Weight Gain 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Building Mass

Gaining weight doesn't always mean becoming obese.

Weight gain, otherwise known as bulking, is more than just eating more food than usual. Healthy weight gain involves increasing lean muscle mass rather than just adding fat to your muscles.

Whether you're naturally skinny or struggle to increase your size, following a structured diet, strength training plan and recovery routine, you can gain weight easily.

So what should you actually do to gain weight?

Table of contents:

• Understanding Healthy Weight Gain

• Building a Weight Gain Workout Plan

• The Role of Nutrition In Weight Gain

• Supplements for Bulking

• Tracking Progress & Adjusting Your Plan

• Common Mistakes To Avoid

Understanding Healthy Weight Gain

Gaining weight may sound unhealthy, however, when done right, it can actually be a healthy thing to do.

You must understand that healthy weight gain isn't just about eating more - it's about building lean muscle mass instead of excess fat.

While this may appear difficult, it is actually easier than it seems.

A structured approach to healthy weight gain focusing on nutrition and strength training will ensure that you make steady and healthy progress towards your goals.

Building a Weight Gain Workout Plan

For healthy weight gain, you want to focus on building lean muscle; to do that, you will need a well-structured workout plan.

So what does a good bulking workout plan look like?

Prioritise Strength Training

A big chunk of your training should target strength training for building lean muscle.

Focus on compound exercises like squats, deadlifts and the bench press for the best results, and incorporate isolation movements for additional weight gain.

Keep weights heavy and reps low, around 6-12 reps with 4-5 sets.

Additionally, include progressive overload into your workouts, which means slowly increasing the amount of weight or number of repetitions each workout. This helps stimulate muscle growth.

Limit Excessive Cardio

While cardiovascular exercise is brilliant for maintaining physical health and performance, it is not as important when trying to gain weight since it burns a lot of calories.

By doing too much cardio, you could be burning calories that could be used to gain weight.

However, cardio is still important for your health, so incorporate low-intensity cardio into your training, such as brisk walking, light jogging and cycling.

Get Plenty of Rest

Mass is grown when you rest, so only train 4-5 times per week and leave the other days for rest and recovery.

Make sure that you get 7-9 hours of sleep every single night as this is crucial for healthy weight gain.

Furthermore, you can involve recovery techniques such as static stretching or yoga for more rapid muscle recovery.

The Role Of Nutrition In Weight Gain

Nutrition is essential for gaining weight and could be even more important than exercise.

Through eating enough food, your body will receive the calories it needs to put on weight - whether that be by muscle or fat.

If you eat right, you will put on mostly muscle, however consuming the incorrect diet will result in fat gain.

Eat In a Caloric Surplus

When making a diet plan, you first want to consider how many calories you should consume daily.

For gaining weight, you want to be in a caloric surplus; or in other terms, consume more calories than you burn.

In this calorie surplus for bulking, aim to consume 250-500 more calories than you burn per day for the best weight gain results.

For example, if you burn around 1,000 calories per day, then you want to be eating at least 1,250 calories per day, however, this can vary depending on factors like body weight or age.

Use apps such as MyFitnessPal or MyNetDiary to receive your ideal daily calorie intake.

For effective healthy weight loss, you want these calories to be good calories. But what are good calories?

Protein

One of the primary nutrients you should be pulling calories from is protein, which is essential for muscle repair and growth, and this is vital for weight gain.

Aim to consume 1.6-2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily for the best results. For example, if you weight 100kg, you should be eating 160-220g of protein every day.

This nutrition should be taken from foods such as meats, fish and other foods, including:

• Eggs

• Almonds

• Chicken breast

• Milk

• Greek yoghurt

• Lean beef

• Quinoa

• Turkey breast

• Peanuts

• Protein powder

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are a great source of energy in food and can be extremely useful for helping fuel your weight gain journey.

You should be eating 4-7 grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight daily. For example, an individual weighing 70kg must consume at least 280g of carbs per day.

What's more, you should be aiming more towards eating complex carbs as these will aid you better with your bulking plan.

Some foods high in complex carbs that you could consume are:

• Oats

• Quinoa

• Potatoes

• Sweet potatoes

• Muesli

• Lentils

• Chickpeas

• Wholemeal bread

• Rice

• Couscous

Healthy Fats

Healthy fats are excellent for weight gain and play a vital role in hormone production, which is extremely important for bulking up.

Make sure to consume around 0.8-1.5 grams of healthy fats per kilogram of body weight per day. For example, if you weigh 60kg, then you should be eating between 48-90 grams of healthy fats daily.

You should be looking to consume foods rich in healthy fats, such as:

• Avocados

• Cheese

• Dark chocolate

• Whole eggs

• Fatty fish

• Nuts

• Chia seeds

• Extra-virgin olive oil

• Full-fat yoghurt

Supplements for Bulking

SUPPLEMENTS ARE NOT STEROIDS.

Supplements are vitamins, minerals and nutrients that have been put together for a specific purpose, such as to help you gain weight.

When it comes to bulking, some supplements are far superior to others, and for good reason. But what are these supplements?

Whey Protein

Whey protein is an excellent source of protein taken from milk and is brilliant for helping with weight gain.

By taking whey protein, you can easily meet your daily protein goals, and this allows your muscles to repair and gain mass faster.

Additionally, protein powder is a great way to get more calories into your body, making it much easier to gain size quickly.

Ensure that you do plenty of research before taking this supplement to find the best Whey protein for you.

Creatine

Creatine is known for helping you gain muscle mass along with many other health benefits, including gaining weight.

When paired with resistance training (such as weightlifting or cable machine training), creatine can allow you to gain a lot of size quickly.

Again, make sure to do your own research into creatine and don't take too much of it a day - around 6g a day is a good amount.

Mass Gainers

Mass gainers do exactly what they say - they help you gain mass; fast.

Mass gainers are a blend of carbs, protein and healthy fats and are a great way for you to bulk up by helping you reach your daily calorie and protein goals.

While yes you can get everything from a mass gainer in foods, they make it a lot easier to consume more calories and may even eliminate the need to purchase protein powder.

Do your research on these and try to find the best mass gainers for you.

Tracking Progress & Adjusting Your Plan

Tracking your progress is very important when bulking because it allows you to adjust your plan as you need to propel your progress further.

So what can you do to track progress and what changes should you be making?

Monitor Weight Changes

When tracking weight gain progress, the first thing you want to be monitoring is your body weight.

Do this by using a set of scales (either in kilograms or pounds it doesn't matter) and weigh yourself every week.

Each time after weighing yourself, make a note of it on your phone or in a notebook so you can reflect on previous weeks and see how much you're gaining.

You want to see a gradual increase of about 0.5-1lbs of weight gain a week, which is a healthy rate.

Take Progress Photos

An additional thing you should do to track bulking progress is to take pictures of yourself every week and store them in an album on your phone.

This allows you to look back on your previous weeks and see how much progress you've actually made since you may not realise it.

Adjusting Calories As Needed

If you have tracked your body weight and noticed that you aren't gaining weight (or worse, losing weight), then adjusting your daily caloric intake is necessary.

If you are not seeing progress, then increase your calorie intake to 100-200 per day, then leave it another week to see if that makes any changes.

If you are still not seeing any increase in body weight, then continue increasing your caloric-intake until you do.

By doing this, you will eventually notice a good and steady progress.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

People make mistakes, and that is how we learn.

However, learning about some common bulking mistakes can help you avoid certain issues and boost your progress.

Not Eating Enough

To gain weight, you need to eat plenty of food (as you already know).

Commonly, people underestimate how many calories they need for bulking, and this will hinder their progress.

You should be tracking how many calories you take in per day, noting down every food you are eating, and this will help you determine how many calories you need to add to your diet.

Relying On Junk Food

When bulking, a lot of people like to 'dirty bulk', which is when you get all of your calories from unhealthy junk foods and takeaways.

While yes this makes it easier to get in your daily calories, you would end up putting on a lot of additional fat and it can become very unhealthy for your body.

If you want to bulk healthily and preserve lean muscle mass, ensure that you consume the majority of your calories from healthy, whole foods.

Skipping Protein

As we have already mentioned, protein is essential for healthy weight gain and is also vital for preserving lean muscle mass.

So skipping your protein-packed foods will not help you gain weight since you won't be getting the muscle you need.

So make sure that you always reach your daily protein goal.

Inconsistent Workouts

It cannot be emphasised enough how important consistency is in your workouts if you want to bulk up effectively.

Building mass requires dedication, so make a good workout routine for weight gain and stick to it.

Don't skip workouts because you're tired or have no motivation - even a bad workout is better than no workout and will assist you in your bulking progress.

Weight Gain Guide Summary

Gaining weight in a healthy and sustainable way requires a balance of nutrition, resistance training and recovery.

Focus on eating in a calorie surplus with a diet rich in protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats to help fuel muscle growth.

Utilise strength training with progressive overload along with a limited amount of cardio, prioritising rest and recovery.

Tracking progress ensures that you're gaining weight at a steady rate, and adjustments to calories and workouts help maintain momentum.

Avoid common mistakes like eating too much junk food, not getting enough protein or being inconsistent in the gym.

Now you know how to start your bulking journey, get started today, and remember that if you need help, then you can always check out our programs or other articles like this.

I hope this weight gain guide has helped. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us using the chat box.