Hey guys,
Check out this YouTube message I got a little while ago:
Subject: Gaining Weight
Hey I have watched a couple of your videos and have a few questions. I have an incredibly hard time gaining weight..I'm almost 6'4 and 122 pounds (18 years old) so I'm very skinny for my height. I've been eating 3000-3500 calories daily, including 2 protein/gainer shakes in between meals, lifting weights every other day, and taking supplements.
After gaining about 7 pounds in a little over a month (yeah I was at 115), I haven't been able to gain any more weight at all. What can I do now?
Should I be eating all that protein you suggested each meal even though i'm taking in 100g/protein from the shakes?
All that I have become recently is all muscly but still kind of just skinny so I have been eating a decent portion of good fats along with a lot of protein. Any advise would be great, I don't know what I'm doing wrong?
Thx
Pakmule….
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Do you have a burning question or even a few BURNING questions like this that you feel is holding you back from see results you want?
If you do, then you NEED to read today’s blog post to see how you can get ALL of your BURNING questions answered by me 1 on 1.
But first things first back to the message I got from one of my YouTube subscribers (PakMule…) we’ll call him Pakmule because he didn’t leave his name in the message.
The first thing I should say is that based on what Pakmule told me I won’t be able to pin-point the problem unless I was able to ask him some specific questions like what his meals consist of, how often did he eat each day, how is he working out, etc.
But based on what he told me I can give him some tips that should help him build more muscle and gain more weight.
So PakMule here are some tips to get you out of your rut and seeing results fairly quickly.
Gain Weight Tip #1 - You Need to Consume MORE Calories Each Day
Yes, you’re right, being 6’ 4 and 122 lbs is incredibly light for your height which leads me to think that you have an incredibly fast metabolism. And the best way to defeat your fast metabolism is through your diet.
It sounds like you already know this and you’re on the right track by consuming those 3000 – 3500 calories each day. The fact that you gained 7 pounds and then stopped indicates that your body has hit a plateau. Remember, in order to gain weight and build muscle you have to consume MORE calories than your body burns each day.
When you plateau it simply means that you’ve built up the MAXIMUM amount of muscle that your diet will allow. Think of it this way: when your body was at 115lbs it burned 2000 calories in order to get through each day. So in order to gain muscle you need to consume above and beyond those 2000 calories if you want to build muscle.
So let’s say after a few weeks you consumed an extra 1,000 calories per day by consuming a total of 3,000 calories each day you built 7 lbs of muscle. Well guess what, here’s something that most guys don’t realize. Your muscles burn energy. Your muscles AREN’T like fat that just sits there. Your muscles are actually living tissue that needs energy (calories) to sustain itself.
Just to show you how this all works, lets say 1 lb of muscle burns 50 calories to sustain itself. So for every pound of muscle you gain your body burns an extra 50 calories each day to sustain itself and also to sustain your new muscle gains.
As you could imagine after you’ve gained a certain amount of muscle, those extra 1,000 calories you were consuming before aren’t EXTRA anymore. Your body now NEEDS those EXTRA 1,000 calories to SUSTAIN itself and your new muscle gains.
And once this happens (your body catches up to your diet) if you want to build muscle after this point you’re going to have to consume above and beyond those 3,000 calories that your body is currently burning each day.
So what I recommend you do is to begin consuming 3500 – 4000 calories each day (essentially increase your daily caloric intake by 500 calories) until you start seeing extra muscle growth and you bust out of that plateau. If you don’t see any results after 10 – 14 days then increase your intake again by another 500 calories until you start to see new muscle growth.
Gain Weight Tip #2 - Your Calories Should Come From The Right Sources
I just wanted to expand on nutrition a little bit more because I know how important it is and how many guys (including myself when I started out) struggle with this.
I’m glad to see that you already know that in order to gain weight you have to increase your daily caloric intake (consume more calories each day). But it also depends on where those extra calories are coming from.
Let’s say for example all of your calories came from fast acting carbs and fats (like chips, soda and junk food) then instead of building muscle you’ll be gaining mostly if not all fat.
But if the majority of your calories are from lean meats and whole grains like (lean chicken breast and whole wheat bread) then the majority of your gains will be muscle gains.
I’m not sure what your diet consists of, I’d need to talk with you 1-on-1 and ask you a few specific questions, just know that it does depend on WHERE these calories come from as well. 3,000 calories from chips and soda is WAYYYY different from 3,000 calories from sources like chicken breast and whole wheat bread.
In addition to that I recommend you use the 30 / 40 / 30 nutrient ratio. I know it may sound a little complicated but it simply means that 30 % of your total daily calories should come from protein. 40% from carbs and 30% should come from “good” fats.
If you have a hard time figuring this out, check out my Weight Gain Calculator and it’ll do all this stuff for you.
(I’m also giving away Free access to my Weight Gain Calculator for anyone who gets my Free DVD Casestudy and Step By Step Guide)
Gain Weight Tip #3 - You Need to Increase The Intensity Of Your Workouts
Ok, next I want to hit on your workout routine. Just like how you need to increase your calories after a certain point. You also need to increase something with your workouts as well. And it’s your INTENSITY.
Think of it this way. When you first start working out, you’re wearing and tearing your muscle fibers apart. And the way your body responds and adapts to this is by getting bigger and stronger so that the next time you do that workout again it doesn’t damage it as much.
After a while your body will adapt to your workout to the point where it feels it doesn’t have to build anymore new muscle to deal with your workout.
Here’s an analogy if it helps: Just imagine every winter a tornado rolled into your neighborhood and damaged your roof. It was to the point where you could see the clouds just by looking up in your living room.
So what are you going to do? Of course, you’re going to rebuild your roof. But this time you’re going to build it, thicker, stronger and sturdier than before so the next time that tornado comes it doesn’t do so much damage because you don’t want to go through all the hassle of repairing next time. Not to mention you’re pretty vulnerable to the elements when you don’t have a roof over your head.
So fast forward to next winter. The tornado touches down again, but this time since you made your roof stronger from the last time, it doesn’t do as much damage as before. So you patch up your roof and make it just a little bit stronger this time so the next time that tornado comes around, your roof could withstand it and you don’t have to invest the time, money and energy it takes to repair it again.
So fast forward to the next winter season. And as expected the tornado touches down again but this time, your roof was strong enough to withstand it with barely a few scratches. Now at this point are you going to fork over more money, invest more time and energy making that roof stronger when it’s proven to be able to withstand the tornado, of course not. Because that’ll be too much unnecessary work.
Well the same goes for your muscles. Once it has adapted to the point where your workout doesn’t damage it that much, it WILL NOT build more muscle. From your body’s perspective, THERE’S NO REASON TO because at this point it’s just extra unnecessary work.
So here’s what I recommend. You have to INCREASE the intensity of your workouts.
If you’ve gotten to the point where your workouts are becoming less challenging then you NEED to increase the intensity of your workouts.
Here’s a quick list of a few things you can do to increase the intensity of your workouts (I also reveal more effective ways to increase intensity in my Free DVD Casestudy that I’m about to release):
• Decreasing the amount of time it takes to finish your workout (instead of 50 minutes, do it in 40 minutes)
• Increasing the amount of reps for each exercise in the same time or less than you normally do
• Decrease your rest time in between sets (instead of taking a 2 minute rest take a 1 min. rest)
Hope these tips help (Pakmul),
Let me know if you have any further questions
Richard
And if you’re going through the same thing as Pakmul then you can also use these tips to get the results you’re looking for.
Now remember at the beginning of the blog post I mentioned how you can get me to answer ALL of your BURNING questions just like these 1 on 1.
Well, if you’re interested then read further…
Now, as you could imagine with 655 YouTube subscribers and 2139 email subscribers to date I get A LOT of YouTube messages and Emails asking me TONS of questions just like these. Which made me realize that there’s tons of guys just like yourself and just like Pakmul that have something holding them back.
So whether it’s:
• Not knowing what foods you should be eating
• How to see results after your body seems to hit a plateau.
• What workouts you should be doing
• What supplements you should be taking
• When should you do cardio
• Should you even be doing cardio to help reach your goals
• Or anything else for that matter
Here’s what I’m going to do for you….
In the next few days I’m going to be releasing my Free DVD Casestudy which explains step by step how I gained over 40lbs in 4 months.
And one of the bonuses I’ve decided to include is a 30 minute 1-on-1 coaching session with ME. This is where I’m going to literally pick apart EVERYTHING you’re doing to build muscle and see what’s holding you back and help create a game plan for you so you can start seeing results FAST.
This is also where you can ask me 1-on-1 whatever BURNING questions you have. Which means no more, searching for hours on the internet or buying tons of magazines or reading a thousand websites and articles or checking out hundreds of YouTube videos just to get your questions answered.
I’ll answer them for you 1-on-1 in our coaching session. Just imagine how powerful it is to be able to ask someone who gained over 40lbs in 4 months “I’m doing X, Y, Z, and I’m still not seeing the results I want. What the heck am I doing wrong?”
Trust me this could literally be the missing piece of the puzzle you need to start seeing the results you want. Yes it’s that POWERFUL!!!
As you could imagine I value my time and my schedule is pretty busy and with 655 YouTube subscribers, 2139 email subscribers each of which probably has tons of questions that’d like to ask me and I can only imagine A LOT of people are going to want to this 1-on-1 coaching session (more than I can probably handle).
Which is why I have to limit the number of these coaching sessions I do.
Since this is the first time I’m doing anything like this, I’m limiting it to only 10 coaching sessions to see how everything goes.
And the only way to be eligible for your 30 min 1-on-1 coaching session is to get my FREE DVD Casestudy and Step by Step Guide.
With 655 YouTube subscribers, 2139 email subscribers and not to mention over 2,762 visitors who visited my blog in the past 30 days which is a total of 5,556 people all ready to get one of these 10 spots just like you.
So I’m pretty confident that these 10 coaching sessions are going to be gone pretty fast.
In fact, the last time I gave away my Free DVD Casestudy I only had to send two emails to my newsletter subscribers alone and they were ALL GONE.
If you want to be first in line when I release my Free DVD Casestudy again then I highly recommend you get on my DVD Casestudy Waiting List which already has 50 guys salivating to get their hands on what I reveal in this my Casestudy (and this is before I decided to add my 30 minute coaching lesson bonus).
I’m going to be notifying the people on my Waiting List first and whatever’s left (if there’s anything left) is what’s going to be available to everyone else.
So if you want to be first in line to get your Free DVD Casestudy and my Step by Step Guide and get your Free Bonus: A 30 minute 1-on-1 coaching session with me then click the link below and enter your name and email to be put on the Waiting List.
Click here to be put on my Free DVD Casestudy Waiting List
Take care,
Richard Knight
Richard [at] buildmusclechallenge.com