   When a girly man needs weight...
  How we all doin?At the time of this writing, I am not a big guy at all.  I'm a massive 135 pounds or so at about 5'10".  It's really a shame. :SI think my biggest problem has simply been my diet.  I don't eat nearly the amount of calories they say an adult male in his twenties should.  And hell, that's just how it is.  I don't eat much, never have.  And on top of this, I have a nasty semi-addiction to Mountain Dew, and I can easily drink 2 liters of that stuff on a given day.  This in turn spoils my stomach, so this needs to stop.My stature wouldn't really bother me if not for the fact that I'm almost 23, but I still look about 17.  For a while, that was kinda cool in a way, but now it just irks me.  Enough's enough.I know someone else here was in my shoes at some point.  I'm interested, what did you do to gain some weight?  Any particular favorite foods?  Gym routines?  Anything, what have you.  Open for discussion.Benji   
  I was kind of in the same position as you...except I weight even less (120?), and managed to get up to about where you are.  I think it works pretty well to work out 6 days a week - The basic workout I think is just to trade off between working legs/back/biceps and shoulders/chest/triceps, and work your abs fairly often as well.  Then, the most important part is to eat a good meal, preferably with meat, within an hour after working out. The eating part tends to be the hardest, but if you manage to eat a lot, then you'll start gaining weight, and muscle.   ;  Well, I'm 5'10" and weigh about 130.  But for a while last year I was up to 145 (not huge, but definitely somewhat larger) and this was mostly muscle mass.  Basically, I started lifting weights and I joined the high school swim team.  If you want to gain weight you can probably leave out the swimming and just lift weights.  That, and you have to eat more.  It's hard, I know.  I hardly eat anything, but if you want to gain weight you really have to eat a lot, especially if you're working out.  As far as gym routines, my favorite things to do were squats, cleans, pull-ups, and my very favorite was anything that involved kettle-bells.  Kettle-bell swings work a ton of muscles.  Presses, cleans are good for upper and mid body.  Kettle-bells are really great.  You can even combine them with my other fun activity: pull-ups.  Strap a 35 pound kettle-bell to a weight belt and do some pull-ups.  It's hard, but bad ass.   ;Quote:Original post by SamithWell, I'm 5'10" and weigh about 130.  But for a while last year I was up to 145 (not huge, but definitely somewhat larger) and this was mostly muscle mass.  Basically, I started lifting weights and I joined the high school swim team.  If you want to gain weight you can probably leave out the swimming and just lift weights.  That, and you have to eat more.  It's hard, I know.  I hardly eat anything, but if you want to gain weight you really have to eat a lot, especially if you're working out.  As far as gym routines, my favorite things to do were squats, cleans, pull-ups, and my very favorite was anything that involved kettle-bells.  Kettle-bell swings work a ton of muscles.  Presses, cleans are good for upper and mid body.  Kettle-bells are really great.  You can even combine them with my other fun activity: pull-ups.  Strap a 35 pound kettle-bell to a weight belt and do some pull-ups.  It's hard, but bad ass.Kettle bells, eh?  Interesting.  Pull-ups are my favorite, too, as well as push-ups.  (Although I pissed myself off today when I couldn't do nearly as many push-ups as I used to... I haven't tried in a while.)I had an awesome workout when I was in Oregon.  I'd just go out and cut wood.  Problem solved. :P  Relieves a lot of stress, builds muscle like a charm, and works up a good appetite to go along with it.  This ended when I moved back here to the desert, where there is basically no wood to cut anywhere.  My metabolism and dismal diet then took their collaborative toll. :(   ;  Well, 2 or 3 years ago I was 6'0 and weighed about 125 pounds... really skinny. Now I'm still skinny-ish, but I'm 6'1 and a much more respectable 158 pounds, with something like 12% body fat. To gain this weight I pretty much just lift weights most days of the week (though I don't hesitate to take days off if I feel I need them) and try to make sure I'm never hungry.If food is a problem, a convenient thing is "weight gain" shakes. They're basically just a bunch of sugary stuff with some protein, and you can make a shake a day with soy milk or something that'll give you 800-900 calories in five minutes. Get the cheapest one you can find (they're all pretty much interchangeable) and it's even fairly cost-effective.Also, some say that working out 3-4 days a week is enough, but personally I've gotten much more satisfying results going to the gym either every day or 6 days a week. It helps that I enjoy weight lifting a lot; I usually bring along some good music or an audio book, and I find myself wasting altogether too much time in the gym these days. [grin]   ;  I've noticed that a surprising number of "nerd-types" have this same issue.  I myself am 18 and about 5'8.5" now but weigh between 105 and 115 pounds on any given day.  I'm not sure how healthy this is but it's never really been a problem for me so I just treat it as better than being obese.   ;Quote:Original post by Benjamin HeathAnd on top of this, I have a nasty semi-addiction to Mountain Dew, and I can easily drink 2 liters of that stuff on a given day.  This in turn spoils my stomach, so this needs to stop.I managed to give up soda earlier this year. It's tough at first, but give it a month. I recommend drinking orange juice in its place.As for eating more, I've found that lifting weights makes me hungrier. I'll eat more things than normal even if they don't taste that good.;  1. Eat big.2. Lift big.3. Rest big.If you want to see results fast, and are willing to try something different and endure a little pain, google for 'squats and milk'.   ;  It's tough to discipline yourself and find the time to work out regularly.  Unless you're the sort of guy who can keep a journal and see progress in it over the course of weeks, it's almost certainly a doomed endeavor.Sedentary living is what leeches your muscle mass.  I can get my arms to decent condition, but if I go a couple weeks without doing anything with them, they're just gone.  My legs are always pretty good, because I walk (or run, depending on my punctuality) up and down six flights of stairs three or four times every day at work.  Unfortunately, all my arms do is punch keys, so I have to put special effort into using them.So take up a hobby or take on a task that requires you to get some exercise in the course of your daily life.  Put yourself in a position to be climbing a lot of ladders or something.   ;  I was a measly 121 pound (55kg) a few months back. My biggest problem was eating. I'd eat quite often, but it was usually just shit food, not the kind of stuff my body actually needs to grow. I cut out all takeaway (although I get Subway quite a bit), upped my protein intake and started going to the gym 3 days a week. I was able to get to 143lbs (65kg) in 10 weeks. I had a the flu for 2 weeks, and my shift patterns went bananas, so I've been stuck on 65kg for a about a month now. I'm just starting to get back into the routine again and I'm back to putting on about a kilo a week.A lot of you are going to the gym way too much. Overtraining is the most common mistake around, with the assumption of "The more I train, the stronger I will get". Wrong. You should only need to go 3 days a week, and cover a general area each time. For example, mine is: Monday - chest and back, Wednesday - Legs, Friday - Arms. One of the most important parts of putting on muscle is actually giving your body time to grow. You need rest and lots of it! Remember, you don't grow at the gym, you grow while you are resting! If you do not give your body time to repair and build muscle fibers, how are you supposed to get stronger? Perhaps worst of all, because you're not giving yourself time to recover properly, you are setting yourself up for injury.  There are a million websites stressing this fact, but I'll finish up with this quote to show I'm not making this up:"Agent-X, a top level competitive bodybuilder who contributes to Area9.net, has 20 inch arms cold and trains them once a week with one exercise for two sets. is best and fastest gains, which took him on to win no fewer than 5 top three places and one first, were when he trained a body part every nine days for no more than 20 minutes at a time."   