[Maestro91]

Ive been going to the gym solidly 3 times a week for 5 months now, I'm stronger, healthier, more attractive.
but ive only gained 2kg, thats the difference between weighing myself before and after a large meal.
ive started mixing protien shakes with milk instead of water for the extra calories, eat more in general, but i eat healthy, i prepare my own food because i dont trust the negative effect processed meals have on your body (high salt, high saturated fat, high low density cholesterol, high sugar)

So, what do you guys do when youre bulking/gaining wight?

[aeroektar]

Potatoes (I eat them with brocolli and carrots, I like them roasted, bathed in avocado oil) with dinner most nights, that's what pushed me over the edge so I could finally start putting on weight. You just need to find a calorie dense food to add on top of everything else your already eating.

[AcftW]

Just have to eat more, it sucks especially in the beginning when you aren’t used to consuming so much.

I always add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to my protein shakes for 240 extra calories, and eat a few spoonfuls of peanut butter or cashew butter in between meals washed down with milk for several hundred extra calories.

Eating “healthy” as you say is probably holding you back.

[Ethan Hunt]

(05-23-2018 08:27 AM)AcftW Wrote:  

Just have to eat more, it sucks especially in the beginning when you aren’t used to consuming so much.

I always add a couple tablespoons of olive oil to my protein shakes for 240 extra calories, and eat a few spoonfuls of peanut butter or cashew butter in between meals washed down with milk for several hundred extra calories.

Eating “healthy” as you say is probably holding you back.

This, basically.

Olive oil,

Peanut butter,

Cashew butter,

Milk.

All down to one thing, additional fat consumption. There is more calories Lb for Lb in Fat than in protein of carbs. Liquid fat is an easy stealthy way to consume calories without realising it.

[nola]

This is a bit controversial so I'm sure I might get some shit for posting this but here ya go.

https://stronglifts.com/gomad-milk-squat...in-weight/

Many times when I would get back from long deployments I would be very skinny especially when I got back from North Africa. I used to drink a gallon plus of whole milk per day plus lots of peanut butter, rice, chicken, eggs and tuna. I have a naturally high metabolism even in my 30's.

I would eat 2g - 3g of protein per lb of body-weight daily plus eating between 4000 - 5000 kcals per day. And no it's not easy, it would take my body a couple of weeks to adjust to this level of food intake.

Only thing different I did which is illegal in some countries is I was injecting Testosterone. I'm not advocating this but I'm saying it because I don't know what this diet would result in minus the test in my personal experience.

I didn't use any other supplements other than a multi-v and whey protein powders.

[General Stalin]

Eat more food.

An easy way to get in more calories is make hardy smoothies: whole milk, peanut butter, whey protein powder, greek yogurt, banana.

[Belgrano]

The solution is simple. You have to eat like a madman.

You think you're eating enough, but you're not. I had the exact same problem, lifting hard, getting enough sleep, eating healthily, hardly any progress.

So I started to track my calories, and unsurprisingly it was not nearly as much as I thought. Use one of the many calculators on the internet to get a rough idea about your body's base consumption. If you eat less than that or just about hit that target, you're not going to grow much. You need to eat significantly more than that, your muscles need fuel.

Now I'm aiming for at least 3000 calories per day no matter what, and suddenly my gains are starting to show. I bought some weight gainer too, it's convenient, cheap and seems to help, since generally speaking I'm not a very hungry person or feel like eating a lot.
Example day for me:

1 x Protein shake (milk, protein powder, oats, peanut butter)
1 x Weight gainer shake (milk, weight gainer, oats, peanut butter)
1 x Pasta meal (250g tortellini, 125g feta cheese, thick layer of parmigiano cheese, then drown everything in olive oil)
1 x Normal meal (potatoes, roasted vegetables, drown both in olive oil, 125g of Mozzarella cheese, 3-6 fried eggs, sour cream)
1 x Snacking on a generous amount of roasted, salted peanuts
1 x moderate piece of dark chocolate (85%)

I prepare all of my meals myself at home. Saves money and I know what I eat.

My protein intake is the only thing I watch (to get enough), I have stopped to give a shit about carbs and fat for now. Yes, I'm getting a little fatter, but all my lifts keep improving (a lot), I can finally see my triceps, my legs are getting huge, etc., so who the fuck cares about that. Can always cut later.

If you are worried about health and clean eating, I also got my blood work done two weeks ago and it is fucking perfect.

If you lift like a beast, get enough sleep, all that's left to do is eat, eat and eat some more. Eat!

[LexisNexis]

If you've gotten reliably stronger then perhaps you don't need to worry about not enough weight gained and have in fact successfully recomped

[AcftW]

(05-23-2018 09:23 AM)Ethan Hunt Wrote:  

Olive oil,

Peanut butter,

Cashew butter,

Milk.

All down to one thing, additional fat consumption. There is more calories Lb for Lb in Fat than in protein of carbs. Liquid fat is an easy stealthy way to consume calories without realising it.

Yeah I should have elaborated on the eating healthy comment. People associate “fat” with “bad”, and generally don’t consume enough calories. Fat is the best way to gain.

[RexImperator]

Quote:

The solution is simple. You have to eat like a madman.

Everyone’s metabolism is different. For guys like me, gaining weight is easy and comes naturally. Thinking of it as “bulking” is a bad idea- just lift heavy weights and I’ll naturally be hungrier. Just hit those protein requirements, and only allow yourself to eat more if you are stuck in a progression.

[sterling_archer]

OP, like a fellow newbie on a path to getting strong and big, here are some of my insights.

Even though I am skinny fat, I struggled for some time to actually gain weight. I was always either fluctuating around maintenance level or being slightly lower but since I started starting strength 5 weeks ago, I increased my food intake. That being said, I am tracking my food in My Fitness Pal for over a year.
I begun over a year ago because I wanted to lose excess fat (which I did) and decided to keep tracking it in the future. Cannot praise it enough. The caveat is that you will need to spend some time establishing your own personal food database in MFP so you can add them to your diary. That approach is better than using existing food database which can be off in calories, even underestimating them a lot.

Second, weigh yourself each day on empty stomach and bladder and put your weight in the excel spreadsheet. Organize spreadsheet into 7 days a week and one column next to it that will calculate average weekly weight.
When you fill in two weeks worth of data, you can easily see difference between current week average weight and previous week one and according to this up caloric intake or lower it. I aim for getting up to 0,4 kg of weight weekly.

Third, you will feel when you are starting to eat more than usual. You will constantly feel full, especially if you eat foods full of protein. You must endure that. Just now, I am relaxing on computer after my last meal of the day. I feel like a sack of potato, especially since I gave everything in the gym in the morning. It is definitely unusual state being like this, but at the end it is worth it.

[LINUX]

The easiest and laziest way is to buy a crockpot. Cycle brunswick stew and homemade 97% beef chili with lentils in your crock pot every three days. Eat food from your crockpot every 3 hours. Cook it and keep it on warm stetting.

As you learn to make your own meals with high protein and low glycemic vegetables , you can variate and make your own soups, stews, etc.

[PBX]

OP... if you want to get serious:

- Calculate the caloric intake you will need every day to gain around 1 pound per week (realistic goal for most folks imo).
- Just eat until you hit your daily target. Or more.
- If you haven't gained at least a pound by the end of the week, make sure to increase your daily caloric intake accordingly.

And if you want to get really serious:

- In case you are behind on your weight gain goals by Wednesday, drink 1 liter of milk after each meal until Sunday.

Went from 82 kg to 95 kg using this method within just a few weeks in early 2016 and as I was lifting weights daily - and probably also due to genetics - did not even turn out that fat in the end but did in fact build some solid muscle. The key is that you limit the amount of crap you eat and that you consume a lot of protein.

[Maestro91]

To clarify what i meant by "healthy" i try to make everything with fresh ingredients, why buy something for three times the price when its going to be full of preservatives and colorants and god knows what when you can make it for yourself. I try to avoid carbonated drinks, Id rather eat an orange (62kcal) than a chocolate bar (300kcal)

that being said, i dont have any irrational fears about butter or oil.

I do struggle to eat enough, there have been a few nights in the past few weeks when ive been tracking calories that ive felt like i couldnt eat anything else but still need those extra couple of hundred to reach my target 3,200, which is to gain 0.5 pounds a week, not 1 pound. so maybe i should raise that...

For now i think im going to take some of the milk advice, i dont think ill make a gallon a day but more of it in my diet will boost calories, and try to push in a bit extra olive oil here and there.
i need to start baking again

[kinjutsu]

A lot of the time when people struggle to put on weight in terms of building muscle they just say "eat more food". This is basically general advice that works for most but not for all especially the people who don't naturally eat a lot of food per meal.
I think this is mainly because these people have smaller stomachs therefore they feel full faster and cannot naturally eat massive amounts per meal.
And while yes they need to force feed themselves over the long term they begin to hate the act of eating. It doesn't encourage the person to stick with the diet plan when every time they eat they have a sense of dread.

Years ago i struggled a lot with being able to eat enough to put on size. I'm also cursed with a small stomach and a narrow esophagus (I choke on food fairly easily unless i thoroughly chew it and drink lots of water) I have to eat slowly or i run the risk of choking on food. On average i would spend 6hrs eating per day...thats not sustainable if i want to keep my size but also go to school, work, etc

My solution is to throw the food in a blender and add water.
Gross? Yes probably.
Effective? Yes very effective.

It doesn't have to be some variation of "oats, peanut butter, bananas, protein powder" that everybody else uses within the terms of "blending".
I do this with the majority of my food. I make stews and sauce heavy dishes. Depending on my schedule that day i could end up blending all of my meals or only 2 or them.

[Shimmy]

I was crazy skinny when I was younger. I used to drink a weight gainer shake every day for breakfast (it's like protein powder but loaded with calories). Before doing this I would try to eat more real food such as the calorie dense foods people mentioned here. Many foods can be eaten with peant butter. I put it in my oatmeal, peanut butter and banana, pb&j, protein shakes, etc. Also eating faster allows you to eat more food before you're full.

[ProGambler]

You need to be 300-400 calories over maintenance and hitting 2g protein/kg of body weight. Your gains so far aren't bad. Getting enough sleep is also a huge factor.

[flanders]

Buy several loaves of bread per week and try to smash one heavy duty PB&J sandwich with a glass of whole milk every two waking hours. Really slather that shit on there. You want to be averaging five sandwiches a day or more. If you want to swap jelly for nutella, that's OK.

If you have to go somewhere, bring a duffel bag with bread, jelly, peanut butter, and butter knives so you can eat on the go. Borrowed this tip from Dan John.

[Mig Picante]

You could try adding casein protein powder before bed, so you are topped up overnight.

You could also try adding a fibre supplement a couple of times a week in order to digest more.

[Ringo]

For the amount of time you've been lifting, that's not bad.

But here's something to consider.

If you're a skinny bastard (like me), don't be afraid to throw some junk in your diet.

For all of my life I've been extremely health conscious. Never enjoyed eating fast food or processed crap. Always healthy, very clean eating, with the occasional weekly serving of ice cream.

That served me well - I'm super healthy and went from 67kg to about 80kg over five years. I plateaud at 80kg.

Last year I started living with a guy who was very knowledgeable on bodybuilding and he told me to add more "unhealthy" foods to my diet. "Gotta get those calories in".

It's funny because I'd been logging my diet into MFP for years and at some points was eating 5000cals/day and not gaining weight.

For some reason, if I eat dirtier, even with lower calories, I gain weight. That's a good thing though, if you're naturally lean and skinny.

So now when I'm working out a lot and doing martial arts, I always try to add some bullshit to my daily diet, despite the screams and yells from the rational side of my brain.

A few scoops of ice cream, or chocolate covered crackers, or double/triple servings of peanut butter, or a huge plate of pasta with olive oil. I don't add too much so I can curb the negatives: bad skin, digestion issues, etc.

I'm now hovering around 83kg, as lean if not leaner, and definitely bigger - keep in mind, the total of calories is lower than what I was eating before.

Go figure...

[Steelex]

Eat what you normally eat, but add 1 large pizza to your lunch.