How to gain weight in finance?

I'm so jealous of you monkeys who gain weight easily. I read all the posts on how to lose weight when on the job and I want to be in that situation badly. At first I thought I want to gain healthy muscle weight but now I don't care I just want to get fat. I want to feel slow and lazy and be proud of my belly. At first I was going to the gym doing heavy lifting, eating muslce gainers but now with a summer job most of my time is spent in the office where I sit and eat mcdonalds every day. I have unlimited supply of granola bars, yogurt and dairy. I try to eat steak at least 3 times a week and drink beer every weekend in unlimited doses. I eat ice cream for breakfast everyday now. 3-4 donuts and large coffee in the morning in the office. I stopped my running routine and I stopped playing all sports. I was incredibly happy when I saw a 5 pound gain but then the stress kicked in and I lost 7 pounds. So with all the stress of working in finance how do you gain weight and keep it on ? I'm actually only 10% trolling here.

 

How old are you? Until I was 22 I was in a similar position, I wasn't skinny, but I could eat as much as I wanted without putting much weight on. Then I hit 22 and I put on 10kg in 3 months, no real change in my eating patterns, occasional weights in the gym. To put on weight, you don't need to eat shit though - you should do just as well eating 3 good meals a day, cooked English breakfast, big lunch and dinner should do the trick. Top up with snacks if need be.

 

You're clearly speeding up your metabolism by increasing your calorie intake, without increasing it enough to weigh out your lifestyle.

Going on a starvation diet 3 days a week to slow your metabolism, and bingeing is clearly a much easier way of doing it. If you can increase your intake of sugary, alcoholic drinks, it should help too. Oh, and on your binge days, eating high carb protein bars and protein powder to everything. Try to develop an emotional eating response to stress, and you should be right. Oh, and start drinking more milk. With everything. Full cream milk. Even cream. Or buttermilk.

If this doesn't work, try dropping your protein intake, so you get lean muscle wastage. Without the muscle, you'll gain weight quickly as your metabolism slows.

[This is not healthy, not intended to be taken seriously, and is clearly satire. I don't advise actually doing this, because it will mess up your heart and your bone density, as will your current diet].

 
Best Response

http://henrycavill.org/en/hc/workout just to give you an idea of how intense you can get with this.

also the pat bateman plan: http://confitdent.com/christian-bale-workout-diet-american-psycho/

I've had the same problem my whole life, and here's what I did to pack on about 15lbs of muscle about 2 years ago (just maintaining right now)

first, download myfitnesspal and track your eating until it becomes a habit (great for tracking calories as well as nutrition, but not great for homecooked meals)

breakfast: eggs, fruit, cereal w/fruit in almond milk snack: whole wheat bagel lunch: leftovers, heavy in protein snack: tuna/chicken salad or greek yogurt + granola post workout: greek yogurt smoothie w/almond milk, fruit & spinach/kale dinner: heavy carb dinner, usually pasta/rice, etc. the key with pasta is to try to get the whole wheat or "plus" stuff so it's not as processed.

I'd say I was taking in between 2500-3000 calories a day when I was packing it on, just to give you an idea.

 

Basically if you want to pack on pounds you have to always be eating and continue your heavy compound lifting. Weight gainers are not really worth the money and a lot are loaded with sugar, much easier to create your own at home. I have used gainers in the past just for pure convenience but as said above milk, whey, oats, PB, banana etc etc blended up is a great homemade gainer. Protein bars and shakes are helpful too but best to get your nutrition and meals from "real" food.

Its tough, but try to prepare your meals before hand. It make it easier to stick to a schedule and allows less impulse eating. When i was looking to add some weight/mass I would follow a basic outline below.

Wake Up -- 2 scoops whey with some frozen fruit blended together Breakfast - At work will have eggs or Oates. Usually scramble 5 eggs and maybe throw in some spinach or whatever else I had laying around.
Lunch - Some sort of protein (chicken, turkey, fish etc) with vegetables and brown rice/sweet potato Late afternoon - PBJ sandwich/almonds/fruit Post Gym - Protein Shake Dinner - Similar to lunch Before bed - Slower digesting protein shake, cottage cheese or a protein smoothie blend

Adjust the amounts to how many calories you need to hit. Increase 300-500 calories a time and see how your body reacts

 

Posting on a finance forum for diet advice from people who have never seen your physique is generally a terrible idea. Some of the bro science I've read in similar threads is pretty hilarious. You seem to have the college kid mentality that protein shakes and random mineral supps are the key. Get this out of your mind, everyone who trains hard should be using a good source of whey but that's basic.

If you're an extreme ectomorph looking to add weight the equation is pretty simple. Eat more calories. To make it easier on yourself, eat more calorically dense food such as nuts, oils, etc. Increasing the fats in your macro split will get you there. Fruits and Vegs will not move the needle in a meaningful way.

One final point, almost everyone on WSO will advocate eating many meals a day (this has been the industry standard for years). I'm not going to say that is wrong but there is alot of research which has come out fairly recently saying it's better to eat fewer large meals. The theory is that constantly eating throughout the day will keep your insulin levels raised all day thus hurting your insulin sensitivity. This might not be as important to you if you're an ecto just trying to keep weight on, but for guys trying to maximize a developed physique it's something to consider.

 

I remember you talking about this diet elsewhere, what's it called again?

the reason I advocate eating many meals is because it's easier for me (I physically have a hard time eating a shitload in one sitting) and it works for me (I got the results I wanted). I think we all agree OP needs to up his cal load, but the best way to do that will depend on his body. for diet, as long as it's healthy and you get results, doesn't really matter.

but yeah, this is kind of like going to bodybuilding.com and asking for help with a WACC question

 

I can imagine WSO with the awkward selfies a la bodybuilding.com, love the advice there but can't read their threads on work PC.

I agree with breaking into many meals, for no other reason than I would eat complete garbage if I went 4-5 hours without eating anything, so helps me eat a healthier diet.

 

I can imagine WSO with the awkward selfies a la bodybuilding.com, love the advice there but can't read their threads on work PC.

I agree with breaking into many meals, for no other reason than I would eat complete garbage if I went 4-5 hours without eating anything, so helps me eat a healthier diet.

 

If you need to add calories the easiest way would be to add more fat to the diet (1 g of fat = 9 kcal while 1 g of carbs/protein = 4 kcal). Any fats might do, but to keep your conscience at ease go for the good fats that come from either fishes (not a great snack I guess) or the plant kingdom - different types of nuts and seeds. I usually buy some 7 seed & nut mix and add it to my oats, but you can really take them on their own.

 

Double barrel Chipotle burritos to the face.

Some of the snacks I like: yogurt + granola, peanut butter + apple/banana, cottage cheese with/without fruit, PB&J's, nuts, hummus with anything.

Tasty recipe is mix couple scoops of yogurt, one scoop of peanut butter, half spoon of honey and cinnamon together and eat with apple.

Have your protein shake with a scoop of peanut butter, scoop of ice cream and milk.

Add more rice/beans to everything.

This to all my hatin' folks seeing me getting guac right now..
 

How much do you weigh? If you don't want to gain too much fat then only eat a little bit above your maintenance level. You're probably too focused on eating "clean" foods and thus having a hard time gaining weight. Forget the apple and eat a cookie or something AS LONG as you have met your daily macros (more specifically protein and fat content).

 

When trying to put on weight, what and how much you eat matters as much as when you eat. Eat 2 to 3 peanut butter sandwiches just before bed every night. The weight will appear in the AM.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 
GoldenCinderblock:

I did GOMAD for a year. Now i have stretch marks.

Funny you mention stretch marks, after I blew up to 220 and was yoked from using big beyond belief, I got a pretty big stretch mark by the crevice in between my shoulder and chest.

You really know your muscles have grown when you get stretch marks from it.

twitter: @StoicTrader1 instagram: @StoicTrader1
 

If you really want to put on mass aim for 1.5-2g of protein per pound of body weight a day. (ex. 200lbs, 300-400g of protein a day).

Putting on serious mass takes a lot of work, you can't just lift and expect it to happen. The diet is more crucial. If you want the gains to come easier you could try test boosters or pro-hormones, otherwise you will have to eat like a beast and train like one.

Also, look up how the Bulgarians train (similar to how Arnold Schwarz trained). It could simply be you are not working the muscle of interest frequently enough for it to grow. The Bulgarians worked the same muscles 6 days a week to stimulate gains and then would ease off the intensity after about 3-4 weeks for a 3-4 week time-frame. If you go more than 72 hours without working a muscle it goes into a atrophy.

I studied a lot about the Bulgarians and putting on mass when I wanted to get huge to play college fball while I was in the military. I played D2 for a year and went from around 185lbs at 18 yrs old to 220lbs at 22 when I got out.

I learned a lot from the program called "Big Beyond Belief." This references the training I talked about above in much greater detail. If you want to put on size I would recommend reading it.

Google: big beyond belief PDF and the first link that shows up is the book I am talking about. GL

twitter: @StoicTrader1 instagram: @StoicTrader1
 

Once you learn that it's simple biology and math, you'll be able to look however you'd like, within the confines of your skeletal frame.

Do a little research on macro nutrients, figure out (estimate) your basal metabolic rate (everyone's is different, and it changes over time) then formulate a meal plan that will help you towards your desired weight. As you move toward your target weight, the muscle/fat composition of your body weight and time it takes to get there will be dependent on the type of workout regime you undertake.

The main thing to do is take this fucking "can't" word out of the equation. This is science and math, not religion...

 

Almost everything posted so far is garbage.

First off, you need to calculate your maintenance calorie level. If you're too lazy to google, go here: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Once you know your maintenance calories, you're going to want to add at least 300 calories to that (500 ideally)...especially if you're a hardgainer aka ectomorph body type.

From there, you're going to have to start targeting your macro nutrients: protein, fat, and carbs. As previously stated, 1 gram of protein = 4 calories, 1 gram of fat = 9 calories, and 1 gram of carbs = 4 calories.

If you're trying to gain weight, the weightlifters "golden rule" is 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. However, this target is for the body weight you want, so if you're 165 and want to be 185, eat 185 grams of protein per day.

Fat target is pretty much the same whether you're cutting or bulking so aim for 0.4-0.6 grams per pound of target body weight to maintain your hormone levels, specifically those associated with your libido.

Finally, calculate all the calories you're getting from protein and fat targets mentioned above, and allocate the rest to carbs.

Example:

185 lbs, 6'1": maintenance calories = 2,600, bulking calorie target = 3,100

Target weight = 205 lbs

Protein = 205g x 4 = 820kcal Fat = 0.6 x 205 = 123g x 9 = 1,107kcal Carbs = 3,100 - 820 - 1107 = 1,173kcal/4 = ~293g

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
 

You want to read this http://muscleandsportsscience.com/. This guy really knows his shit. He has a PhD in Biochemistry and is generally known for his wealth of informative posts. It´s a bit advanced for beginners though.

A lot of people seem to overly complicate things with meal timing, pre-set ratios and whatnot. To me, this has never proven fruitful. For me, this works (and if it's not enough/too much by judging my workouts and the mirror, I cut back or increase the amount of food I eat): Breakfast: 100g oats, 1 banana, 60g whey hydrolysate Workout Lunch: Protein bar + 2-3 sandwiches Dinner: whatever floats my boat (usually a large cut of protein) Bedtime: Slow source of protein @ 60g (i.e. milk/egg protein mix)

Don't spend 4 hours a day eating. You're not a professional bodybuilder.

Oh, and get a serious gym buddy. Chances are you are not giving 100% if you train alone.

DYEL
 

Want to really get big? Anabolics.

Every crazy 2hr workout you see with guys eating 5k calories per day isn't telling you about the secret sauce they used.

Look at christian bale in 2004 to 2005,

http://www.peoplestylewatch.com/people/stylewatch/package/article/0,,20…

Gaining 99lbs in like a year.

Full natty right?

No way.

Do a diet like GOMAD and starting strength, focus on compound lifts, and don't miss legs it helps a lot.

Don't focus on a million supplements, most of them are a wast of money outside BCCAs creatine and some protein shakes

Some of this guys work is spot on http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/

I used his diet for a contest to get super low BF a few years ago before I got into cycling.

 
Licked:
I used his diet for a contest to get super low BF a few years ago before I got into cycling.

Nice, I did a natural contest a few years ago. Came in 5th in the novice class of like 12 or so. I used a diet by John Berardi called Get Shredded Diet (the guy is pretty good for diet advice, T-Nation contributor). I actually over dieted and looked a little flat on contest day, 2 weeks later I looked much better, fuller.

 

there is an absurd amount of information covering this exact topic a ton of other places on the internet. i have no idea why you would ask this here. the only reason anybody is going to entertain this topic is to broadcast their knowledge of nutrition/exercise so that the rest of us are left to assume they are shredded

 

Theres no need to get into specific macros, etc. above - that info is all over the internet. As for general advice, its sounds like you are doing the typical things that 98% of the population does that yields no progress:

-Not having a clue on how many calories you are taking in, and what your macros are -Thinking that not taking xyz supplement is holding you back and is your key to progress -Thinking that a certain fad workout (crossfit, mens fitness routines, etc.) is going to help you

Ive literally never heard of anybody say "Yeah dude, im not making any progress in the gym, I think its due to the fact that I am only taking in 300 calories over maintenance with a 40/40/20 macro breakdown" but countless bro stories of talking about crossfit, new bro lifting routines, etc. Diet is literally 80%-90% of your progress that you can control without roids.

 

I used to have this problem as well. Good advice given here so far. Enjoy the rocket metabolism, mine started to fade just a touch around 40.

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
 

lots of good advice above, my 2 cents (i have this problem too):

you probably aren't eating as many calories as you think you are (count them) compound lifts are your friend don't worry much about specifics, supplements, etc, make sure you have enough protein and keep adding calories until you get there.

finally I haven't seen this above: make sure you are hitting 6-7 hours of sleep, and cut back on alcohol if you are into that. sleepless nights and booze will hold you back (this is pretty obvious I guess).

 

Came across this post and have one new perspective to add: you might be working out too much.

I say this because if you are lifting heavy every week on top of a hectic lifestyle with lots of work and little sleep, then your body might not be recovering from your workouts. The classic analogy is this: each workout is like 'digging a hole' in your muscular ability. After your workout, recovery is 'filling the hole with dirt' and also 'adding a little bit extra on top' in the form of new muscle. If you are working out too frequently then you might not be giving yourself enough time to 'refill the hole' / repair damaged muscle.

I have links to research papers that support this, but can't find them right now. PM me if you're interested and I'll see if I can find them.

www.worklifefitness.co
 

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