Hey, I’m 18 years old, 5’11’’, and only 125 pounds.
I’m really not happy with my weight. I eat and eat and eat, but my super-metabolism doesn’t seem to quit.
I’m wondering if anyone could suggest any fast, safe, and effective methods of weight gain. I’m going to be starting at Drexel in mid-September, and I’d like to gain at least 20 pounds by then, so that only gives me 4 months.
Yeah. Eat what I eat. And exercise like I do. You can’t go wrong.
Hey, I used to have the same stats as you at that age!
Fast ways? Umm… maybe training in a high G spaceship and do martial arts…or…err…do the Cartman Beefcake thang?
Don’t worry about it, just eat right (fruits, veg, etc) and exercise. You may have stopped growing, but you metabolism still burns fairly high, this will wear down after a while. If you seriously want to bulk up, do heavy weights and low repetions. I never could stand the monotomy though, and just did cross training (ie, mucking around doing all sorts)
I tried to gain weight when I was 19 by eating heaps. Worked well until about 21 when my metabolism shut down and I gained a huge beer gut. Now I’m happy and slightly underweight at 155lb a couple of years later.
Soapbox Monkey…I wish I had your problem! 
There are reputable companies that make products you can find at GNC that will help you build muscles. (Generally have something in the title with “bulk”) Of course, muscle burns more calories than fat SO…well…hmm…eat lots.
Oh my Sopbox, I think that I officially hate you! 
I won’t try to give advice, because I have never experienced your problem and my experience is not relevent. I do wish you luck though.
If you were a little older, I’d say, “Get married.” That usually does it.
I too was “the skinny guy” 6’0" 150 lbs…after a while of thinking my metabolism will never slow down… I became the fat guy 205 lbs…
then started working my ass of at the gym, and started taking ephedrine… I once again became the skinny guy 150 lbs…
I still work my ass off at the gym… but now it is to gain muscle…
Now I am the Fit guy at about 175 lbs…
Here is what I would suggest… Work Out…
You don’t really need to do cardio now… but you will in college.
If you are looking for quick gains… There are a few supplements I would recommend… I have taken them, they have worked for me and I haven’t noticed any side effects…
#1 Is Cell-Tech creatine… You will notice gains very quickly… within 2 weeks…
#2 Methoxy-Pro Protein shakes…
But you need to work out… and work out hard…
I would start for about a month before taking anything… and then start taking them so you can see what it is like to work out with and without them.
When I was back down to 150, I started taking the combination of the 2 and gained 8 lbs in 2 weeks… most of it was probably water weight…but I got bigger and was much stronger…
I was 5’1" and 86 lbs. My weight gain came from eating lots of small meals. Eat every two hours or so. And do milkshakes if you can. Also, eating right before bed will help. I finally put the weight on, but since old age kicked in, I now have a few I’d like to lose. But you’re a long way from that problem for a while.
Um just a note on heigh protein stuff. Please be careful as too much protein in your diet can hurt your kidneys!
I’d go find a cite but I’m on my way out the door. I do have kidney disease myself though so I’ve only had the protein in excess is bad for kidneys (even healthy ones) lecture for the last 20 years from all my doctors.
Oh and you must be male… I wish I had a metabolism like that!!!
OK. Hopefully I can talk you out of this: Please Listen. Remember Sean Connery? He was Thin as a Rail, but wirey in his early days. Look at him in Dr No…he’s not the muscle builder type. As he got older, he bacame larger by age, not Pulled Pork BBQ.
At your 10 & 20 year HS reunion, almost all of those big beefy Varsity muscle men will be Fat Blobs. By your 30 year reunion you won’t see them …but thats because they’ll be Dead.
Be Happy with yourself. Accept your body and your shape. You’ll enjoy life So much more once you do…
When I was going from wrestling to football and needed to gain 30 lbs in a few months I would drink Slim Fast shakes BETWEEN meals and at night with ice cream. Also, if you can find goat milk (good luck) it has more fat than cow milk:
http://fiascofarm.com/dairy/goatmilk-breakdown.html
Per quart:
protein 30 gm
carbohydrate 43 gm
fat 38 gm
calcium 1213 mg
Hi,
I’m 18 years old as well, 5’10’’ and 140lbs. I wasn’t happy with my weight and so I decided to the gym. Adding to this I take celltech volume optimizer II. It consist of creatine and some other useful stuff.
Eating is of course very important. But don’t forget, only protein can build muscle tissue!!! So junk food won’t help you a lot.
In summer my contract with the gym will expire. And Iam damn sure that I will have achieved my goals by then!
What does your doctor say about your weight? Do you want to just gain weight or do you want to build muscle?
It is counterintuitive, but the best way to gain weight is to go on a diet. If you fast or reduce calorie intake for several days, your metabolism will go into starvation mode and slow waaaaaay down. Then when you go back to normal eating, you’ll gain weight. There’s a reason why there are so many fat people in America these days - and this is a big one.
In animal science circles it’s called compensetory gain.
Here’s what you need to do, Soapbox Monkey. For the next week, write down everything you eat, along with the total calories, carbs, fat, and protein. Post it, and then we’ll have something to work with.
9 times out of 10, the guy who can’t gain weight isn’t eating enough.
Enjoy it while it lasts, your metabolism (unless you are blessed with a lifelong high metabolism) will slow down as you get older. My SO could eat like a horse when he was younger and remain rail thin. He is older now and can’t get rid of his bad eating habits (red meat, fried foods, and lots of them) so health is more of an issue now, as well as his gut. He doesn’t have the metabolism of a 16-year old anymore.
Pick up good eating habits, with high protein, carbs, and fat content. For example, nuts, eggs, lean meats, vegetables, potatoes, and pasta.
Have you tried the old breathing squats and pullover routine? I have heard it said that it can put twenty pounds on a broomstick.
Thorough warm-up. You want to break a mild sweat.
Then -
Pick a weight you could normally do ten reps with in the squat. Do this inside a power rack if you have one, otherwise find some reliable spotters. Then do a set of twenty reps, pausing between each rep to take three breaths, deep enough to move your shoulders. Upon completing the set, without any pause to rest, do a set of pullovers of at least twelve reps. This can be a fairly light weight.
Then gently walk around for at least five minutes to recover. The rest of your workout will be very basic -
[ul]
[li] Bench press - three sets of eight[/li][li] Pulldowns or chins - three sets to failure[/li][li] Calf raises - three sets to failure[/li][li] Curls - three sets of eight[/li][li] Crunch situps - two sets to failure[/li][/ul] Perfect form on every rep of every set.
Do this routine three times a week. If you can manage it, do one set of each exercise in turn before returning to the first exercise for your second set, but otherwise don’t rest more than one minute between sets.
Don’t be afraid of aerobics, but if you are doing more than twenty or thirty minutes at a time, cut back to twenty minutes three times a week. If you can rotate so that you run one day, swim the next, and row or bicycle the next, so much the better, as it distributes the stress on your joints.
Your diet should be around 70% carbohydrate, 20% protein, and 10% fat. Don’t waste your money on protein powder. If you can’t stand the thought of not taking supplements, use non-fat dried milk powder - all the protein of the over-priced Weider stuff at a third of the price. If you are lactose intolerant, try non-fat yogurt. Five small meals a day is better than two or three large ones. Shun fat and sugar.
Two pounds a week is about as much as a normal person can gain or lose and maintain afterwards. Make that your goal.
Have patience. Pick up a couple of five pound beef roasts, and imagine that amount of new muscle added to your frame. If you can maintain your currently low levels of body fat, and add even a few pounds of muscle, you can transform your appearance.
Good luck. Ten pounds of muscle is better than twenty pounds of fat.
Regards,
Shodan
beer.
seems to work for most men.
Shodan: your program’s fine and good (although I’d go less carbs and more protein/fat), but it won’t make a bit of difference to someone whose caloric intake is too low. You know that with a bad enough diet, even steroids won’t help you?
Eating is the key to any weight change. That’s why the food log is so important–it’ll help you see what you need to do to get where you want to be.
ultrafilter -
Five small meals a day should eliminate what I suspect is a good part of the problem, by forcing a meal plan. Then he won’t skip breakfast, over-eat at any one meal and do the other things that might be affecting his weight gain.
A food log is a fine idea, but he wants to gain muscle, not fat. It doesn’t take all that many more calories to gain two pounds a week.
“Going on a diet” almost never works. Changing your food habits can.
Regards,
Shodan