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+ 20 Are you a hardgainer? Having Trouble? READ THIS!!

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Hardgainer? Can't gain weight? READ THIS!!!

Diet is 75% of bulking up IMO. You can lift like Ronnie Coleman, but bottom line you will not grow any muscle without the calories behind it for bulking. Simple biology and one equation---->

Calorie balance=Calories in - Calorie expenditure

If you aren't gaining weight, you are not in a positive calorie balance so you need to either cut out all cardio, eat more, or both. Eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight; eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight. The kind of weight you gain or lose is dependent on your macronutrient breakdown, timing of meals, training, cardio, etc. Try adding up your calories using the links at the bottom of the page, many people who think they "eat all the time" actually eat under 3000 calories per day, which is very low for a bulking diet . Get used to eating frequently also, like every 3 hours tops. The only time I was hungry on my last bulker was right when I woke up in the morning. Remember: an appetite is not necessary to eat. You need to get used to eating what/when you MUST, not what/when you want.

There are two ways to bulk: A clean bulk (slower, but leaner gains) and a dirty bulk (faster gains, more fat storage if metabolism isn’t fast) The main difference is that on a clean bulk, you NEVER eat carbs and fats together. Milk is bad for this reason. Eating carbs and fats together causes almost all of the fat to get stored instead of used for energy. Don’t eat carbs in your last 2 meals of the day because they get stored as fat while you sleep. Eat at least 40g protein with every meal, and make meals either protein /fat or protein /carb.

PWO=Post Workout , the most anabolic (muscle building) time in anyone’s day is the half hour following a workout . It is best to use a fast-acting protein like Whey. Your muscles soak up protein like a sponge. It is also useful to eat twice as many carbs as protein to help shuttle the proteins to the muscles. The PWO shakes I use are

---50g Optimum Nutrition Whey
---50g Dextrose (Corn sugar, causes an insulin spike to increase absorption of protein )
---50g Maltodextrin (Powdered complex carb supplement )

Some people prefer to drop the maltodextrin and just do 100g of dextrose. Try both and see what works for you.

Eating approximately every 2.5 to 3 hours is good for 3 reasons…
1. You can eat more calories in a day if your meals are smaller. Its easier to eat 600 calorie meals 6 times a day then it is to eat 1200 calorie meals 3 times a day.
2. Your body can only digest so many calories at a meal, and the rest gets stored as fat. Lowering the amount of food eaten at one time reduces the “extra” over what you need.
3. Muscles start to catabolize (break down) if they are without protein for 3-4 hours unless you are sleeping. Hell, when I'm bulking I drink a milk/casein shake when I get up to piss at night.

**For all you 130-150 pounders thinking about taking steroids... **re-evaluate your diets. If you can't gain weight naturally, steroids aren't going to do anything for you except shrink your balls. Think about it... raw materials to form muscles have to come from somewhere right? They don't just appear out of thin air. Calories are the bricks that are building your house.

Try eating 300g protein , 400g carbs, and 150g fats.

You will grow.

A couple useful links

1) www.fitday.com <----Huge database of foods, can look up pro/fat/carbs and calories on them.

2) http://www.ntwrks.com/~mikev/chart1.html <------Basically the same

3) http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi41.htm <----- An equation that you
plug in your weight and bodyfat percentage and it will tell you how many calories you need to eat every day to grow.

If your diet is "all that and a bag of chips", and you STILL weigh 140 pounds dripping wet, either you have a SERIOUS thyroid problem or your training sucks. Remember "The Big 5" - Squat, Deadlift, Row, Bench, Military.

Logic Bomb's picture

This is good advice. I have been bulking but definitely not optimally. I seem to be hitting a plateau/barrier of weight gain at 135-138lbs (5ft 4in). No cardio training. Lift heavy weights. Strength is still improving, but not so much muscle mass. Any advice? Pound more protein shakes? I'd like to hit 145 before cycle this winter.

Makwa's picture

How many cals/day are you eating now? What is your macro split?

Logic Bomb's picture

Today's net calories was 3146. 289g protein. 183g fat. 225g carbs.

Makwa's picture

Looks good. How long have you been bulking for? Are you training for strength or hypertrophy? I noticed you said strength is increasing but not mass. May have to look into your workout routine. Two totally different types of workouts with strength vs hypertrophy.

Logic Bomb's picture

I'm absorbing 3 of your posts now, actually. And will definitely structure my new training regimen focused on hypertrophy. Thanks for pumping out all that free info. You rock.

Logic Bomb's picture

I've probably been primarily training strength. I'll comb through the training section of the forum and re-assess my training plan.

Been bulking for a few months and just started macro tracking a few days ago. the tracking 100% helps. using myplate app.

wanted's picture

maybe your burning to many calories at the gym and throughout your normal day compared to what your putting in. Maybe have to cut the gym days back

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Logic Bomb's picture

i haven't considered that before. i've been going at it hard and mostly doing HIIT weightlifting with supersets. I spend 5 or 6 days out of the week lifting weights. sometimes i'll extend my rest-day an extra day if I feel I need it.

for example, i'll start off with 5-3-1 benchpress, spending 3-4 minutes resting in-between sets, then jump into supersets of my other exercises and muscle groups for that day, spending little time resting in-between.

Maybe it is time to re-evaluate my training.

PhillyMelvin_Smelvin's picture

Fuck I just realized this thread was old AF!! Lol

JBsuperman's picture

Old AF but a lot of good info. I've found I can pick up a lot of good tips just by browsing through the various topics. I've learned a lot of good stuff in a very short period of time by doing this.

Jacked82's picture

I'd like to add, that while the general point is correct, there are a few things though that you listed that aren't always correct.
There are are a lot of different reasons for being a hard gainer and depending on the specific reason/reasons, a few things you listed will not be accurate.
... For example... Myself.
I spent years trying to gain weight, I am 6'2" and have naturally weighed 130-135lbs from age 17 to 30...I had been to doctors all over the place, specialists, nutritionists, trainers, etc... All of which basically followed the general rule of thumb (as you described above), but nothing worked.
.... I would gain or lose 10lbs a day like nothing, weigh 122lbs Monday morn, 135 Monday night, 126 Tuesday morn, 138 Tuesday night, and so on... Didn't matter how much I ate, my body adjusted to it... More I ate, the more I had to eat.
If I ate breakfast in the morn 3 hrs later I get shaky and will pass out if I don't eat again, then after that it just keeps going until I hit a point that I feel so hungry I could die but my stomach is literally gonna blow...
I'd have to sleep to shake the feeling, but upon waking I would be starving, feel completely empty, and somehow lost 8lbs in 6hrs sleeping! (and no I didn't go piss or shit or sweat it out)
No one could figure out why I'm like that... I also adjusted to the opposite... Say I skip breakfast, eat a burger at lunch but don't fill up, I then can skip dinner and pass out... Next day I can go almost all day, on a glass of milk and I don't lose any weight just stay round 135lbs.
....So after years of disappointment I finally got fed up with people thinking I'm a meth head, so I decided to do my own research, ended up going to school for kinesiology, exercise science, and nutrition ... I got active on any and all forums I could find that had any info I could use.
... But in school when learning about training clients who have medical issues like Diabetes or heart issues, I noticed how the general rules we all go by had to change to suit their specific ailments.
Obviously my metabolism is all sorts of jacked up, also I have heart disease, had a heart attack when I was 17, and I have a blood disease that causes clotting issues and it restricts the flow to my legs.
.... So I decided to try things my way just to see.... So I just started out eating between 4500-5kcal a day clean (which was hard as hell) began working out 5 days a week doing workouts i altered specifically for me and my body.
I put on roughly 20lbs in 2 weeks then plateaued... Was gaining strength but no weight.
I needed to up my calories but couldn't eat much more going clean so I decided to just eat whatever (within reason) to hit 6-7kcal a day.
Now here's the big thing about what you said about dirty bulk... You said don't eat carbs before bed because they'll turn to fat, and don't eat carbs and fats together... Lol
Well I differ from the norm, BIG TIME..
... I ate every 4hrs night and day set to an alarm. Between 900 1200 calories each time, I also specifically choose high carb foods... I wouldn't hardly touch it if I didn't get at least 60g of carbs from it.
... I had also had blood work done before my clean bulk, after, then after this one.
Doing this routine helped a lot, I put on another 15lbs in month but plateaued again.
... My Dr said he'd never seen anything like my results from tests... My cholesterol, was better on the fatty carb diet than clean, my blood cell count was better, test was higher, absolutely everything was better which was the complete opposite of what should have happened... Even my heart issues were almost non existent.
.... So I decided to take it up a notch since obviously food was my key need... I started eating every 2hrs, but smaller 500 or so cal.. But I also added an entire gallon of whole milk per day to the mix... Sometimes 2!
....now I'd say about 70% of my milk drinking comes between 10pm and 6am...and almost 2 months of that routine and I added another 15lbs...and not a damn ounce of fat on me... Not even joking, I got veins and vessels and striations popping out looking like a damn road map.
... So obviously the whole rule about carbs and fats at night is person specific... I have since got on a more regular eating pattern and consume about 4000cal per day when not on cycle, and 7-9kcal on cycle... But for the last 8 years not a day passes I haven't went through at least a gal of whole milk.
.... That is a shit ton of calories, sat fat, and carbs... And my blood work is always on point and still not an ounce of fat.
... I've even taken it as far as to go all out and carb load ungodly amounts before bed just to see... I've ate 4 packs of ramen, 4 pieces white bread, and 2 Dr peppers a night for 2 weeks just to see what those hollow carbs would do... Well I just woke up hr or 2 later starving and would eat more carbs, by morning I'd somehow lose 5 to 6lbs.
So sorry this is so long, just thought it's worth speaking about, I wish someone would have told me that it was possible when I was younger.

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BroTomato's picture

Great article! I appreciate the info.

uglyfox's picture

You don't need to get protein every 3 hours. Sure, meal timing is a thing, but gives marginal gains if we're not talking about extremities.

Makwa's picture

So what do you recommend then to stay in a positive nitrogen balance?

giardap's picture

Great article!

Makwa is right, protein is essential, unless you supplement correctly with Leucine/AA's between meals/around activity

Latest research suggests that fewer larger meals are better for us, in general, but to remain anabolic you've got to get protein or AA's in, particularly to prevent/minimise catabolism

Meal timing is irrelevant in a certain respect, but nutrient timing, thats the biggy

TheD's picture

Good info always getting back to the basics.

italygains's picture

The catabolism if you don't eat every 3 hours is a myth.

FamillyGuy's picture

Thanks for posting

mapro's picture

Thank you for the post, interesting info

Weider00's picture

Great info!

Lysergic's picture

Damn cool info , thanks a lot

Black Diesel's picture

AWESOME

ffx383's picture

That whole muscle catabolizing thing is a myth. Your muscles start catabolizing after 32 hours or so of fasting. Your body is still going to be breaking down protien from the day before. Also fat storage Only happens in a caloric surplus. Carbs don't make you fat unless your eating more than you burn, carbs make you store water which seems like your gaining fat. In fact dietary fat is more likely to be stored as fat in your body because it has 9 grams per calorie, much more efficient for your body. In fact eating carbs before you go to sleep can increase your gh dump at night.

MonkeyDoinSpORTS's picture

Thank you.

HydeMind's picture

Good read

shooter77's picture

I like the true mass that usually works for me plus lots of food

sutnov's picture

Printing this out, very interesting to read.

guitarplayer1's picture

"There are two ways to bulk: A clean bulk (slower, but leaner gains) and a dirty bulk (faster gains, more fat storage if metabolism isn’t fast) The main difference is that on a clean bulk, you NEVER eat carbs and fats together. Milk is bad for this reason. Eating carbs and fats together causes almost all of the fat to get stored instead of used for energy. Don’t eat carbs in your last 2 meals of the day because they get stored as fat while you sleep."

This is pure bs broscience. Never heard of not eating carbs and fats together. I eat all 3 together all day long. And the no carbs before bed is herpderp bs on a bulk. Hell I wake up in the middle of the night and eat carbs.

Unless your trying to cut then forget the broscience bs about eating carbs before bed.

Owes a Review × 1
ericnonaya's picture

i was thinking the same thing eating carbs and fats all day and night is the cornerstone of bulking lol. i also have been known to wake up and eat just about anything thats handy so i can get back in bed.

birdbear27's picture

Maximum broscience. A few good tips. But a lot of derp.

vegeta1's picture

He should have been more specific and said "sugar and fats."
The insulin response your body gets from eating sugar can trigger a higher amount of the fat that was eatin with the carbs to be stored as fat. So thats not bro science, thats just simple insulin knowledge.
Maybe the op just doesnt know that sugars are carbs too. He just used the word carb like it was just a general carb. So maybe he is just confused. But he is right.... also wrong too

jdgolf25's picture

I agree with you but i think this guy is shooting for a leaner type of diet and throwing in an occasional tip for the dirty bulkers out there. Me personally, I would never start out with clean bulking, i wont do clean bulk until im about 220 pounds. Eating like a horse is the key here for anyone new to bodybuilding.

Deadlifter85's picture

I agree, lots of bro science in there. I add 100g of carbs to my bed time shake when on a bulk and guess what.... I dont wake up fat lol. Carbs before bed spare muscle protein during the night. You get fat from eating too many calories overall and the wrong macro nutient breakdown. I also eat protein, fat and carbs together with all of my meals.

zealous's picture

The topic of gaining weight is a favorite of mine. I'm an ectomorph bean pole right now after losing 30 lbs of muscle after a break-up. But, whenever I'm doing research about gaining weight, people always recommend maltodextrin and dextrose, which are both corn derived which is GMO (genetically modified organism) and non-organic. Sometimes it seems that I'm the only one who understands that GM foods cause STERILITY, cancer, tumors, early death, genetically altered intestinal flora, that all the mice fed GM corn grew hair on their tongues, the rats were all sterile in the third and forth gerneation, had massive tumors all over their bodies, and lived much shorter than rats on organic grain, and it turned pigs stomach into mush. See the links below if you don't believe me. GM foods have been banned in most of Europe, Japan, and other countries as well, like India, so this isn't some conspiracy THEORY, it's a conspiracy FACT. GMO foods are soft kill biological weapons meant to cull the population and are produced by eugenicists and bio engineers at corporations such as Monsanto, the same company which brought us Agent Orange. I don't know about you, but I don't want a chemical weapons factory making my food.

Plus, all the whey I see everywhere is all from GM fed cows. And people wonder why is caner up %10,000 in the last 20 years???????

Double plus, Dr. Blaylock, the preeminent neurosurgeon researcher in neurotoxins and excitotoxins shows that any and all proteins in a concentrate or isolate form are excitotoxins resembling the neurotoxicity and molecular structure of the excitotoxin MSG (monosodiumglutamate).

My choice for protein is organic hemp powder, but I've yet to find a suitable organic non-GMO carb substitute, or dextrose substitute. Anyone out there know of any??

www.mnn.com/ green-tech/ research-innovations/ stories/ did-gmo-corn-give-these-mice-giant-tumors -
www.rt.com/news/monsanto-rats-tumor-france-531/ -
www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html
www.huffingtonpost.com/ jeffrey-smith/ genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html
www.naturalnews.com/ 040727_GMO_feed_severe_inflammation_pig_stomachs.html

chris225's picture

most underestimate the power of diet alone and turn to the next magic supplement or drug.

300's picture

nice stuff

pacop's picture

Good info, thanks

LexOne's picture

wow just what i was looking for, awesome post

All game's picture

I changed from deca to eq after reading about the awesome appetite increase eq will give you. It didn't work. I have no enjoyment of food this cycle. I'm thinking of scrapping this cycle early because I just can't eat. I'll try some of the ideas here but I don't have much hope. I'll probably go back to what worked. This is Week 10.....

Convict's picture

A lot of ppl that struggle to keep an appetite suffer from a mild case of anxiety in one way or another! Eq has a tendency to cause anxiety even in the happiest of ppl.. Normal guys that have never really had a problem with their appetite wouldn't really understand but the fact is.. Eq won't help an appetite for everybody! I've found that stress is the number one cause for losing ones appetite! Remove the stress from your life and things will fall into place...

Scuzzy's picture

I feel like if people don't already know this information about dieting, why the hell would they think about using gear. If you dont know the basics about nutrition and natural gaining, then I'm willing to bet you sure as hell don't know anything about using gear and more importantly using it correctly and in a safe manner.

Enyeart's picture

I typically like to get 40-60grams of protein per meal whether it be a real meal or shake. The whole debate about how much your body will be absorb will vary per person. I tend to believe most people overdo their protein intake. Using 1.5 grams per lb is very deceptive. 

It should be per 1.5-2 grams per LBM, not per lb of bodyweight. Your bodyfat doesn't benefit from your protein intake, therefore it's pretty much useless to feed something that won't break down the aminos.

skywalker's picture

Hardgainers need to do 20 minutes cardio a week this will help your bodies to absorb more macros.