My struggle to gain.

Hello. I'm 16 years old. I am 5'10" and I weigh 120 pounds. I'm very underweight, I understand, so please do not say "WOW!". I constantly eat, however I can never gain any weight. My activity level is fairly high - I run long distance for track(1 mile, 2 mile). My goal weight is 155-160 and I would like to gain it as fast as possible, while gaining mainly muscle. My father was the same size as me when he was my age, and now he is a normal size. I'm tired of always hearing him say "Just give it time". I don't want to be that stick thin kid anymore. I never have. The biggest problems that I have encountered while trying to gain weight has been becoming ill. When I do, I lose about 5 pounds, however, I have not been ill very much this year, so I don't know if this has been the problem. Please help.

I assume you are a guy?  If so-- your father is right.... it will come with time and when your body is ready, usually.  But you should have blood work done, thyroid tested, all that good stuff to make sure that you are healthy.  Track what you eat-- many people think they eat much more (or less!) than they actually do, and replace some of the lower cal or not as nutrionally dense with more nutritious and higher cal food.  For example-- replace white bread with thick whole grain bread, replace skim milk with whole milk, replace sirloin burgers with ground chuck, add avocado to bread, bagels, salads, etc., have a snack of nuts a few times a day (or sunflower seeds), eat higher cal veggies and fruits more often (think less water filled ones-- banana, blueberries, eggplant, pumpkin, etc).

As you grow, your muscles will catch up-- your hormones just arent quite there yet.

If however you are female-- I will let someone else answer that one ;)

For a guy or gal--the above is good advice but I would also add... try lifting weights and eating more protein. Protein shakes, bars, add protein powder to your glass of whole milk in the morning. Think of all the food Michael Phelps eats (I have heard it is over 30,000 calories a day -- yes, 4 zeros!)

Breakfast might look like 3-4 egg omelet with ham and cheese, fruit, juice, milk

snack--peanut butter/jelly sandwiches on whole wheat or PB and banana sandwich

Lunch--hamburger or chikcen burger, fries, fruit, milk

snack--protein bar, fruit, crackers, cookies

Dinner--whatever mom fixes times 2! (lasagne, chicken alfredo, steak and potatoes, salad with cheese and avacado and dressing)

Snack--ice cream or something else!

I know you don't want to be "the thin kid" but you are fortunate. Do exactly what everyone who is on this site do to lose weight. Buy a food or postal scale (Staples, Office Max, Target) so you know what a serving size looks like. Determine how many calories you are eating a day. (average over a week) Determine how many calories you are burning a day--and add in your activity (running, other sports). Determine how many calories you NEED to eat to gain weight. Those who are trying to LOSE weight try to have a 500-1000 / day deficit. You need a 500-1000 calorie surplus per day. Track what you eat. Find foods that are dense with calories and nutrition. PLAN OUT YOUR menus!

Let's say you determine from the above actions that you need to eat 5000 calories a day to gain 1 pound a week. (THIS IS AN EXAMPLE ONLY--I don't know how many you really need).

Your menus might look like this--

Breakfast 1000

snack 500

Lunch 1000

snack 500

dinner 1500

snack 500. 

Create 3 or 4 different 1000 calorie breakfasts... then you can alternate so you won't get bored.

Find 4-5 different "snack" meals that are about 500 calories (2 slices bread w/2 T. peanut butter and jelly= aprox. 450-500 calories

same with lunch.... about 1000 calories...

Then make sure your mom or dad (or you) buy the groceries necessary each week so you can eat the meals you have PLANNED.

You may have to work your way into the higher number of calories over time... add an extra 200 calories per day every couple of days until you are at your "required calories per day to gain".

Buy the book the New Rules of Lifting (for Men or for Women as appropriate) by Lou Shuller. Follow his advice for lifting weights AND for eating enough protein!! Good luck and let us know how you are doing in a month or so!!

Original Post by carolann5111:

Think of all the food Michael Phelps eats (I have heard it is over 30,000 calories a day -- yes, 4 zeros!)

Actually, it's 12,000 cals. :)

Yeah, I've heard he eats 8,000 through 12,000, but NOT 30,000. That's just insane, and maybe impossible. Hahah.

I had this friend in high school whose boyfriend started going to a physical trainer in order to gain muscle and move away from being a lanky guy. His personal trainer put him on something she called "the sandwich diet" where he basically ate three sandwhiches besides breakfast and dinner. These sanwiches were always on hearty bread (multigrain) and had a lot of protein in it. Whole chicken breast or tuna and/or a lot of lunch meat. It ended up working for him. But someome else posted what looked like a good meal plan.

You won't gain 30 lbs of muscle quickly. In all honesty, if you gain it in a year, you should be extremely happy. I can barely gain 1/2 lb a week.

As for getting ill, there must be a reason, figure it out and fix it. If you do that, you should be able to steadily gain muscle mass.