Weight Gain Help

For protein, eat a lot of lean beef, chicken, tuna, and wild salmon. Check out whole foods when you have a chance, all of their meat is free of growth harmones is of much better quality than Giant/Safeway/Shoppers. You can easily find chicken there for 1.50-2.50 per pound and meat for $3.49-5.00 per pound, so price shouldn't be an issue.

Since you're what intolerant, try eating sweat potatoes and peas. Also includes a lot of vegetables in your diet as they are filled with loads of nutrients.

To gain weight, you'll need to increase your food intake and 4-5 times a day. Also throw in some fruits in there as a snack between meals.


Most powders are overrated - stick with the real food.

ON pro complex gainer is a favorite supplement of mine, especially if you're lactose intolerant. however, you can't beat a good steady diet

I was 6'0 and 135 lbs when I graduated high school; I feel your pain. No matter how much I ate or sat around, I wouldn't gain a single pound. Personally, I think the best thing to do is hit the gym. If you combine a good diet with a consistent weight routine you will start to gain muscle mass (the only good kind of weight gain in my opinion).

One of the biggest hurdles for me was being embarrassed to lift in front of other people. Being 18 years old and struggling to bench press with a 25 on each side can really crush your ego. The first couple of times I went to the gym I got the impression that I was the weakest guy in the room. After a week or so I stopped caring because I realized that nobody else was paying attention to how much I was lifting etc. If you have a friend who knows a thing or two about weight lifting then go with them the first couple of times to learn the basic fundamentals. Also, some schools offer strength classes as part of their curriculum. My school did but I was always too self-conscious to take the classes. Looking back, it was a huge mistake to not take that class.

If you want to read up on this kind of stuff, the "Starting Strength" books by Mark Rippetoe are pretty decent at explaining the basics. Make sure you focus on technique when starting a routine. Proper technique is so much more important than being able to do a bunch of weight (which most people tend to want to do, pile on the 45's baby!).

I also forgot some other good staples to add to your diet:

Bananas (very cheap), Almonds, Eggs, Lentils, Baked Beans.

At your height and given your wrist circumference, getting to a lean and solid 160 is very realistic within a relatively small time frame if you are consistent with your workouts (focusing on core lifts like deadlift/squats/bench/overhead pressing) and diet (lean protein, healthy fats, lots of greens and fruits).

Are you looking to get chubby again?

If you want to gain weight drink Ensure Plus. It's the only thing that works. I was just like you, and could never gain weight. Then, I lost a ton because of typhoid. It helped me gain back the massive amount of weight I lost. The problem though, was that I slowed my metabolism down. I gained a bit too much weight. It took quite some time, but now I'm happy with my weight and my metabolism is back to its usual pace.

Just eat a regular meal, then down a can of the drink. One a day seems good, or as you feel necessary. Chocolate's the best.

One last thing... It's FAR better to be skinny than to be overweight. When you get older you'll really be happy that you're not naturally overweight.

The OP can PM me and I'll send him a pdf based upon what I think is his problem. You probably just need to eat and eat and eat and hit the gym 3 times a week. I'm a pretty thin guy myself, but I have put on a few key slabs of muscle in the past year while half-assing my workout.

The first problem is that your wrist is essentially genetically predetermined. You can build up the muscle a few inches up the forearm from it, but the bone is what is is. The best you can hope for is a nice taper. I think an excessive taper is a telltale sign of steroid use. I just measured mine at a little less than 7" and I weigh in at about 180 with less than 8% fat. I gained about 15 lbs. at my peak last fall after starting to lift. I did savate so my goals weren't for pure weight gain (after the first 2 months or so of lifting and eating), but I'm back on the weight gain train after I find a good gym in my new town.

What was already posted is probably the best. Do compound lifts in the gym, and limit cardio (unless you want to throw in a circuit training workout once a week or so, or maybe a bodyweight session). Don't do machines unless they are targeting something very very specific to what you want.

Oh yeah, decide on what you want to target, what are your weak points. Strong shoulders and upper chest may not look like something out of a magazine but it gives you heft and they're far more functional than disproportionate biceps.

Take creatine. It definitely works and if you drink enough water the kidney side effect is negated.

I'm bugging out right now, about to snooze but if you PM me I'll try to help you as much as I can.

The best thing to remember is to perservere!

If you can't eat wheat, have more rice and oats. If you can't drink milk, eat more meats (for protein) and nuts (for fat). You just have to make it a habit to eat more at each meal, and stay consistent with it. It's hard for the first few weeks, but eventually it becomes habit. At the beginning, you'll find that after eating a big meal, your appetite just isn't there at your next meal. Work through it. It will get easier. Make sure you feel stuffed at least a few times a day. And yes, you need to start lifting weights if you don't want to just get fat.

FYI if you get a whey isolate shake you won't have problems with lactose. If you work out hard enough your appetite should increase and eating more food shouldn't really be a problem then.

Yeah, that's how my body works, and hopefully the OP's does too. If I'm lifting every other day, overeating is much easier for me.

I am very underweight, probably comparable to the OP but I'm shorter so I weigh even less. I have struggled and struggled with the barbell, but am putting on more size than ever before and eating more than ever before since I started the hundredpushups.com routine.

Before you guys go off on me saying pushups are worthless, let me just say...if you pushup 60% of your bodyweight, then 60% of my 120 lbs is 72 lbs. I lift 72 lbs every time I do a pushup, and I can't even bench 72 lbs. (I struggle holding a 35 lb in each hand doing 5x5s).

So for my small ass at least, pushups is a hypertrophy exercise heh.

In two weeks I've gained 10 lbs, and for the first time in my life I actually have a chest (albeit small still), but hey, before now my body looked like a triangle, so it's pretty nice.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I was in the same situation as well. I put on 30 lbs with doubling the amount of protien I should be getting when building muscle for 1 gram = 1 lb of body weight to 2 grams = 1 lb of body weight. I think time will help as well. Be dedicated with your workouts and remember that is only 50% of it. You have to be dedicated with the amount you consume.