My Exciting Personal Progress Gaining Weight

If you are naturally skinny, you understand the grind to make any progress gaining weight. Adding a pound is a huge deal! It doesn’t happen often and it doesn’t happen easily.

I love sharing my personal story, which was a long path of learning and understanding, to help you shortcut your own journey. Instead of spending time making the same mistakes I did, or having the same moments of discovery, you can spend more time hitting your goals.

Failed attempts with no progress gaining weight

If you’re reading this blog, you may understand the experience. I was born skinny. My family was skinny, and therefore, genetically, I was destined to be skinny. I was tired of hearing about how bony or thin I was. I tried everything to be stronger and bigger.

Unfortunately, I had no clue how to actually accomplish that.

It took me years of lifting, reading, experimentation, and learning from others until I finally figured out how to gain mass quickly. Seriously, years. I dabbled with weights and working out for about 4 years before I finally started to do it with consistency and purpose.

Initially, I avoided the tough exercises that would yield the greatest results. I gave myself plenty of excuses of why I didn’t need to, or couldn’t, do them. You would find me curling dumbbells, but never in a squat rack.

Early on, I just wanted abs and was somewhat happy with small cuts to show off the tiniest muscle gain in my arms. As I got more serious about lifting, I wanted more results. However, even then, I would see some results, but it would quickly plateau or lead to minimal actual weight gain.

Another 4 years of experimenting with workout routines and food led to finally having a comprehensive and cohesive approach to gaining for mass as a skinny person.

Once I put the pieces together, I was off to the races.

The reality is that most advice in the fitness industry is geared toward people who want to lose weight, not gain it.

• Training– I took advice from the wrong people all the time. The most important thing I’ve learned about fitness advice is that you should never listen to someone who doesn’t ask you what your goal is first. Training to make progress gaining weight, or hypertrophy, is very different from power lifting or strength training. To get bigger, you have to train specifically for size.
• Fuel– To fuel your training and growth you need the right quantity and type of food. Just like every other skinny person, I thought I had this on lock. All skinny people swear that they eat more than all of their bigger friends, and they can eat so much more than the average person. The truth is unless you actually measure what you eat and have specific targets, you’re not eating enough.
• Recovery– It was common for me to stay awake at all hours of the night. I could easily run on a few hours of sleep every day. I felt more productive by not wasting so many hours sleeping, and I didn’t feel tired at all. However, the reality is that the lack of sleep kills gains. Sleeping more was the easiest change I made to make progress gaining weight.

Finally, a breakthrough and major progress gaining weight

When I finally pieced together the trinity of gaining mass- Training, Fuel, and Recovery, the results started to show. I finally had a major breakthrough. At about 6’3″, I added 34 pounds in 4.5 months. This brought me from a very skinny 152 pounds to a burly 186 pounds.

A few months later, I added even more weight and reached 204 pounds. That’s a huge swing from 152 pounds.

I write about this in the About Me section of my site. Packing on meaningful weight in the form of muscle mass, when you’re usually not able to gain any weight at all is a huge deal.

A few steps back with weight loss

After adding weight and finally getting to feel like a burly beast, I couldn’t shake a certain thought- what if it was all a fluke?

It is possible that I just got lucky and put on weight, but I could never pull it off again.

This really bothered me. The idea that all of my hard work and time spent all just boiled down to a lucky break. The thought bothered me enough that I was willing to start over. I figured if I could do it again, following the same methods I used the first time, I would know for a fact that I landed on a repeatable process to consistently gain muscle as a skinny guy.

So, I used the reverse of some of my learnings to lose weight, instead of gaining it for once. Every day, I was in a caloric deficit. I dropped down from 204 pounds to eventually 155 pounds. This was close to my original starting point of 152 pounds.

It was definitely scary to intentionally lose all of my progress gaining weight. Was I stupid for letting that go? What if I fail at building the muscle mass back up?

Here we go again, building mass

I’m in the middle of my second climb in muscle mass. However, this progress is what gave me the confidence to share my story, share my learnings, and help others achieve the same results.

From a thin 155 pounds, by following the exact same method I perfected the first time around, I was able to quickly jump to 184 pounds. This is where I currently sit.

My progress gaining weight wasn’t just a fluke. I am able to do it over and over again, using a proven method to build muscle.

The trinity of building mass holds true, and it really works.

Thoughts or questions? Let me know in the comments