How To Gain Weight The Healthy Way

As I was learning the ropes about bodybuilding as a teenager

, I had a lightbulb moment when I realised that I wasn't really eating enough and that was the main thing that was holding me back. So I started to drink a bit more milk, eat an extra sandwich per day and take a few protein shakes more than I was used to. In that first week, I gained a pound of predominantly lean muscle mass, which to me at that time was the greatest thing ever. Of course, once you get into the mindset of doing something that gets you a positive result, you're instantly captivated and fall into the false mindset of "you can't get too much of a good thing, right?!". Wrong!! When you're bulking up, you need to do it correctly because otherwise not only are you going to end up fat but you're also going to risk your health.

The problem is, there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things when it comes to bulking up. In my early days, when I started to realise that eating more would get me bigger, I began to eat huge amounts, so much so that I had to get up during the night because I was so hungry from the raging metabolism that I had forced into my body through having a high number of medium sized meals per day. I can remember at university, I would eat 7 times a day at least and then I would have to get up in the middle of the night to eat more! The result a 195lb lard ass. Yep, I was fat, and I was the unhealthiest I've ever been.

The main point is that there is absolutely no need to get fat, and here's why. When you eat in excess your body uses the spare energy to build new muscle tissue (assuming that your training is in order and that your macronutrients in your diet are reasonably well proportioned). However there comes a point when your body simply can't develop muscle tissue any faster, and whilst this point is subjective experts believe it to be somewhere in the region of 1 to 1.5lbs per week assuming everything is in order. It is NOT a linear relationship like the guy who forces as much food as he can down his throat every day would believe. Therefore eating until you feel like you're going to explode at every sitting is not necessary - don't do it!

Did you know that if you get fat, even just temporarily, your fat cells actually grow in size? It's true - do some research about it! That means that if you get fat just once in your life, you are more likely to get fat at some point in the future because your fat cells have grown.

So listen, all you really need to do to bulk up steadily and maintain your health and low level of bodyfat is to get your workouts right (this is a HUGE part of it but is out of scope for this article) and eat 500 calories more than your maintenance level per day. This equates to an extra 2500 calories per week which should give you roughly 1 - 1.5lbs of weight gain each week. This IS the sweet spot - don't try and push it because you'll only end up giving yourself more work to do with a cut at the end of the bulking cycle.

Good luck with your bulking and see you in the squat rack!

by: Paul McCarthy

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