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Old Forum Can I Gain Weight?

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dmaxashman

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I am naturally a small person.  I am 5 foot 8 inches and before I did strength training weighed 140 pounds.  I got up to 160 pounds with I believe very little amounts of body fat and feel that is great weight for me.  Lately as I focus my training on soccer and fitness and move away from weights I am slowly losing my muscle and it makes me very sad.

I am pretty ignorant as far as nutrition goes.  My number 1 priority has always been to just consume as many calories as possible (assuming it is a real food).  When I can I try to throw some vegetables and fruit in the mix.  In any case, with my high training loads of soccer games, skill work, fitness, etc I seem to be slowly losing weight no matter how hard I try to eat a lot of food.

How can I stop losing my muscle? Would it be possible to even gain muscle?? It would be great to get back up to 160.

PS, I know that a lot of the time a weight drop is due to water loss but I see my weight trending downwards for a while now, I am probably at 154 now or even god forbid 153 so sad.
 
BTW would be cool to see more articles on gaining weight! The vast majority of articles are about exercise and throwing in those fat burning metabolic workouts and dieting on how to lose weight, I know there have to be others out there like me who need to gain weight or the very least, not get any skinnier.
 
what does your training routine look like?

if you have stopped weight training your body will have no reason to keep the muscle so will be dumping it especially as you are doing lots of CV based stuff, this will happen no matter what you eat.

with out looking at your routine i would say you need to get some kind of whole body routine in at least couple of times a week and reduce some of the other stuff.

 

 
 
also what does your diet look like? are you sure you are getting enough calories, have you made a food diary and worked out what you need calorie wise?
 
As said if your not weight training your gonna loose the strength and muscle gains. I would say do a program barbell based twice a week.   You need to weight train still.

How much cardiovascular activity are you doing a week? If your doin 2 - 3 sessions thats one thing. If you tell me your doin 6 cardio sessions or sports activity a week we may have problems. A game of soccer for 90 mins uses most of the energy systems but will certainly help deplete  your muscle Glucose stores. Depending on how much activity you are doing it may be difficult to gain weight, but with the right program and getting your nutrition right you should be able to maintain weight and muscle mass.

Without making things to complex. Carbs and protein and upping your calorie consumption will help you maintain weight and muscle mass.

Protein is the key. It rebuilds muscle tissue and helps you maintain muscle mass. Good proteins include, chicken, fishes, lean cuts of meat. Nothing rock with red meat once a twice a week and this will help boost your man juice. Get a protein source every meal if possible.

Carbs are sugars which get coverted to glucose and stored in your muscle and is one of the mian fuels with most cardiovascular activity. Good carbs, apples, whole grain pasta,bannanas, stawberries, peaches, sweet potato, potato is general, Brown bread, brown rice.

Up your calories and replenish your muscle glucose with carbs and try to keep your protein consumption and high. But more importantly your dont gonna maintain muscle if you dont weight train.

Be more detailed in telling exactly what you do, if you please. :)

 
 
If your question was simply "How do I gain weight?", I'd just direct you towards the armor building section of easy strength or mass made simple, and be done with it. However, your soccer aspirations muck things up a bit and we need more information concerning your priorities. How important is your soccer performance to you? How does this rank relative to your weight gain aspirations? Maybe a compromise is doable, maybe not... (sadly the answer to most training related questions tends to be "it depends")

"soccer games, skill work, fitness, etc" fitness? what is fitness?

here's something you can do right now that'll help regardless of the answers to the above questions: put heavy whipping cream in everything. coffee, protein shakes, sauces, oatmeal...
 
Hi all thanks for the responses.  I will try to provide more information that you are asking for so you can help me.

Soccer and fitness are my priority now, weight gain is very much secondary to that, so I don't want to change my programming just for reasons of my weight.  Over the last half  a year, generally I will play soccer or do some form of skill work 6 times a week, then 2-4 conditioning sessions a week with 2 full body weight sessions.

Mainly some nutrition advice is appreciated.

Stephen, I have not kept a food journal.  The extent of what I do is to just eat as much as I can everyday, to the point that my gf gets made at me because I force myself to eat when I'm not hungry.  You think I should keep a food journal? How do I know how many calories I need? It seems like I'm a black hole for calories, somedays I will eat for breakfast an omlet, toast, juice, fruit, for lunch a couple of sandwiches, a liter of chocolate milk after a gym session and a medium pizza for dinner but it's just impossible for me to gain weight I am doing something wrong... I did a search and saw bodybuilders make a point to eat 6 meals a day, maybe more meals a day is good idea for me? Does more frequent meals adding to weight gain have a basis in science or is that just a trick to consume more calories?

Aaron, could you please explain your advice a bit more I am not sure how to apply it.  You say to eat more protein and more carbs but as far as I know, most calories come from protein and carbs so not really sure what to do?

Russell, so it's okay for me to eat junk food to help myself? What are some of the other less egregious junk foods you can recommend me in addition to whipped cream?
 
Maybe I should be making protein shakes for myself to drink daily after practices just to help with calories.
 
You are very, very active and your body has changed in keeping with the activities you've chosen.   If you want, eat more - the "pizza, beer, and ice cream" diet will put weight on just about anyone. :)

All kidding aside, it is far from a given that just changing your diet is going to put muscle on your frame - serious, sit still some more if you want to gain weight.

-S-
 
To work out your calorie needs either use this equation

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/

or the old BBer standby of 20 x bodyweight in lbs so for you, about 3080 Cals or more as you are so active

the six meals a day thing is in my opinion a easy way to get the calories in, there might be some benefit, but basically to gain weight, Energy in > Energy expended, how you do it is up to you.

Training, the big question is do you squat? a lot? with heavy weights (for you )?

I agree with what steve says on the whole, though in the crazee days of my youth when i was training to join the Army and in basic training, i put on 2 stone (73kg to 85kg) over 9 months i was running, and doing PT and doing full body weights, BUT i ate a lot and rested.

Food quality and calorie density helps as well, what you eat does not seem that much to me tbh, also add stuff like more milk, nuts, olive oil, and Dan John's fave peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
 
not whipped cream. heavy whipping cream. the most calorie dense stuff on the planet? in the running at least. mix it with your protein shakes. outrageous amounts of fish oil wouldn't hurt either. start with 10 grams/day. increase by two each day until you get "runny". then back off a bit to not runny. (i think i stole this protocol from dan john)
 
You had some great suggestions so far and I would like to point out one simple and often overlooked idea. What is the first thing most diets cut when weight loss is the goal? Carbs right? Carbohydrates pull water into the muscle and trigger insulin releases easier than any other macro. Insulin, often referred to as the most anabolic hormone, is the enemy of many but friend to those looking for a increase in bodyweight. Most physically active athletes have no problem getting the right amount of protein or some nutrient and calorie dense nuts but overlook the power of potatoes and rice. After making sure you are feeding yourself the essential nutrients like aminos, efas, vitamins, and minerals try adding some carbs to each meal.
 
oh right. a protein shake involving heavy cream has to have some milk in it too or it becomes protein pudding. might be a good idea too, but not so drinkable. if you want to go really crazy, mix some tasty protein powder with heavy cream and cream cheese. muscle custard. mint chocolate chip muscle milk makes it delicious. eat this for dessert after a dinner involving 2 lbs of red meat...

also great for gaining weight--prayer, meditation, soft style chi gung and then an epsom salt bath. chill out!
 
Drink a gallon of whole milk a day. Also eat a lot of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.  Then you will gain some weight.
 
russian bear + sit still more + 4 PB&J for snack in addition of meals work for me. 83kg to 86kg. i hitted the wall tho.
 
A healthy diet, whatever the goal, is low in saturated fat ( butter, chips...), and low, in high GI carbs ( sugar, sodas...)
Basically, to keep your muscle mass, one strenght session per week is enough, but must be very intense, near of 100 % of your 1RM, but better, 2 sessions at 80 %.
Your diet must be rich in nutrients, and, not only for bodybuilders, 6 meals are
recommanded.
This is very basic.
Daniel, everything on nutrition and sports are based on scientific research, and everything is linked, activities, work, sports, recovery...age and so on.
Quite impossible to be more specific.
 
Agree with Aaron, " proteins " are muscles nutrients, and a protein intake is recommended ( most of the time, protein shake ) as quick as possible after your workout, to rebuild your muscles cells.
Protein shakes are often used by bodybuilders, because they must eat thousand and thousand of " good calories " , often to much in volume.
Ronin, a gallon of milk is not bad but low fat, calcium play an important role in muscular contraction, spaghetti are low GI carbs, so good, with fraich tomato sauce and no cheese, meat balls, depends what meat and what else, and how they are cooked !!!
What you must eat before your sport or training session is important.
To sleep is important, your job also, when is your bigger meal, ...
Everything can be study, with first with a nutrition diary on 15 days, hours, meals, quantities, drinks, etc
But, you must train first.
 
Agree with Russell's prayer/meditation/etc. suggestion. I would cite my meditation practice as the single biggest reason I've gained muscular weight during my current run of strength training. Previously I was too fast-moving and anxious to keep any weight on, even though I got much stronger.

Rob
 
re junk food: sure. i have run into an issue with this in the past though. junk food early in the day has a sedative effect (at least for me) that lasts all day, ruining any training, practice, or competition I attempt that day. afterwards seems to be fine. i'm thinking more along the lines of pizza and pasta than halloween candy...
 
as regards Calories in > calories out, you are still better off getting your calories from quality sources ie the least processed as possible, so good meat, eggs, cheese, vegetables etc rather than fried foods, pizzas etc
 
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