Weight gain

qwabercd

Ok so I need to gain some weight (and have done for quite a while!). I'm 21 ands about 5 11', weighing somewhere between 10 and 11 stone. I've always been fairly skinny. I'd come from quite and athletic family but my mum would be skinny-ish like myself.

Problem is, I'm a very picky eater and don't have a big appetite at all. I don't drink milk and would mainly eat chicken and pasta or spuds for dinner. Rarely bother with breakfast (need to work on that) because I'm either running late in the morning or else I'm not out of bed until the afternoon. I'd have a sandwich for lunch and sweets/crisps at least once a day.

I play sport (hurling and soccer) but not near as much as I used to due to a whole host of injuries.

What would be the best way to go about gaining weight, taking into account that food alone probably won't get me there. I realise I need a more structured diet, but even back in the day when that was the case I was still scrawny. Would supplements be the way to go and if so what would be the best type?

Thanks in advance for any help:)

charles_92688

qwabercd wrote: »

I need to gain some weight

Can you support this with a medical/health justification? Did a qualified medical professional (doctor, nutritionist, etc) make this statement?

Why should the forum provide advice for a potentially invalid requirement?

Daveysil15

Supplements can help. I've tried a few weight gainers. The best one I've tried is Optimum Nutrition's Serious Mass. It's easy to mix, tastes great and not too hard on the stomach. It's also good value for money. The key is to increase your calorie intake gradually, rather than taking loads of supplements straight away. When I started using ON, I began taking one scoop daily. Then after 2 weeks 1 and a half, and then eventually 2 scoops daily. I gained about 10 lbs with it. Just make sure the rest of your diet is healthy and you should be ok. However your genetics play a huge part too. If you're naturally skinny you're never going to look like arnold schwarzenegger, but you can still gain weight. Cut down on the cardio and do more weight training.

Scioch

charles_92688 wrote: »

Can you support this with a medical/health justification? Did a qualified medical professional (doctor, nutritionist, etc) make this statement?

Why should the forum provide advice for a potentially invalid requirement?

He aint the first guy to want to bulk up a bit ffs. :rolleyes:

OP you just need to up your calorie intake. Eat more of whatever you like to eat and/or use a weight gain shake.

qwabercd

Daveysil15 wrote: »

Supplements can help. I've tried a few weight gainers. The best one I've tried is Optimum Nutrition's Serious Mass. It's easy to mix, tastes great and not too hard on the stomach. It's also good value for money. The key is to increase your calorie intake gradually, rather than taking loads of supplements straight away. When I started using ON, I began taking one scoop daily. Then after 2 weeks 1 and a half, and then eventually 2 scoops daily. I gained about 10 lbs with it. Just make sure the rest of your diet is healthy and you should be ok. However your genetics play a huge part too. If you're naturally skinny you're never going to look like arnold schwarzenegger, but you can still gain weight. Cut down on the cardio and do more weight training.

Yeah I think genetics could be part of the problem but hopefully should be able to gain a few pounds at least. I'll give that supplement a go and start doing a few weights out in the garage and hope for the best! Cheers for the help.

christmas2012

A good way to gain weight is lots and lots of bread.Lots of carbohydrate in that..

qwabercd

christmas2012 wrote: »

A good way to gain weight is lots and lots of bread.Lots of carbohydrate in that..

I actually eat a fair bit of bread, crisp sandwiches are a specialty of mine!

Burkatron

qwabercd wrote: »

Yeah I think genetics could be part of the problem but hopefully should be able to gain a few pounds at least. I'll give that supplement a go and start doing a few weights out in the garage and hope for the best! Cheers for the help.

Genetics is (most likely) not your problem, you even said you're a picky eater
It can't be put better then this:

Dave Tate's Westside Gym Bulking Story
There was a time at the Old Westside gym where I couldn't gain weight to save my f-g life.

There was this dude who trained there who could just put on weight like f-g magic. He'd go from 198 to 308 and then to 275 and back down to 198. And he was never fat. It was amazing.

I finally asked him one day how he did it.

"You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight? Come outside and I'll fill you in."

Now remember, we're at Westside Barbell. And this guy wants to go outside to talk so no one else can hear. Think about that for a minute. What the hell is he going to tell me? This must be some serious s-t if we have to go outside, I thought.

So we get outside and he starts talking.

"For breakfast you need to eat four of those breakfast sandwiches from McDonalds. I don't care which ones you get, but make sure to get four. Order four hash browns, too. Now grab two packs of mayonnaise and put them on the hash browns and then slip them into the sandwiches. Squish that s-t down and eat. That's your breakfast."

At this point I'm thinking this guy is nuts. But he's completely serious.

"For lunch you're gonna eat Chinese food. Now I don't want you eating that crappy stuff. You wanna get the stuff with MSG. None of that non-MSG BS. I don't care what you eat but you have to sit down and eat for at least 45 minutes straight. You can't let go of the fork. Eat until your eyes swell up and become slits and you start to look like the woman behind the counter."

"For dinner you're gonna order an extra-large pizza with everything on it. Literally everything. If you don't like sardines, don't put 'em on, but anything else that you like you have to load it on there. After you pay the delivery guy, I want you to take the pie to your coffee table, open that f-kr up, and grab a bottle of oil. It can be olive oil, canola oil, whatever. Anything but motor oil. And I want you to pour that s-t over the pie until half of the bottle is gone. Just soak the s-t out of it."

"Now before you lay into it, I want you to sit on your couch and just stare at that f-kr. I want you to understand that that pizza right there is keeping you from your goals."

This guy is in a zen-like state when he's talking about this.

"Now you're on the clock," he continues. "After 20 minutes your brain is going to tell you you're full. Don't listen to that s-t. You have to try and eat as much of the pizza as you can before that 20-minute mark. Double up pieces if you have to. I'm telling you now, you're going to get three or four pieces in and you're gonna want to quit. You f-g can't quit. You have to sit on that couch until every piece is done.

And if you can't finish it, don't you ever come back to me and tell me you can't gain weight. 'Cause I'm gonna tell you that you don't give a f-k about getting bigger and you don't care how much you lift!"

Did I do it? Hell yeah. Started the next day and did it for two months. Went from 260 pounds to 297 pounds. And I didn't get much fatter. One of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, though.

Daveysil15

What works for one person won't necessarily work for another person. You could follow Sly Stallone's diet and exercise routine, but you'll never look like Rambo. It's best to ask a nutrionist because they can tailor a diet to you based on your age, bodytype, lifestyle etc.

Burkatron

Daveysil15 wrote: »

What works for one person won't necessarily work for another person. You could follow Sly Stallone's diet and exercise routine, but you'll never look like Rambo. It's best to ask a nutrionist because they can tailor a diet to you based on your age, bodytype, lifestyle etc.

Do you even need a qualification to call yourself a nutritionist in this country?? A registered dietician would be a better, expensive & unnecessary step (unless you have some special dietary requirement).

So you're telling me if you followed Sly Stallone's regime you wouldn't gain size & muscle( nevermind the "extra" help he's had)?? Who mentioned they want to look like anyone? If you want to put on size eat big & lift heavy weights, it's not rocket science!

Parsley

Daveysil15 wrote: »

What works for one person won't necessarily work for another person. You could follow Sly Stallone's diet and exercise routine, but you'll never look like Rambo. It's best to ask a nutrionist because they can tailor a diet to you based on your age, bodytype, lifestyle etc.

eh, not really. lifting weights with some good effort and intensity, while eating enough protein, calories etc is pretty much gonna work for everyone. age won't matter much unless you're fairly elderly. 'bodytype' is largely pointless bullcrap. lifestyle..? if you're more active, you need to eat more. it's barely science.

Daveysil15

Burkatron wrote: »

Do you even need a qualification to call yourself a nutritionist in this country?? A registered dietician would be a better, expensive & unnecessary step (unless you have some special dietary requirement).

So you're telling me if you followed Sly Stallone's regime you wouldn't gain size & muscle( nevermind the "extra" help he's had)?? Who mentioned they want to look like anyone? If you want to put on size eat big & lift heavy weights, it's not rocket science!

Parsley wrote: »

eh, not really. lifting weights with some good effort and intensity, while eating enough protein, calories etc is pretty much gonna work for everyone. age won't matter much unless you're fairly elderly. 'bodytype' is largely pointless bullcrap. lifestyle..? if you're more active, you need to eat more. it's barely science.

The fact is everyone has different body types. There's lots of skinny people that find it difficult to gain weight no matter what they do. In some cases they're given bad advice. Stallone went to a nutrionist and was told exactly what to eat and when to eat it to achieve what he wanted. It's not as simple as lifting and eating more. If that were the case there'd be no need for nutrionists, dietitians, personal trainers etc.

Burkatron

Daveysil15 wrote: »

The fact is everyone has different body types. There's lots of skinny people that find it difficult to gain weight no matter what they do. In some cases they're given bad advice. Stallone went to a nutrionist and was told exactly what to eat and when to eat it to achieve what he wanted. It's not as simple as lifting and eating more. If that were the case there'd be no need for nutrionists, dietitians, personal trainers etc.

You really think Stallone is a good example? Really?

Daveysil15

Burkatron wrote: »

You really think Stallone is a good example? Really?

Ehh no I'm saying he's a bad example. It's a bad idea to follow any celebrity's reigme.

Burkatron

Daveysil15 wrote: »

Ehh no I'm saying he's a bad example. It's a bad idea to follow any celebrity's reigme.

Fair enough, your other posts made me think otherwise!

Anyway it's still basic human physiology, if you eat more Kcal's then you burn you WILL gain weight! You cant deny this, you DON'T need to pay an expert to tell you this!
Who advised a celebrity diet? Anyway, it's still going to have the same principles of weight gain/loss that ALL other diets have!

Mellor

Daveysil15 wrote: »

The fact is everyone has different body types. There's lots of skinny people that find it difficult to gain weight no matter what they do. In some cases they're given bad advice. Stallone went to a nutrionist and was told exactly what to eat and when to eat it to achieve what he wanted. It's not as simple as lifting and eating more. If that were the case there'd be no need for nutrionists, dietitians, personal trainers etc.

So do you think that him choosing chicken or beef for his dinner has an effect?
Or if he ate it at 5 or 6. :rolleyes:

Daveysil15

Mellor wrote: »

So do you think that him choosing chicken or beef for his dinner has an effect?
Or if he ate it at 5 or 6. :rolleyes:

To an extent yes, depending on what you're trying to achieve, just the same as creatine has a different affect to protein. I'm only using the Stallone thing as an example. It would be the same with professional boxers trying to make weight. They'd have to be very specific about what and when they eat. Obviously the OP doesn't need to worry about that, but like I said, everyone is different.

AntiVirus

qwabercd wrote: »

I actually eat a fair bit of bread, crisp sandwiches are a specialty of mine!

If you like peanuts, try peanut butter sandwiches. Peanuts are pretty good for upping the calorie count and very tasty too

qwabercd

Cheers for all the info. Here's to me becoming fat!

Mellor

Daveysil15 wrote: »

To an extent yes, depending on what you're trying to achieve, just the same as creatine has a different affect to protein.

To what extent.
How would eating at 5 differ from 6. For chicken over beef differ.
The differences between the two are negligible.

I'm only using the Stallone thing as an example. It would be the same with professional boxers trying to make weight. They'd have to be very specific about what and when they eat. Obviously the OP doesn't need to worry about that, but like I said, everyone is different.

A professional boxer making weight is far more concerned with fluid intake than food. In their case they are controlling hydration. So its not really relevant to anything mentioned here. Regardless, if they were trying to add or lose lbs of fat. It would be decided on chicken or beef.

Daveysil15

Mellor wrote: »

To what extent.
How would eating at 5 differ from 6. For chicken over beef differ.
The differences between the two are negligible.

I don't know why you keep bringing up 5 and 6. I never mentioned anything about 5 or 6. I was referring to morning and evening, pre-work out and post-pork out. Athlete's eat different types of food at different times of the day. White meat is easier to digest than red meat. Yes in most cases the difference is negligible, but again it depends on the indvidual.

Mellor

Daveysil15 wrote: »

I don't know why you keep bringing up 5 and 6. I never mentioned anything about 5 or 6. I was referring to morning and evening, pre-work out and post-pork out. Athlete's eat different types of food at different times of the day. White meat is easier to digest than red meat. Yes in most cases the difference is negligible, but again it depends on the indvidual.

I asked in 5 or 6 would make a difference, it was rhetorical, but you said it would.
Maybe you were only refering to the type of food, but you since said that was negligible.

You've changed your statement to "morning and evening, pre-work out and post-pork out. Athlete's eat different types of food at different times of the day". Which is entirely understandable. There's very good reasons for that.
They eat carbs and protein after a workout, for the same reason that you or I should. It's the optimal time. Not because of age or bodytype.

Nobody who is trying to gain mass is still skinny because they are eating at the wrong time of day. Or excluding people with ridiculous diets, because they are eating the wrong food. Sure these things can be optimized for slightly better results, but failing to do that will not see you remain forever at 65kg.

The reason the OPs diet is failing is because he is skipping breakfast, a sandwich for lunch. And a plain dinner, that is probably quite small. He clearly needs to eat more.

LuckyLloyd

Start eating more of everything, but particularly loads and loads of animals. Scale it up week by week until you're eating loads.
Lift weights regularly and consistently. Google "Starting Strength" if you've never lifted before.
Get lots of sleep.

Do the first two things and you'll gain weight, I promise. And do the third because if helps an awful lot with the second one.

Don't get bogged down in the details just yet. You must eat more, and you must lift more because I'm confident that you don't do enough of either now!!

Chancer3001

if you can handle lots of milk, google the GOMAD diet. Worked pretty well for a few of my buddies.

Daveysil15

Mellor wrote: »

I asked in 5 or 6 would make a difference, it was rhetorical, but you said it would.
Maybe you were only refering to the type of food, but you since said that was negligible.

You've changed your statement to "morning and evening, pre-work out and post-pork out. Athlete's eat different types of food at different times of the day". Which is entirely understandable. There's very good reasons for that.
They eat carbs and protein after a workout, for the same reason that you or I should. It's the optimal time. Not because of age or bodytype.

Nobody who is trying to gain mass is still skinny because they are eating at the wrong time of day. Or excluding people with ridiculous diets, because they are eating the wrong food. Sure these things can be optimized for slightly better results, but failing to do that will not see you remain forever at 65kg.

The reason the OPs diet is failing is because he is skipping breakfast, a sandwich for lunch. And a plain dinner, that is probably quite small. He clearly needs to eat more.

I agree with everything you just said there and never said anything to the contrary. When I said 'when to eat' I wasn't talking about increments of 60 mins, rather different times of the day. Although age is a factor as when you get older your metabolism starts to slow down. Also, 6 small meals a day is better than 4 big meals a day. Again this affects your metabolism.

robrob88

Kinetica oat gain is another great gainer, got it cheap off www.medipharm.ie, mixes great with milk or water!