ARE YOU A HARDGAINER AND CAN'T PUT ON WEIGHT?
How To Gain Weight The Natural Physique Way.
Quite often I have someone email me or come up to me in the gym and ask how they can put on weight as they find it impossible. After they tell me they eat a ton of food I ask them to tell me a typical days nutrition. 9 times out of 10 I find they are eating way too little. A sandwich, packet of crisps and a Milky Way won’t go far when you have the metabolic rate of a Bugatti Chiron!
Winning the Junior Mr Europe at 20 years old in Holland 1992.
When I was a teenager just starting training I didn’t realise the importance of nutrition and getting in enough calories. My nutrition was based around cornflakes, jam sandwiches and whatever my mum cooked for dinner! It’s just food, it stops you being hungry I thought. Well, after a long chat with the owner of the gym I trained at, who was an IFBB Professional bodybuilder, he convinced me of the importance of food. It’s worth a try this food lark, lets up my food intake and see what happens!
Well, he wasn't wrong! After thinking what the hell can food do, I had a complete turn around of thinking. I grew like a weed, a couple of stone on in just a few weeks. There’s something in this eating game! The muscle went on, I got so much stronger and not long after training I had plenty of compliments from gym members about my gains, that does wonders for an extremely shy 16 year old!
The day before I won the ANB South East Junior Championships at 19 years of age 1992.
My jam sandwiches and cornflakes made way for eggs, steak, milk and weight gain protein drinks. Increasing your calorific intake is like training with weights, you have to build the calories up over time and be very disciplined. Over time my daily food intake was 26-30 whole eggs, 2lbs of steak (I had a friendly butcher who helped me out) 6 pints of milk and plenty of chicken! It is a lot of food and sometimes I had trouble eating it all but I wanted to gain size and naturally so bad.
So if you want to gain weight and muscle and you are not putting on weight then seriously think about the amount of food you eat. If the weight isn’t going on then your calories are too low. Increase your calories say by 500 calories a day, after a week if no weight has gone on then add another 500 calories until the weight starts to increase. It really is as easy as adding calories! Pick good calorie dense foods, combine with a good training program and see things happen. If weight still isn’t going on then keep raising your food intake. I never said it will be easy!
Here’s an example of my nutrition as a junior natural champion in the off season. I’m not saying follow it to the letter but rather what I had to do personally to gain weight/muscle without putting on too much fat -
Breakfast
12 whole egg omelette or boiled eggs
1 very large bowl of oats made with full fat milk or cereal like bran flakes
1 pint of milk
Mid Morning
Weight Gain drink made with whole milk
3 bananas
Lunch
1 lb of fillet/sirloin steak
2-3 jacket potatoes with cheese
Plenty of veg
1 pint of milk
Mid Afternoon
Weight Gain drink made with whole milk
3 bananas or pack of rice cakes
Dinner
1lb of minced steak
2-3 potatoes or big serving of rice
Plenty of veg
Big bowl of ice cream
Before Bed
12 whole egg omelette or boiled eggs
1 very large bowl of oats made with full fat milk or cereal like bran flakes
1 pint of milk
If you need someone to guide you through this and want continued support have a think about my online coaching and I can be there every step of the way.
Thanks for listening!
Peter Chown