Gaining weight and legs exercise :(

Deleted · 2012-06-07, 06:01 AM

The whole "high metabolism" thing is rarely true to the extent that people think it is.

Sure, you might eat until you are full, but that's not the same as eating enough. There are a lot of skinny guys out there who have a single 300 kCal sandwich for breakfast and a 1200 kCal microwave pizza with 300 kCal worth of some sauce on it for dinner who can't figure out why they're not gaining weight (hint: they're only taking in about 1800 kCal per day).

I suggest you track your energy intake. And I don't mean "eyeball it". I mean track it, weigh everything, read the labels, figure out exactly how much you're eating, if you eat say, five meals and snacks in a day and you overestimate each one by 150 kCal then you're actually eating 750 kCal less than you think you are.

Also, make sure you get at least 1 gram of protein per kg of bodyweight, aiming for 1.8 - 2 g is even better but not really necessary.

**Numeanor** · 2012-06-07, 06:04 AM

I got the same problem. But it's not called high metabolism but you can have some intolerance or low absorption to certain food.
In my case I'm almost the same. When I was born I was normal, but in few months after birth I lost some weight and my mother saw that I don't tolerate any milk. I was lactose intolerant since birth so she started to feed me on vegetable milk. In primary and high school I was always skinny and tall (182cm and around 65-70kg). I always did a lot of sports, I was even training baseball and training was very hard. I ate like crazy, double portion for lunch, 2 dinners (one at 7pm and one at 10pm), rich breakfast everyday... When I stated with college, I gained weight and I had 85kg and some nice muscles, but on college everything changed. I had to work beside study, sometimes even 15hours per day and I lost 20kg in half a year. Also in this time I gain problems with my health, I got stomach reflux and doctor diagnosed me so far I have high lactose intolerance and fructose malabsorption. Currently I'm almost 28 years old and I have around 69-71kg and I look pretty skinny. Almost no fat (only around belly a little), I see all my veins and bones and I have little to no energy during day. I try to eat healthy and trying to avoid milk but it's almost in every food. I don't exercise at all for some 3 years now, but I use bicycle to get around for short distances and if I go out and do some running or biking I lose around 0,5-1kg next day. I tried once, one week I did exercise every day and I lost 5kg.

So my advise is that if you can't get weight it's not high metabolism but you should get checked at doctor as you can have some problems with processing food you eat. Don't listen to other people if they say being skinny is good and healthy. Maybe it is for short term, but you might get into same situation as I did when you will get a little older. You will see that some days you will have almost 0 energy and you will find yourself very hard to do anything, this will be the first sign you don't get as much energy from food as you should and this can lead to serious problems (low iron in blood, low magnesium, potassium,...). I repeat: DO NOT think that you just have high metabolism, because this doesn't exist! If you can't get weight it is very probably it is something wrong with your body! Go to doctor to check you out and sooner you find out what is wrong with you better for you as you might prevent other serious problems!!! I did that mistake to listen to others as they said I was very sporty type. Now I wish I went to doctor much sooner.

**Cosima** · 2012-06-07, 06:07 AM

Originally Posted by lphomiej

Don't take supplements. Taking protein will be a waste.

Protein powder is exactly what it is: A supplement. If you can't get enough proteins through your normal diet (could be because of many different reasons, perhaps you have to eat what your parents have for dinner etc etc), powder is a decent source of getting those extra grams.

I do however agree that few things are more pathetic than people taking supplements when they easily could just change their diet instead. Though, this isn't always possible, and sometimes you have to go with the 2nd best option. For protein powder and other supplements to be effective, you have to know when to take them, and why you're taking them; not just because 'some guy on lè interwebz told me more proteins = lots of muscle yahyah".

Personally, I know for a fact I should ideally be consuming a bit more protein than I currently am, but at the time I choose to simply sit back and build up a decent base-strength/stamina through 2x HIIT, 2x long-distance cardio (2 hours ++) and 2x full body strength workout a week, before most likely moving over to a 3x cardio 3x strength workout program in a few years when I want to gain some extra muscle.

Something I usually tell my friends who aren't as experienced as myself: Whatever works for you, as long as you're not doing anything that isn't good for or could injure your body in any way.

**Hevlex** · 2012-06-07, 06:08 AM

6-8 km a day, to much for a person with high metabolism. And your food intake is bad.

Vegetables: 0 protein
Applepie and stuff: A little protein
coco-cola and stuff: 0 protein.

U don't gain weight cause u do to much cardiovascular work for a person that is still growing and gaining to less protein. Your body doesn't have enough "brick" to build your body. (be sure to also eat enough carbohydrates). But that is in mostly everything.

**Adamas102** · 2012-06-07, 08:34 AM

Originally Posted by Hevlex

6-8 km a day, to much for a person with high metabolism. And your food intake is bad.

Vegetables: 0 protein
Applepie and stuff: A little protein
coco-cola and stuff: 0 protein.

U don't gain weight cause u do to much cardiovascular work for a person that is still growing and gaining to less protein. Your body doesn't have enough "brick" to build your body. (be sure to also eat enough carbohydrates). But that is in mostly everything.

Wow... Mentioning vegetables on a list of "bad food intake", huh? Sure, vegetables tend to be low in protein but they should still be a staple in any diet (bulking, cutting, or otherwise). Perhaps you didn't mean it that way, but it sure was worded as such.

Anyway, on to my contribution. As a hard-gainer myself, I definitely understand where the OP is coming from. I'm 5'11" and for the past 3 years or so tended to plateau around 150lb. At this time last year, I actually reached my heaviest topping out around 164lb. How did I do that? By eating like a freaking horse (there really is nothing more to it than forcing a caloric surplus). If you're eating till you're full and still not gaining weight, then eat more. Having said that, I did try to maintain some semblance of a balanced diet. First of all, you should cut the "coca cola and stuff", perhaps in favor of relatively healthy, high caloric density foods (how do you feel about peanut butter?). To be honest though, I'm not sure what results you would get on that kind of "eat past the point of fullness" diet without including weight training at the gym. At the time, I was exclusively lifting with no cardio whatsoever. If your body doesn't feel like it needs more muscle to move around more weight, then it's not going to try to put on more muscle.

On the flip side, I'm currently at 143lb and I am healthier, faster, and stronger than I have ever been in my life (funnily enough I even look bigger than I did when I was almost 20lb heavier). I do a bit of cardio (5k runs, jump rope) each week but still primarily focus on heavy lifting (deadlift, squat, and other compound lifts). The biggest change has definitely been diet. I'm eating almost all the time, though I rarely actually eat till I feel full. Cut out a lot of refined carbs and added tons of vegetables and fruit. Don't avoid fat, but do avoid taking in fat in conjunction with refined carbs/sugars.

If you want specifics in terms of food try adding or increasing some of the following: salmon, tuna, almonds, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese. All are great sources of protein. As for fruits and vegetables: broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, spinach, celery, radishes, cucumber, peas, tomatoes, grapefruit, bananas, apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. There are plenty of other choices out there to help you achieve a balanced diet, which should really be the underlying goal. Resorting to "junk food, apple pie, coca cola, and chips" to achieve that caloric surplus isn't necessarily detrimental if you're getting the nutrients elsewhere and doing enough exercise to counter balance it, but it's far from ideal. Things like peanut butter, whole milk, and bananas will give you those extra calories while also giving you some worthwhile nutritional value.

As for carbs, though they can certainly help with the weight gain you should still be mindful about the type you're eating. When you see carbohydrate on the nutritional label, below it you will see it broken down into a couple different categories (usually just fiber and sugar). Fiber is fine, though it's usually something that people look for when they want foods that will curb their hunger, there really isn't anything wrong with getting more fiber in your diet. If the majority of the carbohydrates end up being sugar though (like when the label says 25g of carb, 22g of which is sugar) and this isn't some fruit product we're talking about, then it's best avoided. Whole wheat alternatives to typical carb foods like bread and pasta, as well as brown rice over white rice, will usually be the better choice.

Basically, I just wrote a whole post about eating a balanced, healthy diet...
If you want to gain weight, eat more. If you want to lose weight, eat less.

Oh yeah, and try sprint training instead of steady state cardio. Sprinting one mile in increments of 50, 100, and 150 meter increments will be far more conducive to building muscle than jogging 3 miles at a steady pace.

Deleted · 2012-06-09, 09:05 PM

So many posts, I did read them all, I learned a lot from here.

So to answare few of them...

For the guy who sais I have to eat sugger after working out.... I rarely have enough enery to work out without drinking soda (mountain dew) with has lots of sugger, like a glass of dew before workin out, and 2 after.

For the guy who says not to take suppliments like proteins and steroids.....not matter how skinny I'm I'll never EVER consume steroids, everyone knows the side effects of them, it's a tabbo, and also I'm not going to take all kinds of stupid suppliments, I will only get proteins, just as much as combined with the food I eat to be the daily necessary, no more than that.

For the guy who says It's too much to walk 6-8 km per day.... that's what I thought, I think I lost a lot of calories, I walk 3 at the morning 7AM, and 3 around 2 PM (is hot as hell) and around 2km during the day, all this is just simple walking, and for those that though my walking is a part of my workout, I just posted because I though is the reason I don't gain weight, because I lose callories.

For those that said I have to lift weight doing squats....thanks for info, but I only have 2x 5KG weights at home, I can do up to 100 squats and if I really force myself I can push to 140, my legs are burning like the flames in hell, and gaining weight or not, after squats working I feel really good, is a pleasure feeling, I will try doing squits with the weights nowon.

For the guys who mentioned push ups, few times a week I do 1x 40 push ups, I tended to get muscle fever after push up exercises but now I'm no longer get em, should I do 50 or 60? 40 seems like enough but I can force if necesary. Some people says that if you get muscle faver after working out, means your muscle grow in size, if you don't get muscle faver you muscle only grow in strengh

Beside squats and push aps, I work with my 2x 5KG with comes in handy working the muscles around the head, shoulders, biceps, tricepts, etc, I also work my lowerback (new excersise for me, I lay on the chair , while I put my legs under the table for ballance, and ballance my torso up and down, for my abs I do the same exersize but in a diferent position, put my ass on the chair, put the legs under the dable, and balance my torso up and down lifting my own torso weight with the abs, really burns)

Since I don't really like vegetables, but right now I'm kinda forced to eat em, 2 monts left and I'll move home alone, I will buy a blender and blend most important veggetables, carrots, brocoli, etc, mixing em with good flavours like banana, orange, lemon, will that work too right?

**Adamas102** · 2012-06-11, 07:48 AM

Even if you're lacking energy before exercising, I still wouldn't recommend downing sodas. Part of it is probably just mental, but there are several other things that you could do to improve your energy level. I can't really stress how important the food you eat it to ALL of this. If you're consuming a lot of sugar (sodas, snack foods, etc.) your going to be causing your blood sugar levels to fluctuate, in turn causing you too go from drowsy to hyper to drowsy. Stabilizing your blood sugar levels by avoiding those kinds of foods (and by instead eating slow digesting foods) will help with your energy levels. The reason someone mentioned including sugar as a post workout food is that the idea is to consume something that will have a quick uptake (digest more quickly). He didn't mean drink soda after exercising though! For post workout go with a sandwich on whole wheat bread or a fruit smoothie (with protein) or pasta with olive oil and some type of fish. Not only are the carbs in all of these options infinitely better that the crap you have in soda, all of them also contain protein and other nutrients that your body is going to want post-workout.

As for the exercises, doing sets of 40 pushups or 100 body weight squats isn't going to help you build THAT much muscle. Don't get me wrong, it's great that you're doing these things, but for the goal of gaining weight and/or muscle mass these aren't going to help all that much. Ideally you should be doing these exercises with enough weight to keep you in the 8-12 repetitions range. You can do it without a gym, you just need a bit of imagination. Fill a backpack with your weights and a bunch of books or bags of dried rice, then hold the bag to your chest and do your squats. Though I wouldn't recommend strapping a heavy backpack to your back to increase your pushup intensity, there are certainly a lot of different variations you could use to target different parts of your arms and chest. There are also variations that make one arm do most of the work which is pretty much the same idea as increasing the weight.

The "muscle fever", aka delayed onset muscle soreness, can be a sign of muscle hypertrophy (your muscles getting bigger) but it isn't guaranteed. It's just a symptom of doing exercise that you're not accustomed to (doing a new exercise or adding more weight to an old exercise). Your muscles won't get bigger if you don't give them the nutrients to repair, though. If you're getting muscle soreness from doing the same thing over and over again, either you're waiting too long in between workouts or you're not giving your muscles what they need to get stronger or bigger.

Discipline is a HUGE factor when it comes to exercise and depending on how serious you are it also extends to diet. My own experience with vegetables is that I eventually started to like them the more of them I ate. If you can force yourself to blend them up and eat them like that, then by all means go right ahead with that.

**Esolde** · 2012-06-11, 07:58 PM

Originally Posted by Paraclef

I really hate those blood cannibal devourers...

High protein Vegetable or seeds.

Top Protein Veggies
- Tofu
- Quinoa
- Lentils
- Beans, especially black, kidney, and lima
- Artichokes
- Chick peas

Honorable mention: Other vegetables that rank high in protein per calorie are: broccoli, spinach, brussel sprouts, kale, peas, asparagus, and beet greens.

Complete Seed with NO fucking SALT

- Hempseed ( not the bad one

but still hard to find )
- Peanut ( You can do our own peanut butter with a blender or else, adding maybe a little nuts oil or whatever if the consistency isn't " perfect "
- Sesame
- Buckwheat
- Sunflower
- Flax (also known as linseed)
- Spelt (gluten ) big version and small version. Small is better.
- Almond
It's not an exhaustive list

http://www.healthaliciousness.com/ar...in-protein.php
http://www.13.waisays.com/protein.htm

( Peaches and Dried tart cherries are good too )

http://www.ironrichfood.org/iron-con...lour-full-fat/
http://rasta1.hubpages.com/hub/Veget...tein-Nutrition

Also http://www.living-foods.com/articles...doarticle.html ( not for protein )

And eat a lot of fruit.

Google + nutrition is your friend too. My post can't be perfect, thanks for your comprehension. And take your time, you are young...don't fail like those " I want to run faster than my shadow " with stupid injuries and fractures when they reach 30y. Do not accelerate your " old age ".

I approve of this post for overall health and peak performance. Plant-based diet all the way.

**Romeo83x** · 2012-06-11, 08:53 PM

You're not gaining any weight because you're eating garbage. Your calorie intake is far too low and you're not getting enough protein. Start eating more eggs and meat. Start eating oatmeal. Substitute sugar drinks with whole milk.

If squats are too easy, start doing high jumps instead. Squat as low as you can and jump as high as you can. Pause for a moment after each jump. Repeat.

**Projali** · 2012-06-11, 10:39 PM

You won't see any significant leg gains with body weight exercises. You won't see gains unless you include more protein and calories. To the above posters, there are some vegan bodybuilders and powerlifters but if you aren't morally opposed to animal proteins then you're just making it more difficult to get protein macros.

**Adamas102** · 2012-06-12, 03:17 AM

Originally Posted by Paraclef

Vegan animals are the strongest, you know, and the biggest. Vegetal > Animal always.

Tell that to a blue whale and all the millions of lives they end with every gargantuan gulp of krill... You can play nice if you want, but nature doesn't.

And although your dietary advice wasn't exactly unsound, I wouldn't recommend it to a hard gainer who wants to increase his muscle mass. Especially not one who already has trouble eating his vegetables. Gotta be realistic here. He SHOULD increase the amount of fruit, vegetables, and nuts in his diet. He should also consume a good variety of animal protein sources such as fish, chicken, eggs, and dairy (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt).

**Strah** · 2012-06-14, 09:16 PM

Originally Posted by Paraclef

Vegan animals are the strongest, you know, and the biggest. Vegetal > Animal always.

Read this sentence again: " don't fail like those " I want to run faster than my shadow " with stupid injuries and fractures when they reach 30y. Do not accelerate your " old age ".

Can't see my PoV really ?

Blue whales, as the poster mentioned?
White sharks? Polar Bears? Bengal tigers? crocodiles?

I don't even understand why you said "vegan", since being vegan is abstraining from all animal products including milk. Which disqualifies all the mammals.

Deleted · 2012-06-14, 09:51 PM