Less Fat, More Muscle

When you’re serious about gaining weight, you have to act like the guys who are trying to lose weight. Pay attention to everything you eat and plan your meals in advance. Once you start eating enough to achieve your weight goals, you will find a surprising benefit. You will have the extra energy you need to train even longer and harder, which will translate into greater muscle mass. You may sometimes think that you are training as hard as you can but you really don’t know how much better your workouts would be if you eat enough.

This advice will assume that you are already following a weight-lifting program that hits your entire body three times a week. This also assumes that you burn calories in other ways, like aerobic exercise, sports, maybe even at your job. Remember, the more energy you expend on sports, work, or general fidgeting, the harder it will be to gain weight.

Avoid garbage calories. When you are trying to gain weight, the temptation is to wolf down everything you can fit into your mouth. And, indeed, one of the joys of being skinny is that you can eat bacon grease with impunity. But greasy, fatty, sugary foods take up valuable real estate in your stomach, leaving less room for the high-nutrient meals that can power up your workouts and help you build muscle. Also keep in mind that someday your metabolism may change. Eventually, a junk-food habit will make you fat. Best to lose your taste for it now, before it is too late to change.

Drink more. Down one quart of fluid for every 1,000 calories of food you eat each day. If you were trying to lose weight, you would use plain calorie-free water to meet that fluid requirement. But sicne you are trying to gain weight, you will reach your goal faster if you take a lot of fluid in the form of hearty soups, juices, sports drinks, milk, and protein shakes.

Do not mess up your main meal. The single most important meal you will eat is the one immediately following your workout. That is when your muscles desperately need both protein and carbohydrates. Pay attention to all the other meals, too. To build muscle and keep it, your body needs a constant store of nutrients. These nutrients fuel your activities and repair and build muscle tissues. If your body does not have a nutrient store or a fat reservoir, it will steal nutrients from your muscles, and your exercise will be functioning as a wrecking crew rather than as a construction team. To encourage muscle construction, eat 5 to 6 nutrient-rich meals and snacks a day.

Consider creatine, such as juice or sweetened drink. This will raise your blood-glucose and insulin levels. As for other weight-adding supplements over the counter, forget about them. There is no proof that they build muscle, and there is nothing you can get from them that you cannot get from nutrient-rich food.

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