Muscular-Fitness

The most common question I hear from aspiring young bodybuilders who work out in the gym I work and train at is how to gain weight, this is especially the case with hardgainers. How to gain weight when you are not generally a big eater or have a fast metabolism like most hardgainers do can be quite a challenge indeed. I was once a hardgainer myself when I started bodybuilding but one of the reasons I was able to gain so much muscle and have been able to keep it for so many years is due to a few dieting tricks I have learnt along the way from other hardgainers who have become giant bodybuilders.

The fastest way in regards how to gain weight for hardgainers and bodybuilders who want to gain muscle without gaining too much fat, is to eat consistently throughout the day. If you have a fast metabolism you are never going to gain weight if you only eat 3 times per day. You can completely forget about the breakfast, lunch and dinner style of eating because it is just not going to be enough food and besides, eating only 3 times per day leaves too many huge gaps in the day when you are not eating.

How to gain weight is easy if you follow some basic bodybuilding rules. By eating 5-6 times per day in medium size servings, flushes the body with enough energy and amino rich protein to stimulate a gain in bodyweight and in turn this will lead to an increase in muscle gain. Eating this way for a couple of weeks is not enough, you need to make this new style of eating more frequently a part of your lifestyle and continue to do it as part of your daily routine and over time you will see a significant weight gain. While you continue to train regularly and consistently in the gym and perhaps do some cardio work 2-3 times per week your weight gain will be muscle gain and in time your body will become thicker and more muscular.

If you simply cannot eat 5-6 solid meals of food each day, don’t despair, this is where protein shakes play a valuable part in helping you to get enough protein and just as importantly, gain weight. As your body gets used to eating more food, more frequently throughout the day you will be able eat a higher volume of food as your body adjusts to the increased food intake. However, there is no problem eating 4 solid meals of food each day and having 2 protein shakes to make up the 6 meals you should be eating each day to gain weight. It is much easier to drink a protein shake than it is to eat a solid meal, especially if you are not very hungry.

One more tip on how to gain weight for hardgainers is to add a full cup of uncooked oats to your protein mix and blend it all together. To be honest the oats will not completely blend in thoroughly to your protein shake and a lot of it will be a sludge in the bottom of your blender, but who cares, drink it anyway as it is a good quality, low fat form of carbohydrates that is ideal to help you gain extra weight.

If you add the oats to your protein shake just before you go to bed, the high carbohydrate level in the shake will actually have the effect of promoting growth hormone release while you are sleeping. Growth hormones are released when you are resting and primarily when you are sleeping and low fat carbs like oatmeal for example also increase the amount of growth hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland in your brain. Of course too many carbs before bed will make you fat if you have a genetic tendency towards being fat. If however you are a hardgainer and have a fast metabolism, you will have no problem with getting fat from the added oatmeal in your protein shakes as it will only increase the amount of weight you will gain and along with consistent training this will only lead to more muscle growth.