Simple Hardgainer Weight Gain Tips That An Idiot Could Follow
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One thing the average person doesn’t understand about hardgainers is that they have to really work at putting on weight and muscle. Most people who are bodybuilding are trying to shed pounds and fat, not put on more weight.
But the hardgainer needs to make significant changes in his or her diet and workout program to actually put on any bulk. These simple hardgainer weight gain tips will assist you in your journey to a better and healthier body.
Now if you want to gain weight and add muscle you can’t just start eating fast food and chocolate bars. I know, I was hoping for that too. There is a right way to go about it and I will explain it as easily as possible to you.
Since you are interested in building a better body I assume that you are also into building a healthier body, and to do that you must eat healthy things. To build muscle you must be consuming high quality nutrients from your food and also your supplements. Since you are a hardgainer you can cheat on this diet and eat junk, but whats the point? Just eat the best and higher quality foods and you will grow.
By higher quality foods I mean low glycemic carbohydrates and only low fat proteins and foods with high quality fats. By doing this you are optimizing your bodies ability to add weight via muscle, which is the sole reason for doing this.
As in all things in life it is best to have a plan and then to follow the plan. Being a hardgainer you have never bulked up in your life so this will probably come as a shock to you at first but stay with the plan, it is your best chance to add muscle.
Hardgainer Weight Gain No-Brainer Basics
If you follow this diet program correctly most of the weight you gain will be in the form of muscle. But some of it will be in the form of fat because the body naturally turns excess calories into fat for later usage. But be eating a low fat diet you will be minimizing your fat and maximizing your muscle gain. Seriously, do you really think that with your genetics you can become fat? I don’t think so.
Hardgainer Weight Gain Rule No. 1
You will really have to start increasing your protein intake. This may sound hard at first but it is essential for success. You will need to be consuming at least 1.5 grams of protein for each pound that you weigh. I’m talking your full body weight not your lean muscle mass.
So if you way 140 pounds you will need to be digesting 210 grams of protein per day. That sounds like a lot and it is, but you have a special metabolism that needs this much. You will have to divide this over 6 to 8 meals per day. And you will need to drink a lot of water to process this through your body.
The time between meals must be at least 90 minutes and a maximum of 3 hours. Anything over 3 hours and your metabolism will start eating into your muscle for energy. You are like a hot running furnace constantly burning calories and you have to feed the furnace to keep up with and outpace its needs.
Your best sources for protein are chicken, turkey, egg whites, tuna, shrimp and 93% lean red meats. There are others but I’m not going to go into extreme detail here. Stick with the chicken and tuna since they are cheap and easy to make.
Hardgainer Weight Gain Rule No. 2
We can’t gain weight eating only protein so we have to eat other things that our bodies require to survive. Carbohydrates are a staple of every diet and its no different here. We are going to increase our carbohydrate intake to anywhere from 1.5 to 2 grams per pound of our body weight.
We did the math above so its practically the same so I won’t cover it again. Needless to say its a lot and it is extremely essential. Carbohydrates are the energy stores for your muscles and will help you do your workouts easier and faster.
Carbohydrates are the transport mechanism of amino acids from the protein into the muscle tissue. They increase insulin levels which is the train that the amino acids rides. It is important that we are eating low glycemic complex carbohydrates so that we aren’t creating a fat train which is unhealthy and doesn’t function as well.
Some good examples that you should be eating are brown rice, oatmeal, pasta and sweet potatoes. There are more of course but these should be your staples. We will want to limit the high glycemic complex carbs for after the workout to get the energy into the muscle as fast as possible. Higher glycemic complex carbs and simple carbs will jump start the recovery process and bring energy to your muscles.
Here is an important tip. Half of your carbohydrates should be eaten between the time that the body is most receptive and post workout. You body is most receptive in the morning or first meal. Here is an example using our 140 pound person which needs between 210 and 280 grams per day.
Lets use 280 to make the math easier. If we split 280 in half we get 140 grams of carbs. We now need to split that in half for the morning and the post workout. So we will need to eat around 70 grams of carbohydrates in the morning (first meal) and 70 grams more after our workout.
Also, the morning meal carbohydrates will be complex low glycemic carbs and the post workout will be higher glycemic and simple carbs. This is all about getting energy to the muscle and rebuilding the stores of energy in our liver and blood. Without energy our muscles can not grow.
The rest of the 140 grams should be split into our meals during the day. It is best to refrain from eating complex carbohydrates after 6:30 pm, unless you are working out that late, because your insulin sensitivity goes down at night. Which means you run the risk of storing carb calories at night, which is saying you are going to be adding fat to your body.
Part of your carbohydrate diet should be made up of fibrous carbs like green beans or broccoli of about 15 to 20 grams. You should get another 15 to 20 grams of at dinnertime. This will help keep your digestive tract moving and healthy, if you know what I mean.
Hardgainer Weight Gain Rule No. 3
Most people have a belief that removing all fats from their diet will make them thin. That is NOT TRUE. There are good fats and bad fats, but your body does need fats to function. Our brain is 40% fat, so see what happens if you get no fat in your diet.
Fats are required for optimum hormone production and it therefore follows in muscle growth. Testosterone is a hormone and without enough fat in your diet your testosterone levels will fall off the charts.
But we will concentrate on the good fats like the Omega Essential fatty acids. Essential means that the body can’t produce it on its own. These fats which are in oil form are important for your recovery due to inflammation, enhanced nutrient partitioning due to their ability to neutralize enzymes necessary for fat storage and mood enhancement.
One good thing is that we won’t need to take an outrageous amount in our diet like we did with protein and carbs. Three tablespoons per day for men and 1-1/2 tablespoons for women in the form of flax seed oil will suffice. You can also get it in fish oils or extra virgin canned olive oil.
I have found the best time to take them is my last 2 meals of the day. I split them between the two meals. It helps to squelch my cravings for sweets that I get because of the reduced carbohydrates I eat at night. Remember, no carbs after 6:30 unless its a post-workout meal.
Although this article is primarily written about nutrition I will remind you that you should be cutting down on your cardio workouts. No more than 20 minutes a time and 2 times a week at most. Being a hardgainer you don’t want to burn excess calories anywhere because you will have to try to eat up the difference.
You will need to be taking hardgainer supplements which I cover in another post that you can find here. Hardgainer Supplements
Hardgainer Weight Gain Rule No. 4
This may seem like it shouldn’t be covered here also but this is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. You need plenty of time for rest and recovery. Every day you should be getting a minimum of 7 hours sleep, 9 if you can swing it. Your muscles grow while you are sleeping and also they are recovering from the workouts.
This is where it all happens and you can’t cheat this one thing and do the others and expect to gain weight or muscle. Your hardgainer body is genetically designed to metabolize at a higher rate than most people and one way to slow that down is to sleep.
Lack of sleep messes up hormone production and energy levels and even your mood. You need to be running at peak efficiency to get your body in growing mode so get some sleep.
Using these simple hardgainer weight gain tips will help you defeat your genetics and finally get that body that you have been working so hard for. Discipline and following a plan have changed people and civilizations for centuries, you can do the same.
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