I literally can’t gain weight

J

jessiengerman

New member
I’m 6’3 and weigh 145 lbs. numerous times I’ve gone on bulks where I would eat 3500-4500 calories per day for months on end and at best I would gain 3 lbs each time. Im skinny as hell even though I workout 6 days a week and I see no progress. I train til failure with proper form and the right amount of weight yet nothing happens. All the while everyone around me is saying “gee I wish I could eat whatever I wanted without gaining weight”. Im disgusted of my body and any time someone is walking behind me I move my arms around so they can’t see my bony elbow surrounded by no muscle. I hate the way I look and I don’t even know how to fix it.
 
@jessiengerman I can think of a few reasons. One, u simply aren't eating enough. Are u tracking? Two, you didn't bulk for long enough(its not a quick process). And you, you are OVERTRAINING. 6 days a week is alot. Not optimal for recovery for alot of people.
 
@blazefree I’d say that overtraining is less of a concern for bulking versus cutting. If you’re really in a surplus giving your body extra nutrients they should be able to handle more work. Remember the only difference between a real bulk and getting fat is tearing those muscle fibres down.

From OPs post, he wasn’t satisfied with the amount of weight he gained which is purely a caloric issue. If he gained lots of weight but not much muscle then there would be reason to investigate over/undertraining
 
@jessiengerman I'm 6'2 here and am a "hard gainer" myself , have been my entire life. I'm 39 now and only once got to 190 lbs. I sounded just like you. I swore I was eating enough but now I know it wasn't consistently. Perhaps I would for a few days and then would have a day or two where I ate alot but the meals weren't calorie packed. I was training too much with reps too high along with too much cardio/kickboxing/bjj. I went from 170 to 190 from literally stuffing my face and having 5 weekly runs to McDonald's throwing caution in the wind with 4 mcdoubles, large fry and a large shake. Eventually I couldn't keep it up and dropped back to 165 but now I know I just don't care about eating enough haha I am a skinny guy and probably always will be and if not being skinny means eating that much, I'm content with being skinny.
 
@luckylarry I'm like you, I'm extremely hard gainer and realized it's too much work and expense on health and wallet to gain and maintain weight. Doing what would be necessary for me to gain would be a very unnatural diet and lot of work which after trying twice for a couple months ended up giving up. some people gain weight very easily while we got a body type that wants to be skinny
 
@starchild2132 It's a curse. It turns eating into a chore. My metabolism finally started slowing down in my 40's so my weight climbed to 180 on its own. My dream weight is 195 so I'm gonna give it another try and focus on lifting weights this time and try to build a natural appetite and consume no less than 3000 calories a day.
 
@herhusband really is a chore, u lucky ur metabolism is slowing down, im in late 30's and i struggle entire life to get above 150 ,what goes in comes out. hopefully will also change later
 
@starchild2132 Genuinely curious, Does this sound like too much eating? 4 eggs 4 pieces of bread and glass of milk for meal one. Then sandwiches and a protein shake for meal 2, then a lb of beef and a cup rice with veggies and tomato sauce for meal 3z.
 
@starchild2132 I don’t think you’re a hard gainer per say, that’s 3000 calories, you just have to stretch the stomach. For reference I was 6’2 130 and got to 220 off that diet and weekend drinking.
 
@1611av There's no way that's 3k calories. 6 scrambled eggs in butter isn't even 700 cal. A protein shake with milk is barely 400 cal. An entire tablespoon of peanut butter isn't even 140 cal. You have to eat monstrous amounts of food to hit 3K.

WTF kind of sandwiches are you eating?
 
@1611av Maybe this is a cultural food issue because I swear the calories over here (Australia) are low as shit unless you eat straight-up junk food.

2 slices of grain bread is 234 calories. I'd need 10 sandwiches to hit 3k calories.
 
@sarafina You could be right but I think you’re underestimating how things add up. The beef and rice is about 1400 calories, I double scoop my protein making it 360 a shake. (Even if you don’t have some chips)
Jumbo eggs is 93 per egg, 4 of those is 369, roughly 360 for the bread, and 165 for the milk makes a total of 2654, you only need one good sandwich and peanut butter for that last 346.
 
@jessiengerman
If you are not gaining weight, you are not eating enough and are not reaching a calorie surplus. You must eat more.

It doesn’t matter how much you think you’re eating. It doesn’t matter what your TDEE calculator says. It doesn’t matter what your food logs say. If you’re not gaining weight or getting bigger, it’s not enough. You must eat more. You don’t need any specific foods to do this – take what you’re already eating, and eat more of it.
Click to expand...

https://thefitness.wiki/faq/why-cant-i-gain-weight/
 
@dawn16 I wish “eating more” was that simple. I’m in high school so I don’t exactly have the freedom to go eat whenever I please. I would usually eat a large breakfast (800-1000 calories at least) then pack lunch to school. Come home and eat another meal whether it was leftovers or whatever. Then some type of healthy snack. Then dinner. Then something light before I go to bed and even that was very difficult for me. I wish dedicating my life to eating food 24/7 was that easy but it just isn’t realistic
 
@jessiengerman Here is my question, are you accurately tracking this? When you mention calories you have a range rather then an accurate number of calories you are eating. So is that the number of calories you are actually eating? Or are you just guessing?

I'm only asking this because under/overestimating calories is a very common issue.
 
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