Being naturally slim, you know just how challenging it can be to pack on muscle.
Especially if you’re someone who eats a lot but still struggles to gain weight due to genetics.
But the harsh truth is that you might not be doing enough or you might not be focusing on the right diets plans or workout programs.
It’s important to understand that your approach should differ from someone who’s already muscular or someone aiming to lose weight.
Unlike others, your metabolism works faster, burning more calories which means you need a strategic balance of diet and workout plan tailored to your body type.
After much trial and error, I have learned that building muscle isn’t hard you just have to put in the work and stay consistent for a long time.
With the right approach, anyone can make progress, even if it feels slow at first.
Here are some key tips that helped me break through those challenges and start seeing real results.
Eat more calories:
To get bigger, you have to eat big.
There is no way around it and you should know that your body will only adapt to having more mass if you daily calorie intake is higher.
Prioritize eating as much as you possibly can every single day, especially as a beginner.
As you are working out, you are naturally going to increase your appetite because you lose out on a lot of calories during your gym sessions.
Wait about one-two hours post workout and let your body increase its appetite.
The more hungry you are, the more you would want to eat and having a larger appetite is going to force you to eat more food.
That said, it doesn’t mean you can eat just anything- you need to eat more, but focus on clean, healthy foods.
Healthy foods include:
- Red Meat or just meat in general.
- Eggs
- Clean Dairy
- Fruits
- Some vegetables
- Pre-Pro biotic rich foods.
You don’t have to transition to a complete carnivore diet, however you need to avoid as much processed foods as possible.
Processed foods are only going to make you gain more fat rather than muscle and you need to prioritize developing more muscle.
This can be done by eating more protein, hence, eating more meat, clean dairy, eggs etc.
To maximize your gains, aim to consume at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight each day. For even better results, try increasing this intake to around 1.25 grams per pound of body weight.
This will make sure you are recovering properly while also eating more calories with the adequate amount of protein intake.
However, a high-protein diet requires careful balance. Make sure to include plenty of fiber, essential macronutrients, and foods rich in prebiotics and probiotics to support digestion and overall health.
You don’t want to overload your digestion system by just eating more protein and neglect the main nutrients your body requires to function on a daily basis.
Vitamins and minerals found in nutrient-dense foods are essential for healthy longevity and muscle building, so you need to have them in your diet.
While your diet will lay a foundation for muscle growth, you need to pair with a solid strength training routine.
Strength Training:
To build muscle fast you need to train with heavy weights.
Doing more volume will help you but you aren’t going to see much progress in the short run.
Train with weights that you can only do around 6-8 reps with or even less and push it to failure.
You want to focus on gaining more strength rather than focusing on muscle hypertrophy.
Training for strength and not hypertrophy doesn’t mean you are going to lose out on building muscle.
In fact, the stronger you are the more you can lift and the bigger you’ll get.
When you get to a point that you are able to lift decent weights, then, you should have days where you focus on hypertrophy.
Don’t start out with spamming the 5 pound dumbbells for curls till failure, it probably isn’t going to help you build as much muscle as you would training with the 10 pound dumbbell with 6-8 solid slow and controlled reps (till failure).
High intensity low volume is the key to building significant amounts of muscle in a short period of time.
When you are skinny, you lack the strength to train for muscle hypertrophy in the first place because your lifts aren’t heavy enough to where you are going to see significant changes in your body.
Once you master this, you are going to be hitting PRs consistently and it will motivate you to keep going further and further.
It only makes sense that “if you want bigger muscles you have to lift bigger circles”, it’s simple.
Don’t overcomplicate by tracking your sets and reps, although that is important, you need to focus more on training with intensity till failure.
Work smart and hard, don’t waste your time in the gym doing pointless repetitions, maximize your potential and lift hard.
Consistency and Recovery:
Your training isn’t the only thing that matters and you can’t outwork your diet or lifestyle.
Everything needs to be changed.
- Your sleep patterns
- Diet
- Mindset
- Daily Routine
Diet is going to be the number one thing that is going to help your muscle building journey.
However, to actually build those muscles you need sleep.
Sleep is going to help your body use the nutrients from your diet and repair those broken muscle fibers that you worked so hard to get in the gym.
Your only job is to go to sleep at the same time every single day, and it is truly not that hard, I mean why wouldn’t anyone like sleeping.
However, to go to sleep in a timely manner and receive at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night, you need to get stuff done early.
Your fitness journey will also impact your day to day life because you have to be consistent with your routines, otherwise, you won’t see fast and steady progress.
Obviously there are going to be days where you can’t stick to your routine but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a solid routine for a usual day in your life.
Set aside an hour or two everyday just for the gym and the rest of your day you should be focusing on getting other stuff done.
Most of the time if you are unproductive throughout your day it will impact on your motivation for the gym too.
If it helps, hit the gym early in the morning so that it helps set the mood for the rest of the day or choose the approach of hitting it in the evenings once you get your stuff done.
But life outside of the gym does matter and it will haunt you if you aren’t consistent with every single thing in your life.
Make the gym, sleep and diet something to look forward to throughout your day.
Starting your fitness journey will motivate you to be more productive than usual, it’s a blessing in disguise.
The more you put in now, the better your time off is going to be.
Rest when it is needed and get stuff done when it is needed, rotting in bed and scrolling mindlessly is never going to help you achieve anything.
Use your abundance of free time to maximize your potential because you only have one life.
Create a body you are proud of.