Gaining weight and building muscle can be very challenging to a person who has been skinny all their life. It may be hard to imagine for some but there are people out there who are trying to gain weight without much success.

The good news is there are a few simple steps you can take to gain weight and build muscle naturally.

10 Steps To Building Muscle Naturally

1.) Try to eat at least 20 calories per pound of bodyweight. For example, if you are 130 pounds, then try to aim for 2600 calories per day. If you do not see any weight gain for over 2 weeks, then slowly increase your calorie intake by 200-500 calories. Rinse and repeat if you don’t see weight gain again for 2 weeks.

2.) Now that you figured out how much you should eat per day, divide up the calories into small 6-8 meals per day. For example, if you eat 3000 calories and you eat 6 times per day, then that will be 500 calories from each of your meals.

3.) Eat most of your carbs during the morning and between your workouts. Those are the best times to convert carbs for energy to be used instead of storing it in your body as fat.

4.) You need to eat healthy fat such as nuts, fish, olive oil, etc. Some people believe that all fat are bad because of the name. Healthy unsaturated fat can supplement your muscle growth.

5.) Right before your workout, you need to have some healthy carbs such as fruits and oatmeal so you can have energy to lift your best. You will feel weak if you go on an empty stomach. Also, this is the time to take a protein shake.

6.) Right after your workout, you will need to do the same as your pre-workout meal. This is also the best time to add starchy carbs such as white bread with a little bit of jelly. The bad carbs will be used to help your body recover from an intense workout, and they will not be stored as fat.

7.) Try to avoid fat, even healthy ones, near workout times because fat can slow down your protein intake.

8.) For workout, focus only on heavy compound exercises, such as, deadlift, bench press, and squat. Those 3 are KING when it comes to gaining weight and building muscles. Do not work on bicep curls like all the skinny guys at the gym. Always make sure you do proper warm-up with lighter weight, and ask for help if you do not know the proper lifting techniques otherwise you might injure yourself.

9.) Getting more sleep can help your muscles recover faster to grow. Sometimes hardgainers are not gaining weight or building muscles simply because they are not sleeping enough.

10.) Just because protein is good for you, doesn’t mean you should take thousands of grams per day. Extras will most likely end up stored as fat. You just need about 1 to 1.5 grams per bodyweight.

Article By: Kai Lo

I used to believe that it was impossible for me to build muscle as a skinny hardgainer because I was 135 pounds at 5’7. Now I am a little over 160 pounds with muscles at the same height after 4 months. I wrote a FREE guide based on my own personal experience to help other skinny hardgainer build muscles. Get it now for FREE: Bodybuilding For Hardgainers