6 Tips for Building Muscle and Gaining Weight

Without using high dollar supplements or steroids, one of the best ways to gain weight is the natural way. In many minds today, a lot of people tend to think all you have to do is drink protein powders and weight gainers to build a Greek like body. Some of these supplements might help you gain weight, but that might not be the right kind of weight you’re looking for aka fat. There is a slow and progressive process you have to follow in order to build muscle and gain weight.

Here are some tips to gain weight naturally:

1.) If you’re going to want to start seeing results, you are going to have to start eating healthy. Dieting, oh the gruesome word we tend to loathe with our hearts. Or at least 75% of the overweight Americans do anyway. For most people, it is almost near impossible to eat healthy every single minute. Anyone that tells you don’t have to diet in order to get results you want is lying. It takes hard work and discipline.

2.) Try not to go overboard when you first begin your mass gaining diet. And what I mean by that is don’t jump start your diet 1000 calories above your daily average caloric intake. Slowly build up your calorie intake as each day and week goes by. So if you’re consuming about 2,000 calories a day, bump it up 2200-2300 for the first week or so. Then the next week, bump it up another 200-300 calories. See where I’m going with this? The reason why you don’t want to straight jump into a 4000 calorie diet is your body is going to go into “what the hell” mode and then transform a large amount of those calories into fat.

3.) About every couple weeks or so, you should step on the scale to see how much you weigh. Try to avoid stepping on the scale everyday as this might cause some anxiety issues with some. Trust me, I’ve seen it. If you’re not seeing any increase in weight, revise your caloric intake and increase your calorie consumption. And it’s not all about just the calories either, you have to watch what macro-nutrients you are taking in such as protein, fats, and carbs. Weigh yourself again in about another 2-3 weeks to see if you have made any progress. If you still aren’t seeing any minimal weight gain, revise your diet and continue to increase your macro-nutrients and calories. Repeat this process.

4.) Instead of eating three large meals a day, try to eat 6 proportional meals a day with about 2-3 hours apart if possible. Doing this will help your body metabolize all nutrients and not turn into fat.

5.) This is where the real sweating begins. If your workout routine consists mainly of dumbbell curls, drop the weights now. Literally. In order to gain muscle mass the quickest way possible, you need to include compound exercises that hit large muscle groups all at the same time. By hitting large muscle groups at once, you can spend less time with isolation exercises and more time building muscle mass. The biggest compound exercises you should focus on are deadlifts, bench press, squats, power cleans, and the like.

6.) Last but not least, in order to grow you need to get proper rest. The most muscle growth and recovery you make is while you are sleeping. If you are only getting 3-4 hours of sleep per night, your muscle gains are going to be extremely minimal. So no more late nights on facebook or myspace and hit the bed after a good day’s worth of work.