The Eating Plan: Phase One—Bulk Up

For many skinny guys this is the most difficult part both physically and mentally. You are going to have to eat a lot more than you are used to eating. It may be uncomfortable to do this at first. You will have to eat a meal every 2 to 4 hours in order to consume 5 to 6 sizeable meals per day. Keep in mind that to create change there is always some level of discomfort. To be comfortable is to stay the same.

The mental discomfort comes from the fact that you will need to gain some extra fat during this phase. It is not only likely, it is actually necessary. You see, your body can use both muscle and fat for energy when no food is readily available to burn as fuel. Fat is your long term fuel storage and muscle is used for more short term storage. Your body will resist storing muscle if there is not an adequate supply of fat on the body.

Often a skinny guy will begin a weight gain program, find that he is developing a little bit of a gut and revert back to the “better skinny than fat” mentality and quit his program or at least cut back so much on food that no gains are made. Don’t let this happen to you. Be prepared for this and determine to keep moving forward. This extra fat will be easy to remove once you have built up enough muscle. Bodybuilders do this all the time, they are not “competition ready” all year long. Buy some baggy shirts and realize that it will all be worth it in the end.

Use the following food lists as a guide to planning your meals. Each meal will consist of protein and a carbohydrate. You should plan on having two servings of either flax seed oil, olive oil or nuts (watch the serving size) per day. The oils may be used in your salad or the olive oil in preparing your food if desired, but everything should be broiled, grilled, baked or boiled to minimize the fat content. Be sure to include at least 3 serving of vegetables per day as well.The serving size will depend on your specific calorie needs, but a basic guideline is given.

Proteins
Chicken breast 3 to 6 ounces
Turkey breast 3 to 6 ounces
Lean ground turkey 3 to 6 ounces
Turkey bacon or Sausage
Lean ground beef 3 to 6 ounces
Lean sirloin or NY Strip 3 to 6 ounces (one steak can be spread over two meals)
Salmon 3 to 6 ounces (although this has more fat, it is good fat and should be eaten a couple of times per week)
Canned tuna 12 ounces (2 cans)
Egg whites 1 dozen
Fat-free cottage cheese 1 to 1 ½ cups
Lean white fish 6 to 12 ounces
Whey Protein Powder 1 or 2 scoops depending on brand

Carbohydrates
Pasta 2 to 4 cups cooked (one of your best sources, great for energy and weight gain)
Brown Rice 1 cup
White Rice 1 cup
Whole Grain Bread 2 – 4 slices (depends on the type of bread and your calorie needs)
Bagel 1 whole
English Muffins 1 or 2 depending on size and calorie requirements
Potato (baked, boiled or mashed with skim milk)
Sweet Potato 1 whole
Squash 2 cups
Fruit—any type (bananas and oranges are particularly good for weight gain) one or two pieces
Oatmeal (always a staple in any bodybuilder’s diet) ¾ to 1 cup (uncooked measurement)
Air-popped popcorn 3 – 6 cups can use butter flavored cooking spray sparingly
Legumes 1cup
Corn 2 cups
Cornmeal 1/3 cup
Grits or Hominy 2 cups
Any whole grains including spelt, barley, buckwheat, rye, etc.
Honey (an excellent choice for sweetening and adding extra calories—opt for raw if available) 1 to 2 tbsp.

Remember that your calorie intake depends on your weight, but most hardgainers need to take in between 2500 and 3500 calories per day which means 400 to 700 calories per meal. Let’s go with the average skinny guy as an example. If he weighs 165 pounds he would go with the 2500 calories a day.

Let’s say he decides that 5 meals a day is best for his lifestyle. He would then be eating 5 meals of 500 calories each day so with a 40/50/10 ratio he would want each meal to have 50 grams of protein, about 63 grams of carbohydrate and just less than 6 grams of fat.
The sample one week menu in the following posts would meet these requirements, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand, as long as you have the appropriate amounts of protein, carbs, fat and calories with each meal.

Basic Weight Gain Theory

Here comes the fun part. There are many theories that get tossed around in the weight loss/ weight gain science arenas. There is the old standard calories in vs. calories out theory that says if you take in more calories than you burn you will gain weight and vice versa. According to this way of thinking, you need to eat about 3500 calories above what you are burning to gain a pound. But, how do you make sure that you are gaining muscle and not fat?

Here’s where things start to get a little more complicated. A lot of the other theories flying around have to do with ratios. The ratios I am referring to compare the percentages of your diet that come from protein, carbohydrates and fat.

For muscle gain without fat loss the recommended ratio is usually 40/50/10 meaning that 40% of your total calorie intake is from protein, 50 percent is from carbohydrates and 10% is from fat. This is noticeably less fat than the weight loss ratios which usually call for a minimum of 20% fat and that may seem counterintuitive to you, but eating too much fat will actually slow down your weight gain for a couple of important reasons:

It fills you up more quickly so you will end up eating too few calories.

It is more difficult for the body to store or use as energy and actually requires more calories to process (I know, this is the opposite of everything “they” taught you in the 80s and 90s)
You need to have adequate protein and carbohydrate intake to support the new muscle growth you are trying to achieve. The minimum protein intake for muscle repair is about 1 gram of protein for every pound of your bodyweight, but you will need to check your ratios and be sure to get about 40% of your total calories from protein. An easy way to track your eating habits and keep your ratios in line is to use the tools available at a diet site like sparkpeople.com or fitday.com.

You should track everything you eat for 2 to 3 weeks until you understand what the right amount of food and ratios look like for you can then continue eating the same way. If you stop gaining weight or lose weight, simply go back to tracking your meals until you are back on track again.

As for the “how much to eat” part…Remember when I mentioned in the last article that you are underweight due to a combination of a high metabolism and not eating enough? That is usually the thing the skinny least wants to hear. You probably think you eat a lot, right? Track your current food intake for a couple of days and you will likely be surprised to find out you are not eating nearly enough.

You need to be eating 5 or 6 substantial meals per day with the 40/50/10 ratio in order to gain enough weight. There are plenty of complicated formulas for figuring out exactly how many calories you should be eating in order to gain weight, but an easier method is to take your current weight and multiply that by 15 and base your caloric intake on that number. If you aren’t gaining a pound a week you should multiply your weight by 16 or 17 until you begin to see the increase you want.