By Marcus Hunt
Sick of getting your girl swooned away and sand kicked in your face at the beach? Tired of not feeling big, strong, and in charge? Or maybe you just want to be able to move a couch without your girlfriend worrying you’ll hurt yourself? Whatever the reason may be, a common and coveted desire is for men of all ages to add muscle mass to their frame via weight training, consuming large amounts of food, and hard work on your part. But, with all things, there is an easy way and a hard way of going about a process, and as we all know, the easy often leads to unsubstantial and undesirable results, but we’ll get back to that later.
Now to get technical, the very first thing you need to know when trying to gain weight is that for any type of weight increase to take place (muscle or fat) you must be consuming calories in excess over your body’s maintenance caloric level. To determine how many calories your body burns at rest, you can use a Base Metabolic Rate Calculator online, by simply inputting your height, weight, and daily activity levels. There is obviously room for error, but it is a very close estimate.
For example, if your body burns 2,500 calories daily, including daily exercise, then to gain weight, eating 500 more calories for a total of 3000 is a good place to start for muscle gain with minimal fat gain. No matter what, you must be lifting weights. From there, adjust calorie intake by weekly progress.
As for the easy versus difficult way of going about this process, the easy way includes going on the “see-food diet,” where you eat anything and everything you see, regardless if it is deemed “healthy” or not. Those of you with an extremely fast metabolism may be able to get away with this and put on muscle, but in general, the difficult, but more rewarding way is the way to go. The difficult way requires getting all of your caloric needs from “clean” sources, meaning unprocessed foods with few ingredients. Opt for basic nutrient dense selections such as: chicken breast, omega-rich salmon, natural peanut butter, avocado, organic dark skinned fruits, and other similar foods.
If you are going to tell me you think you are eating a lot already and you’re not gaining weight, odds are you’re not eating enough. Buck up and make the sacrifice both in the kitchen and in the weight-room. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, I’m just saying it is going to be worth it.
