Whats wrong with me gaining. im a lost cause

Hi. im seriously a lost cause on gaining weight.

numbers:

who: male, 25yo

weight: 62kgs

height: 188cm

BMI: 17,5

 

about my physics in general: i look like the typical thin guy in jeans and tshirt, nothing odd there. my chest is impressively thin tho, to the point of being 2dimensional. that aside, my legs are very very thin, kate moss has thicker thighs than me. factors i cant affect is my bonestructure wich is impressively thin. not thin like "dude i know a guy who has really thin structure", rather "oh holy crap that IS a thin structure". i have never met a grown up person with thinner wrists than me, male or not. but! i am not unhealthy in any way. i got contures of what would actually be a really great build, well shaped muscles everywhere (even if they're small) and so on. i look like just a thinner version of a male model or something i dunno. a second thing about me is that my skinfat is NON-existant. and by that i mean that i can see chunks of musclefibers (not tendons) through the skin on the backside of my lower arms if i have pump and grab something hard with my hand. its a rare sight. i can see pretty much every vein thicker than a hair anywhere on my arms for example, if the light and tan is right.

that aside, my health situation is top notch tho, i work pretty hard at work, im relatively fit for a person who doesnt lift junk, i exercise at home twice a week with free weights and body, pushups and the likes. i dont get exhausted from working hard for a good while, i did very well in military service etc etc. im overall prolly pretty strong for my weight, but of course not for my length.

 

so, here's the thing about my eating. i can NOT gain weight, at all. and i have put time and effort into trying everything, for a long long while. really analyzed it. for example, i once during a period (long summer) spent about 5 months playing computer games with a buddy, eating nothing but pizza, hamburgers, drinking coca cola and eating chocolate. and i mean really bizarre amounts of unhealthy junkfood, to the level where it was probably really really hazardous for my health. forgot what vegetables and fish looked like. and i did absolutely NO physical work at all, i barely left the apartment, it wasnt even me who bought the pizza's, the other guy did. anyway, the result? i lost about 1kg netresult after close to half a year. and my overall condition was laughable of course, i got tired from walking half a staircase.

then i have also tried training hard. i lifted weights at the gym for years with my dad (who is a true beefcake still at the age of 45, lifting weights all his life), and ive practiced aikido, boxing and karate one after the other throughout my life (well, ever since i was 11). my dad is "normal" in the sense that he gains a few kilos every christmas and watches his regular food intake a little. he brought me up on a carbo-heavy food in general, lot of pasta in our house. a general meal in my life growing up would be a load of pasta, some meat, some sauce and a huge salad.

 

anyway, getting fat from just slacking and supporting macdonalds gives me absolutely nothing. not a gram. i feel bad and unhealthy, thats all. working out hard makes me slightly more fit, i get slightly more contures and get in better shape, and i slowly get stronger, but i really dont gain any weight at all. remember, i have really thin bone structure, im prolly relatively strong for my weight since i have more or less the body fat index of a bodybuilder proffessional, and my bones dont take up much of my weight. anyway, on with it: ive always liked a big load of pasta or rice in my meals, and a highcarb diet is what im raised on and that surely didnt work. i once found a list over all the dont's of losing weight and tried doing all of them for a while. i ate fastfood as late as i could every day, ate a very late breakfast, 2 meals a day on random times etc. did nothing for me :(

 

so im finally trying out a highprotein diet with some extra workout after work. i eat mainly tuna, chicken, egg, yogurt, pasta, bread and vegetables nowadays. the tuna i eat is both canned an fillets, and i eat atleast 3-4 eggs every day.i calced my intake several times on different sites and calcs, and everywhere i read i should get about 2300-2700 calories / day. i calc that i eat about 2500-2600 on the plain food that i eat. add some stuff i pack my face on work breaks, some fruit here and there and some late night snacks and soft drinks i should be at about 3000 every day, meaning slightly above my daily needs. i calced that with this proteinheavy diet, i get atleast 130-150g proteins every day.

 

but. out of these methods (slacking and fastfoodin', highcarb high workout, and proteinheavy concentrated workout shifts) the proteinheavy diet "feels" best. i feel healthy as opposed to the fastfood slack model, i dont constantly eat til i get sick and my tummy hurts for an hour wich was the case with the highcarb diet, and i feel overall more "awake" in my muscles. but...

i still dont gain a gram. i sleep around 7h a day, i powernap 30mins everyday at work. i eat 4-5 times a'day, and i rest plenty during weekends. what is wrong with me? :( 9/10 people answer: eat more. the other dude says "lol dunno". i seriously can not eat more. i eat a breakfast early with yoghurt, bread, tea and fruit. early lunch that is about the same. i eat an early dinner wich is tuna/salmon/chicken with rice or pasta and vegetables. i eat a late meal consisting of as many eggs i can push down on bread with a salad or noodles. i seriously can not eat more food, im at ~60kgs, it would be inhuman.

 

(thanks for reading this wall of text).

You sound like a hardgainer. Search that term, you do not have to have your protein too high because your metabolism is very high and burns a lot of carbs. You're probably eating less than you think, write everything down in specific quantities then log it.

I think you'll probably need more than 3000 calories, look at the high-calorie food list. Eat nut butter, avacado etc.

wow thanks :D i already checked it up, amongst others: this link:

http://bodybuilding.about.com/od/hardgainers/ a/hardgainers.htm

wich states what you say pretty clearly. its a great relief knowing that this is recognized!! i actually do eat about 2500 calories a day, snacks and softdrinks not added, but im going to try to follow the given advices in the link, and for anyone else who feels they are the same, here's the tips i got there:

 

try to eat 24calories/pound (meaning about 3300cals/day for me).

working out 3-4 sessions a week, no more than 60 minutes, "he/she needs to get in the gym, stimulate the muscle and get out", and very little cardiovascular exercise with that, a 20min walk tops per day.

trying to limit the caloric expenditure (slack more!) and try to eat a diet that is made up of ~50%carbs, 25% prots and 25% good fats. for me (calculation on about 3300cals/day) this means:

~400grams of carbs, ~200 grams of prots, and ~90grams of good fat.

thanks toasttoasttoast. im gonna keep looking around for more hardgainer advices!

Athlete Michael Phelps was profiled in a lot of newpapers during the Olympics and his daily diet was a whopping 12000 cals.   I was fascinated to see how he got through all of that without sinking to the bottom of the pool (!) but he does. 

Tha't's a professional athlete, but a lot of men in their early twenties I've met down the years can very easily (and quite annoyingly) not seem to gain an ounce eating wall-to-wall pizza, beer and a curry or two on the way home.   So I'd say burning 2500-3000 cals is pretty standard stuff.   If you need 4000+ that's probably where it has to be.  

Have you consulted your doctor?  Asked for dietician support?  It could be worthwhile.