. The problem is it can be challenging to eat enough under the massive eating approach. So if you are a young skinnny “hardgainer,” then you already struggle eating a lot, so dont make things even harder for yourself, with the massive protocol

#6

Go with the eat everything approach for now.I started at 6’6" and 140 at 18 and got to 255 in a few months like that (Yes, lean) and now, 10 years later, am at 6’7" and around 300.
Forget massive eating or anything that regiments you too mush. When you start putting on fat too handily, switch to a “diet”

#7

Three words: Ben And Jerry’s. At one point, I would eat like a horse and not gain an ounce. Then someone gave me the following advise: Eat throughout the day as you normally do and end your evening (seven days a week) w/ an entire pint of B & J’s. The good stuff. The stuff that carries 1200-1500 calories in each pint. In three months, I put on 30 lbs and stopped w/ the B & J supplement. I continued putting on an additional 20 lbs 'cause my normal had eating increased. Then I started to regulate my diet/cals to maintain. Haven’t had ice cream since. Good luck.