I won’t.
I don’t have any good questions. I’ve read this board and many of the articles and, quite frankly, I’m all knowledged out. I’ve learned more here through browsing than I would in a couple of years in college. There are amazing resources here, and I find it hard to understand how one can HAVE questions after reading them. Everything is answered. (And the answer is “eat more” or “Eat more protein” for fellow newbies =) )
All I want to say is that reading this site has given me pure, hard, knowledge. And it’s given it to me hard. I get it. If I want to grow, I should eat. That sounds simple, but it’s NOT. I’m a guy who’s always been slim and always eaten “whatever he wants” but I never got big. After reading this site, I finally discovered I wasn’t eating. Well, I wasn’t eating ‘properly’ anyway. I thought I’d been eating but I hadn’t. I followed the links in one of the newbie threads about gaining mass, I did the calculations, and I worked out how much I needed to eat in order to grow. It was a LOT more than I was eating. But I’ve been doing it.
I’m not going to give you weight lifting numbers because I’m a newbie and they’re lame. You’ll just laugh. I will tell you that I’ve doubled pretty much every weight I’ve tried lifting in the last 6 weeks. Instead of giving you my weight numbers I’ll give you my… weight numbers
I’m 5’11
When I started lifting on 2 March I weighed 145lbs (65.8kg)
This is before I discovered food. Before I read the articles about how to gain weight. I’d read a bit about increasing protein, but nothing about hardcore increasing my input.
On March 26 I weighed 148lbs (67.9kg). I’d gained a bit. I’d been upping my protein (eggs and milk baby!) but I didn’t know how much I was eating.
About that time, I read the articles here about gaining weight and mass and muscles. So I started tracking my calorie and protein and etc. intake.
So from March 26th at (148lbs) 67.9kg I went to 72.2kg (159.2lbs) by April 16th. That’s 5kg in a month. I’m glad I learned how to monitor how much I am eating so that I can eat more. The gains I’ve made since I started ‘watching’ my weight are amazing. I’ve gone from “The Machinist” to… slightly less freaky than “The Machinist”.
On the gym side, every single day it is either higher weight or more reps. Not had a ‘fail’ day where neither happened yet.
As someone who would have regarded themselves as a ‘hard gainer’: I’d urge anyone else who feels the same to work out how many calories you need, then log your diet. You’re probably not eating enough. I always thought I ate enough until I started logging what I ate. Now I eat like 1,000 calories more than I did before. And I’m gaining. A lot. And, starting as slim as I was, it’s not making me look any fatter. It’s making me look BETTER. Random half-known folks are coming up to me and saying I look ‘healthy’ or ‘better’ or other bullshit. I’m just bigger, that’s all. I was underweight before (135lb when I started!) so it’s no wonder I look better.
Anyway, my plan: 80kg (176lbs) before the end of May. After that, well, onwards and upwards.