I have a friend who likes to lift weights right and hes 130 and no matter what he eats he can't gain weight. Hes tried whey protien and everything but eating butter out of the stick. Is there any vitamin, mineral, protien, or herb that can help my friend. Nothing prescription please we don't like dealing with big Pharma.
tell him to eat more does he log his food intake? if not, tell him to go to fitday.com and start logging what he eats. then add more food to belly
I have the same problem, I always stay less than 125. Bottom line is he has to eat, a lot. Good rule is every 2-3 hours (assuming he is lifting several times a week atleast), doesn't matter if he's not hungry he has to eat anyway. And he can't just be eating junk, some is okay but he's gotta have fruits and veggies and such, chicken and tuna should be main staples in his diet. I always throw in a scoop of ice cream and some chocolate syrup with those whey protein shakes. I've also heard to drink Ensure and eat a lot of peanut butter.
just eat more.. like the above poster says.. every 3-4hrs.. intake a good 600-800 cals.. also there is a place called TheDailyPlate.. you can put in your ht/wt/age and if you wanna lose/maintain/gain weight.. and it'll give you a daily calorie count for you to achieve.. check it out
not just chicken and tuna (tuna is actually really bad for you to eat often because of mercury levels) eat BEEF (lean beef) and proteins (rice+beans - any grain and bean = whole protein), whole wheat, as much fruit/veg, protein shakes, ANYTHING healthy just EAT EAT EAT, seriously - upwards to 5,000 calories a day. DO NOT RUN WHEN WORKING OUT - running some is okay, but anything more than a mile or so burns too many calories, especially if you cant eat much. i've put on 10-15 lbs by watching what i eat, making sure i eat a lot and being conscious of how i exercise. when lifting - do LOW amounts of reps with HIGH weight (don't try to do 50 reps of a medium weight, you want to max out - 10-20 reps) and take it SLOOOOOWWWWWW, you do NOT want your heart rate to climb, you are burning too many calories by making your respiratory work out. you want as many calories as possible to go towards muscle construction also be conscious of what comes out of your body. you can tell a lot about what you need to change in your diet through your excrement (gross i know, but truth)
when it comes to weights.. if you are doing anything over 10 reps.. you are doing too much.. set up 3-5 sets.. first set light/high rep(10).. this is your warmup set.. if you are gonna continue to work this certain muscle of your body.. a warm up set will not have to be performed with each workout... by the time you are on your last set you should be looking for muscle failure.. meaning.. you are doing a set of 4-6 reps.. with as much weight as you can possibly manage to pull at least 4 reps out of.. and by the end you will not be able to perform another rep.. muscle failure is important.. so that you are making sure that you are working out your muscles to their utmost... also.. like everyone else has said.. tons of protein and potassium.. a good rule of thumb is for every lb you weight.. you should eat a gram of protein.. especially for weight gain
eat before you go to bed - if you wake up at night, go get something to eat this is an easy way to continue food intake throughout the day (also your body will store more of the calories when you are sleeping)
This isnt advice for gaining weight, but if he is going to try to gain weight have him take 300mg of alpha-lipoic acid, a digestive aide with beneficial bacteria and digestive enzymes, and 400 IU of natural vitamin e every day so that he doesnt ruin his health as quickly. An inevitable byproduct of eating way more food than you need is elevated insulin levels and insulin resistance, oxidative stress and the over-working of the digestive system, amongst other things.
he wont be overeating though^ it is completely healthy to eat upwards of 5000 calories (or even more) a day as long as you are exercising and actually utilizing them. it is actually very unhealthy to NOT eat such an extreme amount when on a vigorous exercise schedule
i dont mean to jack this thread but theres reall no point in starting a new one. i do not work out but i eat all day long everyday and ive actually lost weight since the summer. i believe i way about 128 right now and im 5'11. i was 145 at the start of summer. i really dont know wats going on. likei eat more now than ever
Your friend has a high metabolism, if he is only concerned with putting on muscle tell him to eat all the time high protein, also since he has such a high metabolism whey protein is most likely inferior to some of the other options out there as whey protein is naturally metabolized very quickly by the body there for he is probably not even getting half of the protein from the whey that he is ingesting. Goat milk protein is broken down much slower and would most likely work better. Bottom line is EAT all the time and train hard.
But he's gaining weight. That means that he's not utilizing all of it. A lot of it is being stored, and that will cause high insulin levels. Not to mention massive amounts of oxidative stress and stress on internal organs like the liver. What is healthy is eating AS MUCH as you need. If you're exercising harder, eat more according to your need. If weight is being gained, you are eating more than you are using and it is being stored by means of insulin secretion. This is a simple concept. Also, the digestive system only has so much capacity for food processing and the internal organs only have so much capacity to handle the multitude of tasks we assign them. Eating far more food than the body needs will weaken the body internally. And the metabolism of all food causes massive amounts of oxidative stress that will destroy the body from within. Exercise can only do so much to combat these things. Such an extreme weight-gain diet is unwise in my opinion. The ideal physique from a health standpoint is that of the typical basketball player. Lean, well-used muscles, with little body fat.
a person can healthily eat 6,000 calories a day as long as they are using at least 4,000 of those calories during some sort of sport or exercise... the other 2,000 is for normal everyday wear and tear.. bodily functions.. etc...
If they truly are burning all of those extra calories as energy, there will be no insulin problems. However, we are talking about adding to the body and maintaining the addition, not simply maintaining the default weight. Also, the liver and muscles can only store so much glucose at once. Even after an intense workout, there will still be a lot of insulin secretion and fat storage from eating these huge amounts of food. There really isnt any way around insulin problems if youre eating that much food. There are a lot of other problems with high-calorie diets even if all of those calories are being burned. Acidity, oxidative stress, organ fatigue, which causes a lot of other problems as a chain reaction (especially the liver and kidneys). Internal organs don't grow in correlation with the added weight. A naturally skinny person eating massive amounts of food and training for hours a day to be bigger is asking for a reduced lifespan and chronic diseases later in that shortened life. Alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin e, digestive aides and maybe some organ-strengthening herbs would be an appropriate measure to reduce the damage done.
Its not worth it, seriously. Not worth the stress, not worth the effort, not worth the health risk (most weight gainers have alot of harmful ingredients in them). I have a very high metabolism, and I had to eat so much just to maintain 185 - 190 pounds (I'm 6'2). Three weight gain shakes a day, tuna, pasta, yogurt, granola bars, bananas, etc. You name it. I would eat all the time. 5 or more meals a day. Every chance I had I would be eating. Between meals, even while I was dropping my GF home at night, before I went to sleep. It wasn't fun. Also it was so easy to lose weight. Miss a couple hundred calories, then I lost weight. So counterproductive. Not worth it. Its been shown in psychological studies that on average, most women prefer guys that are toned. Not ripped, not skinny, but somewhere in between. Lets be honest, chances are thats the reason why someone would want to get ripped and have some weight on them.
