Help with Gaining Weight

I feel your pain, Wuchang. I am 5'6" and wiegh only 130lbs (with 7% body fat) no matter what I do. I do not like over eating and I have problems sticking to any kind of eating routines. I'm 29, I feel healthy and am comfortable with my wieght, but it took me years to get comfortable with it. I think when you finally realise that you don't have to have giant muscles or be huge to be a good martial artist or get chicks, you'll be a little more comfortable with your wieght as well. As long as you're healthy physically and mentally you'll do just fine. Good luck with your routine.

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There are many paths at the base of the mountain but all who reach it's peak see the same moon.

Try squats and milk. Squat heavy once a week, and drink a gallon of milk a day in addition to loads of other food. Gaining weight is simple. There is noone who will not gain weight if he consumes more calories than he expends.
Just like you can't assimilate air into your frame, you can't make calories disappear into thin air. So, keep a foodlog. Start with something like 3500calories/day for a week and see if you gain. If you don't, raise that by 500calories/day. At some point, you will start growing.

Then, keep your intake at that level. Don't worry about fat gain. You should be gaining more fat than muscle, but some fat gain is inevitable if you really want to make a major physique change.

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You only die once. But it lasts such a long time.-French proverb

To gain weight you have to eat more food. Lots more food.


Dont eat complete **** or you will get fat, and not stay lean(im assuming you are)

but, eating a little junk wont hurt because it will give you extra calories.

Try eating a lot of meats like steaks and burgers.

4,000 calories a day.

philip had some good points also.

Basically if you want to gain weight and not gaining, then you are not eating enough.I remember I wrote a post about year or so in here where I talked about High energy Requirements for martial artists.

Anyways basics of that post was to eat more protein to counter long catabolic state which martial artist's body gets into. It can be done in following manner.

eating protien
Small amount of protien about 1 hr before the exercise.
Exercise
Protien intake(in shakes)
Protien intake after 1 hr of exercise.
Protien intake after 4-6 hr.

regulate what kind of protein you eat(natural or supplement) the whole day.

Read more stuff from People Like John Berardi, Chris staley
-TkdWarrior-

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Weight Loss Help Center

Actually, it is not that easy. When I was young, until I got 30, I was skinny though eating EXTREME amounts of everything that should make you gain weight (chocolate, pizza, pasta, meat every day). Reason being, my guess, is that I simply didn't have enough testosteron if any, I also did not have a beard growing much.

I exploded in weight from a combination of lots of things then. Qigong, internal strength stuff kicking in (the usual very slow Taiji-like routine once a day, about 20min, taoist healing exercises ~ daoyin qigong), sorting out the inability to express aggression (successfully ), accepting fear, and other emotions, etc. Today I both gain weight and muscles quickly. It's enough to work a little with weights, and my forearms and muscles I work get much thicker in weeks. I did a lot of more weights in my youth, with no effect like this.

So in short, when it's a lack of hormones necessary for the masculin growth of muscles, you need to sort out the reasons. That has more to do with emotions not allowing to get all those little feelings, than with some "genetics" or other excuses. There will be a shift with age, normal for men, they generate more testosteron when getting older, towards 40. That's why elder bonobo monkeys get twice the size of the younger, they are Tysons in the age when they rule the pack and get leaders.

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"Fawning, but proud!" - (at least sometimes, in rare cases)
"Killing them all didn't make it any better..." - "Are you a freak or something ???" - Max Payne
"Theft is a crime, even in Iraq." - Me.

You may still be "growing" - burning up those calories filling out and thickening up.

If you are eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep (you wake up every morning without an alarm after having had as much sleep as you want) then, seriously, don't worry about it. The alternative is to force yourself to eat - go for it if you like, but it doesn't appeal, or seem all that healthy, to me.

I'm naturally lean but I do bulk when I put my mind to it - free weights, "olympic" lifts (three days a week, the standard instructions) and plenty of beer in the evenings. I can go up around 10kg, most of it muscle, over a year or 18 months... it's just I don't see a reason to bother.

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Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you
High mountains are a feeling
I don't need to sell my soul, he's already in me

was really my thought too. OK you might want to impress the other guys at the gym , but if your body is not very keen to be a specific shape and you are eating etc well, why force it? You'll get fat when you are older anyway



T

Hey I want to add to this.. I have a fast metabilism and always beeen skinny. Now i'm 20yrs old 6'2-6'2 1/2ft.tall and barely 165lbs . I found the perfect workout schedule and exercises is a HIT Program 3days a week. WOrks for me and seems to make the most sense out of everything else. Muscle needs to get hit hard to grow, but it needs to rest too, first of all DIET< you need to eat like a big cat, healthy food, eliminate junk food right away. High Proteins, High Calories, Healthy Fats, High Calories, spread out during the day , they recommend small meals instead of big meals .

I been trying to this out, and food is hard for me to get intake since I dont have a job and I have to depend on what my parents have at home currently, i cant wait to start working and eat some more thats the only way to grow.. Eating, WOrkin OUt, Restin..

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/hitworkout.htm

I just finish reading some stuff there too. I am going to start changing my diet.. Eating Natural stuff, not so called natural I mean real natural stuff. Lots of Fruits (Food that Grows or has a Parent"meat, fish, etc") .. Natural Peanut butter with whole wheat bread 100% good , Nuts(unsalted) good.

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Thank You
"Power is a result of the positive negative circles (of Taiji), understand the changing palms (of Bagua), and the lateral energy (of Xingyi)"
Wisdom: Man of Wisdom cannot be misled
Philosophy: Man of Philosophy has no worry
Courage: Man of courage has no fear

ok, there is one simple morcel of food you should add to your diet. this food is bread, bread is high in cals. and it helps with weight gain, it is acually recomended by my sifu to take bread (toast) out of my diet cause its fatning

Anything eaten in excess will cause a buildup of unspent calories that get converted to fat, not just bread. That being said, some people are more glycemically sensitive ( is that even a word? ) to certain foods. To properly gain weight, you need to eat the food that will help build the desired tissues. While the body can fabricate protein for muscle mass, it's also helpful to ingest some extra to help speed the process. And you will still need a healthy intake of carbs to fuel the workouts you should be doing while gaining weight.

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Always fear the man with nothing to lose
- J

Okay, lots of advice here, but few reasons and fewer numbers. My dietitian had this to say:

You're looking at about 45%-65% carb, 20%-35% fat, and 10-35% protein. This is very little protein compared to some diets, but it's important to keep in mind that you only need 1.7 gm/Kg while strength training. Too much protein can hinder your performance because protein (unlike fat or carbs) needs to suck water from the rest of the body to proccess. Part of the protein needs to be filtered in the Kidneys, and if there is overexcess there can also be kidney stones.

You're going to want to eat 44-50 kcal/Kg IBW daily. That's 44-50 calories per kilogram of your ideal bodyweight.

In addition your body needs carbs to fuel its workouts. If you spend an hour in the gym you can use about 5gm of carbs per Kg of your ideal bodyweight. However, if you're serious about gaining lean body mass and you train good and hard at the gym for more than two hours you may need as much as 7-12 gm of carbs per Kg of your ideal bodyweight over the next 24 hours of rest.

I hope that helps.

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"When you see a good move wait - look for a better one."
- Emanuel Lasker

Some good things there to apply.

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Always fear the man with nothing to lose
- J

“	Originally Posted By: joyseau Okay, lots of advice here, but few reasons and fewer numbers. My dietitian had this to say: You're looking at about 45%-65% carb, 20%-35% fat, and 10-35% protein. This is very little protein compared to some diets, but it's important to keep in mind that you only need 1.7 gm/Kg while strength training. Too much protein can hinder your performance because protein (unlike fat or carbs) needs to suck water from the rest of the body to proccess. Part of the protein needs to be filtered in the Kidneys, and if there is overexcess there can also be kidney stones. You're going to want to eat 44-50 kcal/Kg IBW daily. That's 44-50 calories per kilogram of your ideal bodyweight. In addition your body needs carbs to fuel its workouts. If you spend an hour in the gym you can use about 5gm of carbs per Kg of your ideal bodyweight. However, if you're serious about gaining lean body mass and you train good and hard at the gym for more than two hours you may need as much as 7-12 gm of carbs per Kg of your ideal bodyweight over the next 24 hours of rest. I hope that helps.	”

good advice, you can never forget or leave out the carbs when your training hard!! rest is important to, dont over train or you can go backwards.

On the whole you gota work with what you are given.

I'll put in a couple two three cents here...

First thing you might want to do is to talk to a medical professional. Speak with a registered dietician or nutritionist. This will help you steer clear of myth foods, and get right to the concept of why this or that food does this or that. Its worth a couple three visits, anyways.

Second, I wouldn't recommend implementing anything that is a "fad" diet. Try to implement something that will become part of your normal everyday meal plan. Don't try to do some kind of binge stuff, and don't do anything out of the ordinary. There are plenty of ideas floating about in the community, but not every one is safe, not every one is wise. You must find what works for you. What works for others may or may not work for you.

Third... why do you have to gain weight? Is it possible that instead of gaining weight, you might want to concentrate on training yourself to accept yourself as you are? Make self acceptance a part of your martial training. Bigger doesn't always mean better. Better comes with practice, not with eating. Train harder, eat right, and push what you have to the limit.

I think I could mention this, because it would probably have a common frame of reference. For example, take a martial artist like Bruce Lee. He was actually sort of a small fellow, compared to some folks. But did that mean that his martial arts were weak? Not at all. He trained hard, and he trained seriously.

You are biological created as you are, it would be my idea to accept who you are, and train harder. When your body is hungry, it will tell you. If you are always hungry, then eat.

In another few years, inevitably, your metabolism is going to slow down. That is a fact of unavoidable life. You are better off living just as you are, happy, healthy, and strong... than to try fiddling with "mother nature"... if you try to "play god" what is the gaurentee that you will ever find the results you are looking for?

But if you accept yourself as you are, you can move on from this quest, and achieve other levels of enlightenment in other areas.

I am 44 years old, and my metabolism has slowed considerable in just the last five years. You do not understand that you already have a gift that many people pay millions of dollars to achieve. You are not obese, you are not fat, you don't have an over-eating problem. Look around you in everyday life... look at how many truly obese people are walking the planet.

Do they truly look happy?

In a certain way, you are asking to be like them (sort of...)

Instead, look inside yourself, and figure out why you are unhappy with certain aspects of your life... it may be something deeply rooted that will take a lot of thought to figure out... I am not saying "unhappy" as in unhappy with life... but rather, you have pointed your own finger on an area of your life that you think is malfunctionaing... but in fact, millions of people would give billions of dollars to be just like you.

Find out what makes you you, and maybe others will come to you to find out how you do it... who knows what good can come from it.

A little different than what some folks think or write, but those are my opinions about this...



Fighting Gorilla

Thanks Fighting Gorilla and the rest of you all. I finally figured out that you guys are problably correct. I'm currently just trying to eat a meal extra a day and not skip any and I've currently redone my workouts where I'm trying to go farther and longer than the past. Its starting to show an impovement....thanx for all of your all's help

The new thing I've done to add some weight is by doing a weight lifting session twice a week where I do heavy lifting to major muscles and this has helped in my training and self goals.

appreciate the help