How To Gain Weight For Skinny Females
In this guide, we’re going to talk about a muscle-building diet plan designed for naturally skinny women who are trying to gain weight. Make no mistake, this isn’t a weight-loss diet plan. It’s not even a diet for the average woman who wants to become leaner and stronger. This is a bulking diet for women, a diet that will help you gain weight. Lean weight from muscle, yes, but the scale will still move up.
Muscle-building nutrition can be overwhelming at first, especially for beginners. How much should you eat? Which foods are healthy? Should you avoid carbs or sugar? Why are ketogenic and vegetarian both so popular despite being seemingly contradictory? Will intermittent fasting help you gain weight more leanly?
But nutrition can also be pretty simple if you focus on the fundamentals. There are just two factors that make the difference between gaining nothing or gaining 0.25–1 pounds of muscle every week so that you’re 1-4 pounds heavier each month. But there are hundreds of things that make the oh-so-small difference between gaining 0.25 and 0.26 pounds of muscle. So let’s focus on the big stuff first, master it, and then worry about the small fries later.
This article is for beginners. It’s for skinny women who haven’t quite figured out how to gain weight yet. And it will help you gain weight consistently on the scale every single week. Keep in mind that gaining weight through muscle becomes harder and harder as you become more and more advanced, so we recommend learning the advanced stuff eventually. But there’s plenty of time for that later, once you’re already building muscle.
Right now, though, you just need to worry about the two most important factors: calories and protein. And, ideally, getting most of those calories from unprocessed whole foods.
How to Gain Weight: Calories
To gain weight you need to be in a calorie surplus. When you consume fewer calories than your body needs, your body is forced to burn stored energy (fat) and stored nutrients (muscle) to get the energy it needs. This causes weight loss. However, when you consume more calories than your body needs, your body has a surplus of energy, and that energy can be stored.
- Calorie surplus = weight gain
- Calorie balance = no change in weight
- Calorie deficit = weight loss
So “being in a caloric surplus” simply means “eating enough to gain weight.” This makes weight gain simple. Not easy, but simple: if you’re not gaining weight as quickly as you’d like, you need to increase your calorie intake.
We’re interested in gaining muscle, not just gaining weight through fat, so our goal is to store that extra energy as muscle mass. But before we can do that, we need to ensure that there’s extra energy available to be stored. Without that extra energy, you won’t be able to store anything at all.
When gaining weight under normal conditions, women generally gain around 60–70% of that weight as fat. So if you gain twenty pounds while eating a regular diet and doing regular exercise (e.g. cardio), then you’ll gain something like 7 pounds of muscle and 13 pounds of fat. That will help you become stronger and more muscular. After all, you’ll need to carry that extra fat around the block and up flights of stairs (which explains why overweight women have such strong lower bodies).
But we recommend building muscle leanly. You’ll gain more muscle and less fat, and it will have a better impact on your strength, athleticism, appearance, and health.
The good news is that if you’re brand new to lifting weights, you’ll benefit from so-called “newbie gains.” Beginners are often able to build muscle quite quickly and leanly. You may even be able to lose fat while doing it. Here’s how much muscle and strength women can expect to gain during their first year of lifting. For another example, here are Cassandra’s muscle-building before and after photos from gaining 22 pounds:
Now, to be clear, you won’t be able to lose fat while building muscle forever, and you may not even be able to do it now. Here are some examples of women’s weight-gain transformations after a few months of lifting weights. As you can see, some people gain more fat than others. However, regardless of your genetics and circumstances, the vast majority of your gains can probably be lean.
So how do we do this?
Before You Eat Big, You Need to Lift Big
Before eating more food, you need to prime your body for lean weight gain. You need to start lifting weights. You can do that by joining a commercial gym, setting up a barbell home gym in a spare room, or even just buying a pair of adjustable dumbbells that you can use in your living room. In a pinch, you could even start following a bodyweight workout routine that would require no equipment.
You don’t need any fancy equipment. Your plan doesn’t need to be complicated. But you do need a structured plan that will challenge your muscles. Bigger muscles are stronger muscles, so to get gradually bigger, you need to start getting progressively stronger.
For more, we have a beginner workout guide for women here. It’s simple, free, and perfectly effective.
How Quickly Should A Skinny Woman Gain Weight?
Once you’re lifting weights, the next thing to consider is how quickly you should be gaining weight. By adjusting how many extra calories you eat, you can control how quickly you gain weight.
The faster you gain weight, the faster you’ll gain muscle, but you’ll also be more likely to store more fat. The slower you gain weight, the harder it will be to build muscle, but the less fat you’ll gain. So the idea is to give your body enough extra nutrients to build muscle, but not so much that the extra, extra nutrients are stored as body fat.
The ideal rate of weight gain depends on your genetics, your experience level, and how good your workout program is.
- Your genetics and experience level are probably assets. If you’re a skinny girl that is a total beginner when it comes to working out, you’re still very far away from your genetic potential. Your genetics aren’t likely to limit you. You’ll do great.
- If you train specifically for muscle growth, you can be more aggressive with weight gain. Our Bony to Bombshell program is designed to stimulate muscle growth. So just make sure you follow a muscle-building workout routine that is designed for females, you give it your best effort, and you’re consistent.
So for the average naturally skinny woman who’s following a good muscle-building program, we recommend gaining weight pretty fast—about 0.25–0.75 pounds per week.
If you gain less weight than that, increase your calorie intake. If you gain more weight than that, reduce your calorie intake.
How to Eat Enough To Gain Weight
When we mention that you’ll need to eat more calories, most people think that they’ll need to track calories on an app to gain weight. But the good news is that you don’t have to do that if you don’t want to. We’ll teach you a few different methods. You can pick the method you prefer.
But even if you aren’t tracking calories, it still helps to know what’s going on under the hood. So let’s talk about the calorie requirements of gaining weight and building muscle.
It takes around 3,500 to gain a pound of fat, and a bit less than that to gain a pound of muscle. So to gain around 0.5 pounds per week, you should eat around 250 extra calories every day. But you’ll also be burning calories while working out, and your metabolism will speed up as you start eating more food, so you may need to eat even more than that. The trick is to weigh yourself every week, see how much you gain, and then adjust accordingly.
- If you’re gaining less than 0.25 pounds per week, eat 200 extra calories each day.
- If you’re gaining more than 0.5–0.75 pounds per week, eat 100 fewer calories each day.
The first week can be a bit of a toss-up. You’re adding in the workout routine but you’re also adding more food into your digestive system. Sometimes your weight will jump up or flatten out. Don’t read too much into it. And besides, lifting weights will be such a novel stimulus that you’ll probably lose a bit of fat and gain a bit of muscle even if you aren’t gaining weight.
Even after the first week, this can be a finicky process. You don’t need to be perfect at it. Even if you aren’t gaining the same amount of weight each week, as long as there’s an overall trend upwards, you’ll do great. (You should also notice that you’re getting stronger each week.)
Okay, now, let’s talk about how to determine your calorie needs. There are two ways to calculate how many calories you need:
- Eating intuitively: taking your diet as it is now, adding in extra food, and eating a bit more or less depending on how much weight you gain each week.
- Calorie tracking: starting from scratch, calculating your body’s calorie needs, and tracking the food you eat. You can then adjust your intake in 200-calorie increments each week, depending on whether you’re gaining weight or not.
Let’s go over the pros and cons of both methods.
Method One: Eating Intuitively To Gain Weight By Adding Calories
This method assumes you’re already eating enough calories to maintain your body weight. If that’s the case, that means you’re in energy balance. You aren’t in a calorie surplus or deficit. So all you need to do is eat a bit more.
To gain around half a pound per week, you need 200–300 extra calories per day. That’s a large glass of milk or soy milk (500ml), a small bowl of trail mix (1/3 of a cup), a Quest protein bar, or two scoops of protein powder. You don’t need to eat that much more, especially if you choose calorically dense foods like olive oil, avocado oil, trail mix, dried fruits, roasted nuts, smoothies, soy milk, and milk.
After a week of eating big, step on the scale, and see how much weight you gained (or didn’t gain). Then adjust your calorie intake as needed. If you didn’t gain weight, add in another 200 calories. If you gained too much weight, eat 100 calories less.
This option of eating intuitively is simple and effective, but it only works if you already have a very consistent diet. For example, if you wake up in the morning and have breakfast, bring a packed lunch to work, and then come home and eat dinner with your family. In this case, since you have a steady routine, it’s easy to add in an extra snack without changing anything else.
The whole method relies on the fact that you eat consistent meals and serving sizes, though. If you add in a snack between breakfast and lunch, but then you aren’t as hungry for dinner, so you eat less… that won’t work. You need to be able to keep your diet consistent, adding in extra calories.
Your body wants to stay the same, and it has dastardly tricks to keep you that way. Let’s say you make a sugary Starbucks run twice a week to satisfy some cravings. Or maybe you order takeout once a week. Those are extra calories that you get sometimes. Not often. They’re not part of your regular routine. But that’s your body’s way of keeping your weight steady each week. Thing is, now that you’re adding extra calories into your diet, those cravings might disappear. So now you’re eating a bit more calories every day, but you aren’t getting those biweekly calorie infusions anymore. And so you don’t gain weight.
Since your appetite will naturally cue you to eat enough to maintain your weight, these subconsciously caloric adjustments are very common. They’re very sneaky. Watch out for them.
Fortunately, this muscle-building diet is self-correcting. If you’re adding in another 200 calories every week, you fail to gain weight, then eventually, you’ll start consistently gaining weight. As long as your diet has some structure to it, this method will eventually start to work. And whenever it stops working, it will fix itself again.
If your diet is too sporadic, though, you might want to count your calories with an app instead.
Method Two: Tracking Calories To Gain Weight
This option is best if you want to build a weight gain diet plan from scratch. The goal here is still to develop a fairly consistent routine, though, so that you can eventually switch back to option #1. Counting calories every day isn’t a sustainable lifestyle for most people. It’s not something you want to do forever. It’s only something you want to do for now, as you’re learning how to gain weight.
Plus, your body has a rhythm to it. If you eat meals at the same time every day, your digestive system will prepare for them. You’ll get into the rhythm of digesting meals at certain times. It’s not the end of the world if you fall off your schedule, but eating enough food is already hard enough as is. We might as well make it as easy as possible.
So how many calories should you be eating? That’s a tricky question. Calorie algorithms can get pretty complicated. Different people have different body compositions, diets, lifestyles, and goals.
Fortunately for us, we can simplify it by focusing on a specific niche: skinny women who are working out and eating to build muscle as lean weight.
For the average thin woman eating a balanced diet with a moderate protein intake and working out every second day (for about 3 hours total each week), this calorie intake should get you very close to your maintenance calorie needs:
- Maintenance Calories = weight (pounds) x 13
- Maintenance Calories = weight (kilos) x 29
Then adjust a little based on your lifestyle:
- If you wake up, drive to work and sit at a desk all day, decrease the multiplier by 1, making it 12 (if you use pounds) or 29 (if you use kilos).
- For every extra hour of exercise you do per week—in addition to your muscle-building workouts—add an extra 1 to the multiplier. For example, if you play two volleyball games every week, each lasting about an hour, your multiplier would be 15 (if you use pounds) or 31 (if you use kilos).
This should roughly reflect what you’re already eating. It won’t be perfect, but it should be about right. If the number seems way off, feel free to adjust it up or down by another 10%. Metabolisms vary from person to person, and chances are that you already know whether yours is larger or smaller than average.
Now we need to add in the calorie surplus. Just like with option #1, this means adding 200–300 calories per day on top of your maintenance needs. From there, weigh yourself every week and adjust accordingly. If you don’t gain weight, eat 200 more calories per day. If you gain too much weight, eat 100 fewer calories per day.
Examples of Easy Ways To Add Calories To Your Weight Gain Diet
- Increase three meals by 100 calories each. Perhaps you do that by adding a small glass of milk to your meals. Liquid calories are fairly easy on the appetite, so this should be fairly achievable.
- Add in a couple 150 calorie snacks. Snacks have been shown to instinctively cause people to eat more, and they will allow you to keep your main meals reasonably sized. These snacks could be as simple as a homemade protein bar split in half, a whey isolate protein shake, a handful of trail mix, a couple pieces of dark chocolate, or a couple pieces of fruit.
- Add in a fourth (or fifth) meal. Maybe a small fruit/protein smoothie, or some muesli cereal with milk and frozen berries, a homemade protein bar, or a store-bought one—like a Quest protein bar. All of these options are quick to prepare and consume, rich in fibre, contain a fruit or vegetable (except for the Quest bar), and contain enough protein to spike muscle protein synthesis.
- Have (more) dessert. If you already eat a pretty healthy diet that’s rich in protein and made up mostly of whole foods, perhaps you could just have a 250-calorie dessert after dinner. Bonus points in terms of health if you make the dessert yourself.
Best Foods To Gain Weight
You can gain weight with a wide variety of foods. You don’t need to eat a specific diet, you just need to eat enough good food. Even so, some foods make it much easier to bulk than others. They share a few common characteristics:
- They have a high energy density. Foods with a higher energy have more calories per unit of volume. They take up less room in your mouth, allowing you to devour calories faster. They also occupy less room in your stomach, allowing you to eat more food before you run out of room. For skinny-stomached people like me, that’s a huge boon.
- They’re good for building muscle. Foods higher in protein, starchy carbs (or unprocessed sugars), and healthy fats are fantastic for building bigger muscles. Protein is the building block of muscle tissue, starchy carbs are the fuel our muscles use, and healthy fats keep our hormones running smoothly, telling our bodies what to do with these nutrients. Then there are fibrous and fermented foods, which improve our digestion. And foods that improve our blood flow, enhancing our muscle growth.
- They’re good for our health. A good bulking diet is built out of nutritious foods. Think of whole or minimally processed foods, including lean meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts, dairy, herbs, spices, and much more.
Not every good weight gain food satisfies all three criteria. For example, carrots and spinach aren’t rich in calories or easy to digest, but they’re packed full of micronutrients, including nitrates, increasing our rate of muscle growth (study). You could make a similar argument for garlic, which improves blood flow.
On the other side of the spectrum, consider white rice. White rice is stripped of its fibre, making it less nutritious than other whole grains, such as brown rice, oats, quinoa, and corn. However, it still retains some micronutrients and has a few key weight gain advantages: it’s high in starchy carbs, easy to prepare, easy to eat, and quick to digest. As a result, it makes for a great side, especially if you’re having it along with some salmon and vegetables or perhaps under a bed of stir fry, picadillo, or vindaloo.
- Fermented dairy is rich in protein, calcium, and probiotics. Probiotics are great for our digestion, which is key when bulking. Think of cheese, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and kefir.
- Other fermented foods are rich in probiotics, too. Think of sauerkraut, miso, natto, tempeh, kombucha, and kimchi.
- Whole grains and legumes are nutritious starchy carbs. They’ll pump your muscles full of glycogen, improving your workout performance and supporting muscle growth. They’re also rich in soluble fibre, which regulates blood sugar, blood lipids, and digestion. Think of corn, quinoa, oats, beans, lentils, soybeans, peanuts, and brown rice.
- Fruits and berries are rich in vitamins, minerals, fibre, phytonutrients, and antioxidants. They’re also a nutritious source of unprocessed sugar, giving us the energy to lift and grow. Think of bananas, mangoes, papayas, apples, pears, oranges, limes, and mixed berries.
- Fibrous vegetables are pitifully low in calories but make up for it by being rich in fibre, along with wide range of micronutrients. Many are rich in nitrates, improving blood flow, giving you bigger muscle pumps, and increasing muscle growth. Think of carrots, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, beets, and peas.
- Nuts and seeds are rich in healthy fats, protein, and fibre and packed full of micronutrients. Think of walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, flax seeds, and hemp seeds.
- Herbs, spices, and garnish add flavour and nutrients to your meals. Many of them have interesting health benefits. Think of garlic, onions, diced tomatoes, pepper, turmeric, oregano, cilantro, mint, hot peppers, and soy sauce.
- Sauces and dips are another way to add joy to your meals. Many of them are quite nutritious. Think of honey, mustard, nut butter, soy sauce, hot sauce, tahini, homemade mayonnaise, olive oil, vinegar, hummus, salsa, Tzatziki, and guacamole.
- Oils have the highest energy density of any food. Extra virgin olive oil is great for drizzling on salads and veggies. Avocado oil is great for cooking with.
- Coffee and tea are natural sources of caffeine and rich sources of phytonutrients. They’re quite healthy, provided you keep them away from bedtime.
Important: Adjust Your Calorie Intake Each Week
The most important thing about your bulking diet is to adjust it based on whether you’re gaining weight or not. We’ve been saying this a lot, but it’s really important. If you aren’t gaining weight, you need to add a bit more food to your diet. It’s a hard truth. When you’re already eating a lot, the last thing you want to hear is that you need to eat even more. But that’s the truth of it. That’s what you have to do.
You’ll need to track your results and adjust as you go to guarantee that you’re consistently gaining weight. This will also correct for calorie tracking errors or incorrect calorie estimates. It makes the system self-correcting. This is what will allow you to gain weight consistently, week after week, even if your body is naturally resistant to weight gain. Our bodies are resistant to weight gain, too. We know what it’s like. It’s hard, but it works.
Also, remember that this isn’t forever. Gaining weight is difficult. But once you reach your goal weight, you switch back to maintenance. You can follow your appetite again. Maintaining your results is easy, enjoyable, and feels natural. Your body will reach a new normal point of homeostasis.
Weigh yourself each week and see how much your weight has changed. You should buy your own digital scale to keep in the bathroom. We recommend waking up on Sunday morning, peeing, and then stepping on the scale. This will keep your stomach contents and hydration as consistent as possible from weigh-in to weigh-in. Then, if you aren’t seeing the weight-gain results that you want, simply add 200 calories to your daily target. Or, if you’re gaining weight too fast, remove 100 calories.
If you’re a skinny beginner, we recommend gaining around 0.25–0.75 pounds per week. Every week, depending on how your weigh-in goes, you can adjust your calories up or down to get closer to that pace. 0.25 pounds per week is good if you’re more afraid of gaining fat. 0.75 pounds per week is good if you’re more eager to gain muscle. If you want to take a middling approach, aim for 0.5 pounds.
This is how to guarantee progress. If something isn’t working, you just keep adjusting things until it does. When it comes to gaining weight, your calorie intake is the variable you need to adjust.
If you’ve been working out for a few weeks, you haven’t gained any weight, and you’re thinking, “Damn, am I doing the wrong workouts? Are my genetics bad? Am I eating a poor diet?” But no, it’s none of that. You’re looking for the problem in the wrong place. The recipe is fine, you just need more ingredients—more calories.
Speaking of which, it’s common for naturally skinny women to have trouble eating enough calories to gain weight. Here’s our guide for eating more calories.
How Much Protein Do You Need?
Why Is Protein Important for Weight Gain?
Weight training will get your body trying to build muscle, getting into a calorie surplus will give you enough energy to gain weight, and consuming enough protein will give your body the building blocks that your body needs to construct new muscle tissue. (Muscle is made out of protein.) This is the trifecta of lean weight gain through muscle growth: lift weights, eat enough calories, and eat enough protein.
How Much Protein Should You Eat Per Day?
Most research shows that around a gram of protein per pound bodyweight per day (2.2 grams per kilo) is ideal for building muscle. That’s probably more than you eat right now, but it’s nothing crazy. If you have trouble hitting that goal, remember that you can always buy some protein powder.
Keep in mind that this is how much protein it takes to build muscle. You don’t need to eat this much protein forever. Muscle doesn’t take as much protein to maintain. This is why you’ll sometimes see very muscular people eating far less protein than this. Once you reach your goals, you can eat a bit less protein without fear of losing muscle.
What Are the Best Foods To Gain Muscle For Females?
There are lots of great protein sources:
- Chicken
- Fish
- Lean meat
- Dairy—particularly raw or fermented—such as kefir, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese
- Eggs, nuts, whole grains, seeds, and legumes. They aren’t pure protein sources, but it adds up.
- Soy isolate protein powder, whey isolate protein powder, and other plant-based protein powders
- Smoothies that include a protein powder
This makes eating enough protein pretty easy if your diet has no restrictions. If your diet does have restrictions, buying a suitable protein powder tends to solve the problem.
Whey protein is cheaper than chicken and fantastic for building muscle. There are many great types of protein powders. For example, pea + rice protein powder is great for people who have problems with processed dairy or prefer avoiding animal products.
Mixing some protein powders alongside other healthy foods as a smoothie is an incredible way of getting enough protein, enough nutrients, and consuming those calories in a way that’s easy on the appetite.
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Is It Healthy to Eat More Protein?
Yes, most research shows that diets higher in protein are totally healthy. Not only is protein rich in nutrients, but it also supports a lean, strong, and athletic physique. Make sure you’re still eating plenty of other good foods, too, though. Lots of fruits, veggies, legumes, and so on.
How Much Protein Should Women Have Per Meal?
Hitting your overall daily protein goal is the most important thing, but splitting up your protein evenly over the course of the day can help, too. In an ideal world, you’d have at least three meals per day and at least 20 grams of protein in every meal. (Intermittent fasting is okay for losing fat, but it doesn’t seem ideal for building muscle, especially for naturally skinny people.)
For example, if you weigh 130 pounds, your diet might look like this:
- 30 grams of protein with breakfast.
- 30 grams of protein with lunch.
- 40 grams of protein with dinner.
- And a protein shake as a snack—27 grams of protein.
That gives you 130 grams of protein, and that protein is spread somewhat evenly over the course of the day, with at least 20 grams of protein in each meal. That’s a classic way of structuring a muscle-building weight-gain diet, too.
Keep in mind that you might not be used to eating protein in every meal. For example, Cassandra (from the first before and after photo) wasn’t used to eating much protein with breakfast. To fix that, she switched from using almond milk to soy milk in her morning latte, and she added a scoop of collagen powder to it. That gave her an extra 8 grams of protein from the soy milk and 10 grams from the collagen. (Collagen isn’t a complete source of protein for building muscle, but when combined with other protein sources in the diet, that doesn’t matter. She likes collagen because there’s modest evidence showing it might improve skin health.)
Keep Your Diet as Abundant As Possible
When trying to eat more calories, don’t make things harder than they need to be. If you don’t have any dietary restrictions, great. You don’t need any. You can build muscle with a wide and varied diet that’s pleasurable to eat. Don’t restrict carbs (or follow a ketogenic diet) unless you absolutely need to. You also don’t need to limit your sugar intake (as long as your diet isn’t overly high in it). You eat organic foods if you want, but you don’t have to.
Your muscle-building weight diet can be very flexible. Make it fun.
Most of these restrictive diets are designed for overweight people who need to restrict their calories to get down to a healthy weight. As someone who’s trying to gain weight, you can do the opposite: keep your diet flexible and indulgent and fun.
That said, you may find it easier to eat a somewhat repetitive diet at first, especially if you’re counting calories. That way, you won’t always need to calculate your calories from scratch. If you eat the same snack before bed every night (such as cottage cheese with a spoonful of strawberry jam), you don’t need to calculate the calories. You already know how many calories are in it and how much protein it has.
And you may want to make some food swaps to make bulking easier. For instance, if you normally wake up and have a coffee and a muffin at Starbucks for breakfast, consider switching that to having a milk or soymilk latte, a muffin, and some yogurt with fruit at Starbucks for breakfast. Your routine is the same, and the switch won’t require much willpower. But the milk in the latte adds protein and calories, and the yogurt and fruit add calories, fibre, phytonutrients, and vitamins.
Summary
If you’re a naturally skinny woman who’s trying to gain weight through muscle, it all comes down to following a structured workout routine that’s designed to stimulate muscle growth, eating enough protein to build muscle, and eating enough calories to gain weight.
Here’s how to do it:
- Start working out first, then start eating more calories. Without the lifting, around 67% of the weight you gain will be fat. Once you start working out, though, you should be able to gain weight quite leanly.
- If you’re a skinny beginner, gaining 0.25–0.75 pounds per week is a good place to start.
- If your diet is made up mostly of whole foods, is fairly consistent, and your weight stays about the same each week, then you don’t need to count calories with an app. Add 200–300 calories to what you’re already eating. That will bring you into a small calorie surplus.
- If your diet needs a total overhaul, or you haven’t been able to gain weight by eating intuitively, you will want to track calories. 13x your bodyweight in pounds (or 29x your bodyweight in kilos) is about how many calories it takes to maintain your weight. So to start gaining weight, add another 200–300 calories on top of that. For a woman who weighs 100 pounds, that’s around 1300 calories to maintain and 1550 to gain.
- Weigh yourself each week and adjust your calorie intake accordingly. If you aren’t gaining weight, add another 200 calories. If you gain too much weight, remove 100 calories.
- Your weekly calorie surplus determines how much weight you gain each week. Ideally, you’d get into that weekly surplus by eating a small surplus every single day. But if you need to, you can make up for a day of undereating with overeating. So if you’re 200 calories short one day, eat an extra 200 calories the next day.
- Eat 0.8–1 gram of protein per pound bodyweight per day (2.2 grams per kilo). Most people can do this by eating protein-rich foods, such as meat, dairy, soy, legumes, and nuts. But if you find it hard to eat enough protein, consider buying some protein powder. It’s the easiest way to boost your protein intake.
- Eat the foods you already love—just add more calories and protein. You don’t need any dietary restrictions. Try to build a diet that you enjoy. The only thing we recommend is eating mostly whole foods. More fruits, veggies, legumes, yogurt, and nuts. Fewer packaged cookies and chips.
- Don’t fret about advanced nutrition techniques until this is easy! This is everything you need to build muscle and gain weight leanly and effectively.
If you liked this article, you’d love our muscle-building newsletter. We’ll keep you up to date on all the latest muscle-building information for women. Or, if you want us to walk you through the process of building muscle, including teaching you the lifts, giving you a full workout program, a complete diet guide, a recipe book, and online coaching, check out our Bony to Bombshell Program.
Good luck!
Shane Duquette is the co-founder of Outlift, Bony to Beastly, and Bony to Bombshell, and has a degree in design from York University in Toronto, Canada. He's gained sixty pounds at 11% body fat and has over ten years of experience helping over 10,000 skinny people build muscle, get stronger, and gain weight.
Cassandra González Duquette is a certified nutritionist (CNP) who studied at the Institute of Holistic Nutrition in Toronto, Canada. She's personally gained 22 pounds, going from 97 up to 119 pounds.
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Thank you so much! As a mom of two babies, 24 years old and always struggling to gain weight i finally have something to follow, u guys are amazing. I cant wait to see if i can finally gain some weight and build muscle and not look like my usual bony self.
Woot, glad we could help, Jules! Good luck!
I have always been slender/skinny all my life but since my daughter was born 6 years ago I have struggled with weight even more so than before since I’ve been diagnosed with a Hyperthyroid. My thyroid numbers have been stable for the last 4 years without medication but I’m still having difficulties gaining weight I was wondering if this program would still be able to help me because I’m very interested in the program. I’m looking gain around 15 to 20 lbs though. I’m 5’6″ with a small build currently weigh around 105-107 lbs. Thank you.
I think you’ll find that this program was built for someone exactly, exactly like you. The entire program is built with your particular struggles in mind 🙂
How does your program work for older women? I’m 51, naturally thin, in very good shape, and dropped even more weight recently because of personal crisis so at 5′ 5″ I’m hovering around 100 lbs. I bike, walk, do yoga, and occasionally go to the gym just to feel good – never to lose weight. I would like to put on some muscle and of course get a few curves back!
Hey Gwen, I’m so sorry to hear about your personal crisis!
The program should work similarly for women between the ages of 18 and 60, as crazy as that sounds. You aren’t really considered “old” yet by muscle-building standards. Sounds like your lifestyle isn’t that of an old woman either—it sounds awesome! However, given that none of your day-to-day fitness routine involves lifting heavy things, we’ll want to start you off a little lighter so that we can build up your tendon, ligament and bone strength for a few weeks before progressing to the heavier lifting. We can help you with that 🙂
(Oh! And obviously make sure this is Kosher with your doctor too.)
I am just about as “petite” as they come. For as long as I can remember I have weighed about 90 lbs. I am currently 88 lbs and stand 5’1. I am getting married July 2nd of this year and am desperate to fill out my wedding dress. The program looks great and I would kill for some of the results the women in the pictures and testimonials have had. I am nervous because I am not sure I will be able to follow it by myself. I would feel so much better meeting with someone in person but know that is not what this program is like. I have read the article and watched the videos about the 3 beginner exercises. They seem to be something that I can do. I will need to buy weights and am not sure exactly what to get. I am also concerned about knowing what to eat, how much to eat and all of that nutritional stuff. is there any advice you can give short of me purchasing the program?
Hey Rachael,
Congrats on your engagement! If you are planning on doing some muscle-building, it’s good to do your fitting ideally after you’ve added muscle!
The program includes online coaching, and we help you learn how much to eat, what you should be eating, etc. All those details are included. And we can help you figure out what to order if there is no local gym nearby (which can help if you want to test the waters). We don’t recommend much, just two heavy adjustable dumbbells and a bench.
Our program comes with 60 days of money back guarantee, so you can definitely try the program and have a look without fully committing. That way you can see if it’s something you’ll feel comfortable with trying.
I hope that helps and that you decide to join Rachael!
I am 5’2″ at 108lbs. I have been trying to gain weight but it’s a HUGE struggle because I work LONG hours and am always on my feet (I’m a teacher). I was hoping that your program will help me gain at least 10lbs. by the end of the summer. Also, does your program have a weight gain diet for people like me that always on the go? I try to eat more but I might be working out too much. REALLY need help with this!
Hi Tai,
The nutrition sections in the guide should give you everything you’ll need to know about gaining weight and building muscle. So if you’re on the go a lot, you can get clever about it. You can make some homemade protein bars to take on the go, you could make a smoothie and bring it in a sealed container (something like a Thermos), nuts and dried fruits are easy to store in your desk, which foods will help you reach your goals that are available at the cafeteria, etc.
I think you’d really enjoy the program, especially with your upcoming summer break!
Jared
Hi Shane, I know you specialize in thin women looking to gain for a more curvaceous figure, but I can’t find many resources for women who are already curvy and looking to gain muscle to reach a SUPER curvy physique. I’m already quite curvy with a .062 WHR, so I am happy on that front, but I have very little muscle and look a little too “soft” for my liking even though my measurements themselves are, imo, very good (33-24-39). I’m 5’1 and 134 lbs which is fairly heavy for my height and on the cusp of “overweight” in terms of BMI, so I’m not sure if I should take on gaining muscle and risking gaining more weight, or if i should lose weight, then gaining muscle. I’m afraid of my breasts sagging and losing my hips by losing another 10 lbs! Any guidance here would be much appreciated. Loving your blog!
I meant 0.62 WHR, not .062!
Hey Lola,
You can definitely use our content to boost an already curvaceous physique! In fact, our program is absolutely perfect for that.
In your particular case, being new to lifting and on the cusp of being overweight, you can lose fat AND build muscle at the same time. Not many people can do it. You certainly can. To do this, you’d slowly lose weight overall (around a pound each week) by going into a small calorie deficit (around 500 fewer calories per day than normal) while doing a muscle-building workout program and eating enough protein. We call this cutting because the goal is to cut off fat while gaining or maintaining your muscle mass.
For most, a gram of protein per pound bodyweight is good when cutting. Since your body weight has a little more fat right now, and fat doesn’t require protein to maintain, you can probably get away with a minimum of 0.8 grams of protein per pound bodyweight instead.
If you want a full program for this with coaching along the way, I highly recommend our Bony to Bombshell Program. You sound like a great fit and I really think you’d love it!
http://bonytobombshell.com/weight-gain-program-for-women/
I m skinny and at the height of 5’11 and have a pretty healthy weight but my figure isn’t so even. I’ve got really wide shoulders which totally eclipse my small waist & if I say so myself average hip size. Has there been anyone whose kinda made it less prominent? I hope weight gain would help, but you cant change bone structure & I don’t think Its possible to make the hips wide enough to counter the appearance of my shoulders. So Is It possible to change it? Will this help?
Hey Nera,
You can’t change your bone structure, but you can change how much muscle is overtop of it. So you’re right, you won’t be able to make your hips that much wider. A little bit, yes, since muscle can fill out the sides of your hips a little, but most of what you’d be doing by building muscle would be making your hips deeper. That would have a pretty profound impact on your physique and help balance out your broader shoulders 🙂
Thank you for the reply good to know hope isn’t lost, what exactly do you mean by making the hips deeper?
Ah! I mean that while your hips will only grow a little wider when viewed from the front, they’ll grow much deeper when viewed from the side.
I am 49 and in fairly good condition. I am 5’6” and years ago weighed 170. After completing graduate school I was able to get back in control and lose weight. But now I’m down to 105 and people are worried. I need to gain but in a healthy way. I like your program, but I am worried that due to some previous sports injuries I won’t be able to lift “heavy” weights without consequences. (back, neck, knees) What do you suggest?
Hey Bobbi! Glad to hear you’re interested in the program 🙂
The program includes coaching and adjustments. We could help you work around your injuries so that you can build muscle without aggravating them. If you can’t lift heavy, that’s okay too. We’ll figure out what you can and cannot do and take it from there.
I really hope you decide to join us!
I am extremely interested in this program.
Along with the guide of weight lifting do you also provide a FULL nutrition guide? As in what i need to eat breakfast lunch dinner/ what snacks i need to be eating in between as wel as which exact protein shakes and at which times etc. etc.
I am 23/ 5’7 / 95 pounds yuck
Goal weight is 125
Hey Hazel, glad to hear you’re extremely interested in the program 🙂
We do! Full nutrition guide. We’ve found that it’s easier to make your own meal plan out of your own personal preferences. But we have sample meal plans that you can use, and then to make them more enjoyable to follow, you could swap in your own recipes (or use some of our recipes—we have those too!).
Hi, I am very interested in this programme! I’m currently 5″4, 92lb – I have some gains to make!
I was wondering how much you can help women who aren’t naturally skinny, but just come from a background of chronic undereating? I may be small framed but I’m pretty sure my metabolism is all kinds of messed up.
Also – I just ran my numbers through your formula and it tells me I should maintain my weight on less than 1200 a day – that is far less than any formula I’ve seen, surely that is just my bmr??
Hey Alice,
We can definitely help anyone who is looking to build muscle / gain weight, including you. The only difference is that the writing is speaking to someone who struggles to, for example, eat enough to gain weight. You might be reading our appetite hacks and thinking, “Psh, I can eat enough to gain weight in my sleep!” But so long as you don’t mind that, we’d love to have you 🙂
As for the calorie estimate, that’s a good point, and we thought the same thing at first. We thought the numbers must be too low for sure. But after double-checking our research and then testing it on all of our members, it worked out quite well. However, you’re quite light, so it’s probably underestimating your calorie intake a little. You may want to raise that estimate by 10–20%. And, of course, if eating even that higher amount doesn’t lead to the right amount of weight gain, adjust further as needed. (We can help you with that.)
This seems like a great program. I’d love to join but unfortunately I am a poor, starving graduate student and can’t afford it. I’m trying to do some strength training on my own but I hate the gym and don’t have enough space to work out at home. Any advice for getting over gym-phobia? I always feel like I don’t know what I am doing and will look silly if I try anything new. Even if I go when the gym is mostly empty I still feel super awkward standing in a corner doing dumbell curls. I love fitness classes, but those mostly just burn calories which doesn’t help a skinny girl. How do you make weight lifting exciting?
Hi Carissa,
That’s great that you’ve started already on your own! This article on nutrition was designed to be complementary to the beginner’s guide to working out article. You can read that article here.
What I’ve found helpful for getting over gym-phobia is like treating how some different phobias are treated, with lots of repeated exposure. I’d recommend going at a non-busy time of day like you’re already doing and having a plan written down or printed out and sticking to it. If you are there winging it, it’s going to feel a little awkward. But if you go into the gym with a gameplan, it’s a lot easier to just mind your own business and stick to it. Some people find it easier to have a trainer show them around the lifts once or twice to get the idea, or going with a friend. But the trainer might be out of your budget, and the friend might (probably) bail. As you grow in experience though, it’ll get easier and easier to continue to hit the gym.
PS I am going to send you more information about our student payment plan to see if that’s helpful in any way 🙂
Hello,
I’m new to this website, and I wanted to ask about bony spine, I have been following a somewhat “eat what you like” diet because I’m not good nor want to follow a certain diet program, however, my looks changed a little (I haven’t gained much weight and I don’t really care about that), I have become more toned, however by bony spine refuses to be covered with any muscles even though I’m doing pilates core exercises with focus on the back and I tend to have back pain every morning when I wake up and occasionally during the day too. I’m also trying to eat a bit more with focus on protein specially eggs and dairy products as I really like them. I don’t know what to do about this annoying bony back of mine. Is there anything I can do for it?
Thank you so much in advance 🙂
There are a lot of things you can do to fix this. Lifting weights should help. Especially rows, squats and deadlifts. That trio will thicken the muscles the surround your spine (spinal erectors) as well as the muscles in your upper back.
You’re also right to focus on nutrition, although I’m not sure a “eat what you like” diet is necessarily the right approach. The diet that’s famous for skinny people who don’t want to follow a specific diet program is called the “seefood diet,” where you eat everything that you see. The idea is to not be too choosey about what you eat, but rather to focus on how much you eat. Because, frankly, if you only eat what you like, you’ll never eat enough to gain weight.
To gain weight I recommend:
a) Eating specific foods that allow you to eat more food more easily (a very loose diet program)
b) Eat whatever you like, but eat meals even when you aren’t hungry, and keep eating even after you’re full.
I recommend the former, but the latter will work as well.
The third thing you can do is work on your posture. I’d be willing to bet that part of the reason your back looks bony is because your posture is a little wonky. You don’t have to focus on this, but you can do it at the same time as gaining weight 🙂
Oh My Gosh, you’re so right about my posture. I try to watch my posture but it hurts to keep my back straight all the time. I try to mediate everyday but I’m never able to keep my back straight for more than a minute, however i will skates keep training myself to Kerri it straight. Unfortunately I’m not always able to eat more, I just can’t fit more food in my stomach but I keep trying to increase my food intake a little even if it was just an extra cup of milk. I will try to incorporate these exercises in my workout program.
Thank you so much for your reply 🙂
Eating more is such a simple suggestion, but yeah, when it comes to actually doing it… brutal. If your stomach can’t handle more food in your stomach, it might help to eat more often—snacks between meals and whatnot. Liquid calories can be a good technique as well. Also, focusing on really dense sources of calories, like dried fruits and nuts (aka trail mix).
Hi! I love, love the sound of this, but am a bit weary.
I’m 21 years old.
5’0-5’1 and fluctuate between 90-96 pounds and DAMNIT I EAT!
I am 98 % sure I will be purchasing the program, but I have a question.
How will I know I am doing the exercises/lifting properly?
I’m scared of doing them improperly and either gaining in a weird/bulky way or not gaining at all.
I want people to stop calling me twelve or telling me I’m going to blow away, lol.
I want people to stop telling me I need to eat more McDonald’s
I want to feel like a woman.
Hey Kyla, glad you love the sound of this!
Ahaha, I know. The eating, it’s so frustrating. And I really hope we can help you figure that out. We should be able to. That’s our specialty 🙂
How will you know if you’re doing the exercises properly? We teach them using instructional videos, and Marco’s pretty good at being clear and keeping things simple. We also start with the simpler variations and work our way up to the more complex ones. So a lot of the challenges of, say, back squatting, you’ll already have figured out because you will have mastered the goblet squat and then the front squat first, both of which are far easier to learn. You can also take videos of yourself doing the lifts, though. That way we can give you feedback. We rarely run into someone doing something dangerous (like a round-backed deadlift), but we can usually give you some tips to get your form improving more quickly than if you just kept practicing on your own using the videos + progressions.
I really hope you decide to join us!
Also, my posture is total shit, haha.
Ahaha we can help you work on your posture too 🙂
Awesome thank you! How do I know how much to eat if I am breastfeeding?
Hi Emily,
Many women love breastfeeding since it helps you get back down to your pre-pregnancy weight. But some people are struggling to keep their weight on, if they don’t have a lot on them, when breastfeeding, since so many calories are going out.
This study says:
“energy needs for an exclusively breastfeeding woman are approximately 670 kcal/day. If one allows for gradual weight loss, the net increment needed is about 500 kcal/day.
…
The recommended increment in protein intake during lactation has been estimated to be about 15 g/day, based on a milk protein concentration of 11 g/liter. However, if one takes into account the protein cost of non-protein nitrogen in human milk, the recommended increment in protein is about 20 g/day.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9240917
So basically what it’s saying is to neutralize weight loss, you’d need to eat an additional 670 calories per day, compared to if you weren’t breastfeeding. You’d also need to eat an additional 20g of protein per day, since so much of that is going out through your milk.
So if you’re trying to gain weight and build muscle, first you’d have to at least 670 calories / 20g of protein, and then go above and beyond that. In our article above we show that the research is showing to eat around 1g of protein per bodyweight pound if you want to gain muscle, then theoretically, you’d add 20g on top of that for breastfeeding needs. So if you weigh 120 pounds, you might want to eat around 140g of protein daily, if you’re trying to build muscle while breastfeeding.
Keep in mind that we aren’t doctors, and that you should also consult a doctor or a professional in person to talk about any diet or nutritional changes. This becomes even more important when it involves prenatal, pregnancy, or post-pregnancy questions.
I hope that helps a bit Emily!
I’m extremelyyy tiny at 98 pounds and 5’6 so I’m sure you can see the obvious problem. I’m long and too skinny. I have some dietary restrictions (pork..etc) and just need some reassurance that this program will definitely work. Was also wondering if each workout plan starts at a beginners level or does it depend on weight….
I’m 5’6 at 120, I look sickly. I have had gastric bypass so the amount I can eat at a time is limited to the size of an egg. I also have I’ll fitting dentures that make it hard to eat a lot of foods.
What do those at “bonytobonbshell” suggest for this woman.?
Thank you
Hey Sandra, I’m a bit confused. Isn’t gastric bypass surgery for people who struggle with eating TOO MUCH? The solution to a small stomach, though, is usually to eat more often. For instance, having a snack between each meal.
As for struggling to chew tons of extra food, you could try drinking more smoothies to get the extra calories in.
I really want to purchase this program but I have a question. I am 5′ and 100 pounds. Reading this and calculating my maintenance calorie intake it would be 1300 which is very low. I currently eat 1800 calories a day, working 5 days full time standing on my feet (I’m a barista) and strength training 3-4 times a week. Even if I added the 300 extra calories a day on top of the 1300 maintenance calories, that would only be 1600. I’m a bit confused because even consuming 1800 calories doesn’t make me gain weight, so eating less than that I assume it would make me lose weight..?
Hey Leila,
These are only estimates to start from. It sounds like your NEAT is really high (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis) from work. Then strength training, etc.
If you are tracking daily and you know for a fact that you’re eating 1800 calories, then that’s currently your maintenance. So you can add 200-300 calories per day to that and get up to 2000–2100 daily.
I hope that helps!
I had a question ! How do macro percent breakdown come into play, while accounting for 1g of protein for each lb of body weight. What’s percent of calories should be dedicated to carbs, fat etc ?
Thanks !
We discuss these sorts of advanced questions in the program. It’s not necessary for a beginner to focus on these to get great results 🙂 We’d love to have you sign up!
I’ve been hearing a lot about BCAAs recently, but I don’t know a lot about what they do. Could you touch on that and why they’ve become so popular?
Thanks!
I’m not sure why they’re super popular. Possibly about the hopes of being more efficient and helping with energy in the gym. It’s still contentious but most evidence seems to be saying there’s no benefit to them.
You will get all the BCAA’s you need from whey if you supplement with it. So you can ignore the fads and stick with the fundamentals that have tons of research behind it.
If you love supplements and just want to experiment, Xtend seems to have the most research behind it. Personally I’d take that money and keep it for whey isolate.
Hi!
I’m 16 years old, with 104 lbs and am 5’4. Im not super skinny or anything, I just want to gain wight and have a more toned body. I’m a vegetarian so its hard for me to eat foods high in calories since i don’t eat meat. It’s also very hard for me to regularly workout and have big meals because of school. Do you have any advise?
[…] you’re especially skinny and really struggling to eat enough to gain weight even after trying the tips in our nutrition article, feel free to make your own weight gainer: 40 grams of protein powder + 50 grams of carbohydrate […]
Hi, how are you? Since I will be building up muscle for a long time, will I have to keep increasing my calorie intake?
That will often happen, yes. Every new pound of muscle will burn an extra 6 calories per day. So if you were to gain 10 pounds of muscle, you’d be looking at an extra 60 calories per day to fuel your new, stronger body.
Now, that’s not the whole picture. As you’re gaining weight, your metabolism will also adapt. This can mean that you start burning extra calories simply because you’re eating a lot of calories. This depends on your genetics, but it’s really common for us naturally skinny people to have very adaptive metabolisms, which means that our calorie demands just keep climbing higher as we continue to bulk up.
You can take a break from bulking though, and you can bring your metabolism back down. So, for example, let’s say that you gain 10 pounds of muscle and you’re eating 300 extra calories per day, but you’d rather only be eating 60 extra calories per day. At that point, you can gradually reduce your calorie intake while continuing to lift weights. Your body will adapt to the new, lower intake and you’ll be good to go 🙂
Any tips if you have absolutely no appetite and no hunger feelings . I’ve tried various herbal products and home remedies but I’m just never hungry.
HELP
Kim
I would get that checked out with your doctor just to rule out any medical conditions, but it’s fairly common for us naturally skinny people to struggle with a lower-than-average appetite.
One thing that can help is lifting weights. I’m not sure if you’re doing that already. When you stimulate your muscles properly, they will want to grow, and so your body will often raise your appetite accordingly. It works in most people.
Another thing you could try is improving your sleep quantity and/or quality if either one is lacking.
Another option is to just eat what you need to eat whether you’re hungry or not. When doing that, you could try eating foods that are easier on your appetite, or even foods that will stimulate a larger appetite later on. For example, starting the day with a fruit/protein smoothie will give you a good chance of having a healthy appetite when lunch time rolls around.
I hope this helps!
What do you recommend for someone 5’8″ and around 144 pounds? Thanks
Also, body fat % is around 26% if that helps.
I’ve enjoyed reading all the articles. Do you guys have a book with all this information and tips?
Hell , lovely bombshell writers and members!
I’ve noticed there “3 hours training per week”, but i do at least 4 hours per weak, considering that i’m performing exercises adviced by you and my own chosen ones. Is it that bad training too much/incrementing sets and weights by 2.5 kg per week?
hello there, if i am on a budget and have to grab some healthy food let’s say from the gas station that is filling and healthy what would you recommend? i am 26 years old and i weigh 100 lbs and have never been over 102lbs my entire life.
hello there, if i am on a budget and have to grab some healthy food let’s say from the gas station that is filling and healthy what would you recommend? i am 26 years old and i weigh 100 lbs and have never been over 102lbs my entire life any tips would be appreciated thank you!
Trail mix, nuts, maybe some milk. Those options are all healthy, nutritious, and high in calories 🙂
But if you mean “filling” in the sense that it leaves you feeling full with FEWER calories, I’d look more for beef jerky, fruits and maybe a protein bar.
Hello,
I’ve been looking over you site and can’t determine if this is the right program for me. I am naturally thin and tall (Ectomorph) but the thought of putting on weight sounds bizarre to me. I think I’m skinny fat…thin but with an extra layer of fat on the body. I’m 5’10” and weigh about 150 pounds.
Hey Lowell, that’s a good question. What are your goals?
Hello, for the part were you talked about the maintenance calories and the calculations is the calculation how many calories we eat per day or per week. This may sound confusing but do we add (weight)x13 to our regular diet though out the week or (weight)x13 per day. For example I weight 96 pounds so would I eat 1248 calories a day or add 1248 calories to my normal diet per week. Also for the second part of my question you said we can tailor the calculation according to our fitness level so if one day of the week I play a soccer game would I add calories for just that day? What if I don’t play a soccer game the next day, should I still be eating the same amount as the day before?
Hi! I am 5’2 and weigh 95-96 pounds. I workout (strength train) almost every day & I am eating about 1900-2000 calories a day. I have not been able to gain any weight. I am someone who fidgets a lot & has a high stress job, which I would think plays a huge role in burning more calories.
I would like to gain about 10 pounds. Will this program work for me? And does it sound like I need to increase my calories?
Hey Amy, yeah, absolutely the program will work for you! Helping so-called “hardgainers” is our specialty. Struggling to gain weight is something almost all of us struggle with. You’ll be right at home 🙂
But, yeah, you’ve already stumbled upon the solution: you’ve got to bump your calorie intake up a little bit. I’d try increasing your intake by around 200 calories per day. Keep weighing yourself every week, keep adjusting as needed.
Now, the solution is simple—more calories—but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. I realize adding another 200 calories into your diet can be really rough 🙁
Hello admin um Jonas, I have girlfriend. I truly really love her for who she is and um ready to make her my wife, she’s just Short and skinny I wanted to know if she can get help besides gym?
Hey Jonas, as a general rule—and this is true for both our mens’ and womens’ program—is that we try to deal with the interested person directly. I remember being skinny and I hated it when people would try and give me advice, pressure me to lift weights, and try to help me to gain weight. They had great intentions and never meant any harm for it, but it really made me feel like shit.
On the other hand, when I was ready to gain weight, I loved getting help from people when I asked them for it.
So, yeah, absolutely we can help your girlfriend gain weight. But if you can, I’d wait until she asks for help.
Or maybe that’s the wrong approach. I don’t know. It’s a tricky, sensitive thing.
Hello, I was bedridden for four years because of an autoimmune disease. My pain is now controlled but I have lost 15 pounds and am now at 85 lbs. I am scared to exercise in fear of losing more weight and have always had a very high metabolism which is making it extremely difficult to gain any more weight. I would love to join the program as I have read wonderful results from other individuals but would appreciate your opinion as to if you think it would benefit me. Thank you for your time.
Hey Peaches, helping underweight people gain weight is our specialty. You’re a perfect fit. We’d absolutely love to help you 🙂
It’s true that exercise burns calories, but it also stimulates muscles growth. Weight training, especially, has the power to help you gain a ton of healthy weight. It will mean eating more calories, yes, but that’s the best way to gain weight in a healthy way 🙂
Hi! I’m 20, currently 5’2, and I weigh 102-105 lbs. (It fluctuates.) It’s actually a healthy weight, but I’ve really made it my mission to look and feel stronger this year. I’m tired of looking like a 12-year old girl!
I’ve recently started lifting with a pair of 6lb dumbbells. I just wanted to know if those 6lb dumbbells are enough to be considered “lifting heavy,” as you guys said here that we have to start lifting heavy first before we start eating big.
If this info helps, I eat a lot (and I’m not super conscious about what I eat) and I have no problem eating more food if necessary! In 2020, I never really cut back on my caloric intake and mostly sat behind my computer all day, but I still maintained my weight.
Thanks! And just wanted you guys to know this blog of yours has been God-sent. Every time I come across an article, I always worry that it’s not applicable to bony, skinny me. Really thinking of joining your program!
Hey Holly, thank you so much! And congrats on getting started lifting weights. That’s awesome 😀
You can do a lot with 6 pounds, but I’d strongly recommend getting heavier dumbbells. We have an article on building a dumbbell home gym here. I’ll be writing one for this site, soon, too. If you can get some adjustable dumbbells that go up to around 50 pounds, you’ll have a much, much easier time building muscle.
If you don’t get heavier dumbbells, though, you can do a bodyweight routine instead. Check this article out. It’s easier to build muscle with weights, but a bodyweight routine will do the trick, too, if you know how to push yourself.
Is it possible to do the bulk while doing bodyweight workouts (such as pushup and squat variations) instead of lifting weights? Or is it 100% mandatory to lift weights like dumbbells/barbells to gain muscle and body mass?
Hey Cleo, that’s a good question.
Lifting weights is the easiest and most efficient way to build muscle. With that said, there are plenty of ways to do resistance training. Bodyweight training is one of the better ones. We have an article on bodyweight hypertrophy training here. It goes over how to design a bodyweight workout routine for bulking 🙂
I’m 5’2 and 95lbs and have been on this weight for my almost entire grownup life (I’m 34). I think being too skinny brings me a low immune system, lack of energy and look weak. I don’t want that anymore or at least I need to seriously try once in my life.
I’m currently not in North America. Can I join the program remotely and with 12 hours different time zone vs EST? Also, can you explain more to me how the program works? Will I just get a book and follow the book, or will I have a personal trainer or someone will nudge me everyday to follow the schedule? Pls email me with the answer. Thank you. I really hope you guys can help me achieve my goal.
Nice article! Keep up the good work and keep writing.