Quick Tips on Gaining Lean Muscle Mass

from: swolefitness.com

It would be great if we could all gain weight without getting fat. Just think of how nice it would be to be able to gain weight and not have to worry about working it all back off at the gym or totally ruining all of the hard work that you have already done at the gym. Well here are some proven ways to do exactly that.

Ensure That You Are Eating Quality Calories
If you were to ask just about anyone, “how do you gain weight,” most of the time they would say, "I just eat." That is not the way to do it and still be able to keep what you have already done. You have to know how many calories that you consume in a day.

These people desperately want to gain weight but usually when you see them at the gym, they have some excuse as to why what they are doing is not working. This has a lot less to do with the food that they eat than it has to do with their metabolism. If you are trying to gain weight, not just weight in general, but good quality weight, then you need to eat good, quality, and dense foods. But the catch is that you have to eat enough of them. Also, if you are trying to gain weight without gaining fat too, then you have to bulk up with the same fundamentals that you would if you were on a cutting diet. Make sure that you are choosing the higher-calorie foods when you can, but make sure too that you are eating more than your usual body maintenance calorie intake.


In doing this though, you must keep track of what you are eating and not eat so many calories that your body just stores all of the excess calories by creating a lot of fat. Not only that, but your diet must be consistent. This is a major key to keeping the fat off in the long run. Just because you want to gain weight, it does not mean that you have a free ticket to eat everything in sight. In order for you to gain good weight and lean muscle mass without getting fat, then you just need to eat a bit over what your body needs to maintain itself. This way, you will give your body all of the calories that it needs to build lean muscle mass without giving it enough to make it store it all as a lot of fat. Anything that you eat in excess, proteins included, will be stored as fat. You must gain healthy weight while minimizing excess fat gains.

Don’t Just Go Shopping For Food, Choose What You Buy
Empty cupboards will not feed you enough to gain weight. You need to make sure that your kitchen is stocked with the different kinds of foods that will give your body what it needs, and not a lot of excess items that are not good for you. Make sure that you are buying dense foods that take a while to digest. Dense foods will work wonders for you in your goal of gaining weight. Some examples of the types of foods you should be buying are vegetables like avocados and potatoes, whole-grain breads, lean red meat, kidney beans, fish and poultry. Also remember that your food bill does not have to empty out your bank account. The key to saving money is to buy in bulk. There are a lot of stores where you can buy items in bulk, such as COSCO and Sam’s Club. Large packages of turkey, tuna, pastas, and chicken legs are all very good foods that do not cost a lot of money. It is the perishable items, such as fruits, sugary items, and condiments that make the shopping bill skyrocket very quickly.

Time and Plan Your Meals
It is recommended that you eat about five to six times a day when training your body to gain lean body mass. You should be consuming a small meal that contains lean protein, a potentially healthy fat, and fibrous or starchy carbohydrates approximately every two to three hours. If you really want to gain weight, you need to consistently eat up to five or six times a day as well without skipping meals. Making sure that you are keeping your metabolism running high and nitrogen (protein) in your system will ensure that you will keep the muscle that you have worked so hard to build. Also, you should be consuming slight excess calories for weight gain as well. Keep in mind that if you fail to plan out your meals, you will ultimately not be eating enough food to gain the weight you want.

Take In A Variety Of Nutrients
When we start to get used to eating certain foods, and refuse to change our diet up, this can be a killer to the efforts of gaining weight. If you are being finicky in your diet choices you can drastically limit the calories that you eat as well as nutrients and vitamins, which are needed for proper body growth. Do not neglect them.

Speed Up Your Metabolism By Eating
This does not mean gorging on food, stuffing yourself, or making yourself sick. It does means eating more than you have been which will gradually prepare your body’s metabolism for the added meals each day. You should be slowly adding more food to your daily diet, while eating more meals a day until you know what the perfect weight gain calorie need if for your body and goals. Simply said, in order to gain weight without fat, you need to raise your metabolic rate and consume more calories!

Additional Tips For Weight Gaining

- Make sure that you are drinking enough water to keep your muscles hydrated.

- Remain on a good weight-training program. The priority of your workout regimen is building muscle and your carbohydrate sources should give you plenty of energy to power through your workout sessions.

- Make sure you are monitoring your cardio workouts in contrast to your metabolic rate. If you are not putting on the weight, then reduce the frequency of your cardio workouts. If you are putting on too much fat, then you should increase the cardio. They should be hand in hand.

- Track your body fat percentage weekly. This way, you will be able to see if the weight you are gaining is fat or muscle and adjust everything accordingly.