The Hardgainer's Guide to Nutrition: EAT!

A fraternity brother of mine recently asked me if I had any advice for him on how he could gain some weight. Like a lot of us, he's a hardgainer: thin bone structure, long limbs, naturally lean body composition, and a naturally high metabolism. For guys like him, losing weight is NOT the problem. It's gaining weight that's the real predicament.


Outside of using a training routine that requires the use of a ton of heavy squatting, pressing, and rowing, there's only one other trick of the trade (that's legal): Eat food. Eat lots of food. And do it often.

This doesn't mean you should eat everything in sight. Try to consume as many calories per day as possible while staying away from refined sugars and fatty foods. Eat too much of the bad stuff and your next question will be, "How do I lose this gut?" To which I'll refer you to this article. You must eat clean in order to ensure that your weight gain is in the form of lean muscle tissue and NOT fat.

Start by setting a benchmark of consuming 2,500 calories per day divided amongst 4-8 meals. You should be eating something about every 2 to 4 hours. Personally, I try to take in approximately 4,000 calories per day. Calories are simply how we measure the body's energy input and output. So in order to gain weight you must take in more calories per day than you put out. (Vice versa for weight loss.) You can't expect to get big when you're burning thousands of calories a day lifting weights, doing cardio, and playing ball. Just eat, lift heavy 3 or 4 times per week, and minimize the cardio (if any at all).

Protein consumption is a key component to gaining lean muscle tissue. For weight gain, you are to eat 1.5 - 2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. You read right, fellas. That's a LOT of protein. If you're sure to eat a good quality source of protein at each meal, then this shouldn't be too big of an issue. This is where protein shakes and bars come in handy. Use them as snacks between your regular meals of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You should also drink a high calorie/high carbohydrate protein shake within 30 minutes following your workouts to help with muscular recovery and repair.

Eating correctly, no matter what your goal, can be a little tricky at times. But the trick is to find a good rhythm or routine in order to force it all into becoming a habit. Enough reading. GO EAT SOMETHING!

Now, what are you going to do?

CAS