Gaining Weight For Some People Is Extremely Hard
I know…I’ve been there. Skinny people are often forgotten about and can struggle just as much as people trying to lose weight.
Growing up I was a pretty skinny teenager. How skinny? I was 155 to 175 pounds at 6’2″ tall at my heaviest. I felt inadequate because of my weight.
Sounds pretty silly now that I have struggled with losing weight in the past. But around my late 20’s I started to pack the weight on. Quickly going from 220 pounds to 230 pounds then to 270 pounds in my forties. Gaining weight can be just as hard as losing weight to some people.
I was unhappy with my weight and size when younger, despite being athletic. I thought size was everything probably because I lacked it.
I ate endless Double Whoppers with Cheese (1,105 calories) as I lived one block from a Burger King. Drank the nastiest protein powders, keep in mind this was the late eighties and early nineties and protein powder was just simply horrible. Drank gallons of milk (btw, I hate milk) and overate as much as I could whenever I could.
Despite this, my X-Men super mutant metabolism absolutely refused to pack on weight. I did add weight to my frame using one of the books mentioned below
This is something that I struggled with when I was growing up and was picked on because of how skinny I was.
Be Careful What You Wish For
Before I get started with the best books for gaining weight for men, I would like to inform you about a few things first.
Love yourself and accept yourself no matter what weight you are. Easier said than done, I know and pretty cliche to boot. But it is true.
But after living through being skinny in my teens and twenties and now looking back, I wished I would have just worried less about gaining weight and focused more on just accepting myself. Just being myself and saying “fuck you” to anyone that picked on me and didn’t accept me for who I was.
I had extremely low self-esteem and thought gaining weight was my answer to building myself up. It did help a little with my self-esteem, I won’t lie.
Where ever you are in life, stand strong in your power. Focus on building muscle, as you have low body fat and your muscles will really pop.
Are You A Hardgainer?
If you are I will highlight some of the best books to get you started putting on some weight in the shortest amount of time.
Super Squats – How To Gain 30 Pounds Of Muscle In 6 Weeks
Super Squats by Randall J. Strossen is an old-school approach to packing on muscle and not just weight. This will definitely work but be prepared to get your ass handed to you. I’m not kidding here, as you will be doing squats of your own bodyweight for reps of 20.
Your legs will be mega sore for about a week. Any bending down will be excruciatingly painful. To avoid this as much as possible make sure you have been doing squats for at least a month or two to be generally in shape. This isn’t for a beginner, if you are looking for a book on technique get Starting Strength.
Squatting is one of the best overall exercises out there. This book is built around this fact, although there are other exercises in there, it mostly squatting.
This is the method I used back in high school and gained 20 pounds using this method during the summer. I still fondly remember the workouts, the soreness, the strength gains, and the weight gains. I wasn’t in shape when I first used this book and…I paid for it. Being in constant pain for a week straight with any movement of my legs, as any sort of bending motion with my legs was pure hell. You don’t realize how much you bend in a day until you are that sore.
But I stuck with it and put on weight.
This is a must-have for any hard gainer out there! Anybody that has followed this book workout, has a love-hate-respect relationship with it. It is a book that many in the bodybuilding world know of and is recommended the most for skinny guys that struggle with adding weight to their frames.
Pros
- Will actually work for packing on size and strength.
- Will increase all of your lifts and make you stronger.
- Will push your mental strength as well.
- Squats are one of the best methods of increasing testosterone levels and this will do this in spades.
- Simple and straightforward as the methods are pretty basic, no vast knowledge to get lost and confused in.
- Been around for a long time as a proven winner in putting on weight.
- Increase the lungs capacity and chest size, as you will be sucking in humungous breaths of air doing super squats.
- Highly motivational! You’ll need it, as the workouts are hard, as mentioned above.
- No fluff.
- Available in Paperback and Kindle.
Cons
- Need to be in somewhat shape before beginning this book.
- Hard workouts. You will develop a love-hate relationship with the squat.
- Consuming large quantities of milk is recommended and might be a problem for those with lactose intolerant.
- Although the book is written for a beginner, I would not recommend it for a beginner. As you will need to know proper lifting techniques.
Scrawny to Brawny: The Complete Guide To Building Muscle The Natural Way
Scrawny To Brawny: The Complete Guide To Building Muscle The Natural Way by Michael Mejia and John Berardi is more of a scientific approach to gaining weight for skinny guys. This is a four-month program to get from skinny to brawny.
There are a lot of key factors on which this STB book focuses on, like how often to eat, how much to eat, lifting heavy weights, HIIT training, and more.
Pros
- Available in Kindle and Paperback
- It Has long-term goals and workouts included in the book.
- Focuses on compound movements, which I love doing.
- Also focuses on progressive weight training, another winner in my book for getting strong and bigger.
- Packed full of technical and practical tips.
- Not only does it focus on eating more but also eating the right foods. I love this.
- www.scrawnytobrawny.com has some great resources too. Check it out.
- Plenty of good tips for meals and snacks that pack nutrition and calories.
Cons
- The book should be better organized in the chapters.
- Contains a lot of information that leaves one kinda lost sometimes and restates already learned information.
- Paperback book is poorly put together and falls apart after a while.
- Lacking somebody part exercise, the calves.
- Low carbs, which affect some people’s energies.
- Very time consuming to follow all the procedures to
Ectomorphs Unite
Gaining weight takes a lot of effort from eating the right foods to doing the right exercises. In time results will happen, just stay with a detailed plan, follow it religiously.
Give yourself the time if you’re new to lifting weights to properly learn the right way to lift. Either by researching proper lifting techniques and practice or going to a gym, or having a trainer help you. You do not want to injure yourself with poor lifting technique.
Do you struggle with gaining weight? Share your struggle. Have any tips? Please feel free to share below.
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