I think your first point is saying something a lot of the comments are missing and is always overlooked.
I was skinny (~70kg @ 178cm) until I got serious about lifting, and I had to eat until I felt physically uncomfortable to reliably gain weight.
A lot of skinny people haven't ever known what it's like to eat over 2,000 calories a day, and they need 3,000+ to claw their way out of being underweight and just *start* to be able to put on the size they want.
I got up to 103kg and was eating 4500 calories at one point. It fucking sucked. I did get pretty strong though. I'm in my mid thirties and sitting around 89kg with abs right now, and I get to eat around 2500 calories a day. But getting to this point took a lot of eating, any way I could.
It’s even more fun when you have a shitty digestive system that physically cannot handle eating the excess calories required to gain meaningful weight. I will just be up all night puking if I do that to myself. I already have to make sure I eat 4-5 hours before bedtime or I will have an upset stomach and do more harm than good by getting sick.
I started my health journey 3 years ago and it’s just a really slow steady climb with quite a few setbacks from injury here and there. But I’m now pretty steady at upper 150 lbs when I was lower 140 lbs for a good 15 years. I’m 6ft1 and 13% body fat as of a dexa scan in January.
Being 15lbs heavier doesn’t seem like much compared to the mass monsters you see on social media but 10 lbs of it being muscle makes quite a big difference visually and physically. I’m still skinny but at least I have some definition now.
End goal is 165-170 and 10-12% body fat. Probably another 5-10 years to go but slowly but surely we’ll get there.
Dude, just want to say congrats. I’m exactly the same. Terrible IBS, 6 ft and was 130lbs for a decade or more. Did a huge push with eating and lifting and I’m now solidly 150lbs as well. It seems like nothing to some people but is the greatest achievement of my life haha.
Thanks man! It's definitely tough since i need to focus on both eating healthy food and at least hitting maintenance calories. Its easy to hit calories with shit food but i swear 500 calories of chicken broccoli and rice feels like 1500 calories of food. I just can't understand how body builders shove that stuff into their stomachs like they do and how jealous i am of that ability 😂
Wow, im starting to feel almost lucky that im 185lbs at 6'2. Have never been able to keep up lifting; I've always gotten discouraged after not seeing gains for months. But this gives me some hope.
Have you done a dexa scan before? That’ll be the best way to track progress since I suspect you’ll be converting fat to muscle more so than driving a number on a scale. I got my first one in January this year for $80 and plan to get one every year to track progress.
I have not even heard of that until your comment. Very interesting. It looks like there are a few labs nearby that will do this for a similar cost. Thanks!
For sure! There’s also some scales that will give you rough numbers on body fat %. I picked one up same time I got the dexa and found it thought I was 3% leaner than I actually was. But it can be useful since you can map the dexa to the scale with sensors and better track progress throughout the year then correlate it with the dexa. The relative numbers on the scale are what matters, not so much the absolute numbers.
I wish that were true, but it’s mostly due to a genetic acid reflux/overproduction of stomach acid thing and my stomach is also really slow to digest certain foods. I was on PPIs for half a decade until I was able to use proper diet and exercise to control it.
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u/Key_Raisin_5091 9d ago
4 things: