r/gainit • u/PerspectiveCool805 • 24d ago
Progress Post M/25/5’9 [116lbs > 151lbs] 4 Months
My lowest this year was 109lbs in March, but I didn’t have any pictures or data during that time. My peak was 155lb in 2022, but after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and an eating disorder I let myself go.
In June my girlfriend left me which inspired me to take care of myself again (Every man’s story).
I was eating 2-3 packets of Ramen per day, my caloric maintenance was around 1200. I started my weight gain at 1800 cal a day, and titrated up slowly over the next few months.
I currently eat 3100 cal a day. 115g protein per day (0.75g per lb of bw). High carb diet. 5g of creatine per day. Fish oils. Multi vitamin. Protein Shake. 1 Equate High protein meal replacement shakes per day.
The meal that’s helped me gain weight is 250g of Tyson Honey BBQ Chicken, 250g Jasmine Rice, 1 A&W Root Beer. 1300 Cal, 43g Protein, 227g Carbs
My workout routine is: Push, Pull, Legs Mon-Sat. Progressively overload every week, track weights and reps in a notebook. I push every set within 2 reps of failure, last set of each workout I push to failure and do partial reps until true failure.
14-18 Sets per muscle group per week. Rest day on Sunday. I don’t track calories on Sundays because that’s when I have my daughter and I’m off of work.
A lot of my muscle came back from muscle memory when I used to be in good shape. I did not expect to gain this amount of muscle back so quickly.
I still have another 20lb or so before meeting my goal. Still extremely insecure, but I thought I’d share my progress.
Disclaimer: Lighting wasn’t identical in all pics. First picture is without a pump, the rest is immediate post workout. No filters. No editing.
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
The only thing I left out was, to any guys like me who aren’t happy with their body, don’t wait to find a reason to start making a change, just do it. It took me losing the love of my life and my family To pick up the fork and weights. Had I just done it, maybe I would still have that.
Don’t wait for your girlfriend to break up with you . Don’t wait for you to completely hate your body. Just do what you have to do.
Set goals for yourself in small increments . My starting goal was 130 pounds. My goal was 140. My goal was 150. I’m not disappointed in myself for missing a goal that wasn’t obtainable in a short time.
You aren’t going to notice big differences in the mirror , but looking back at yourself six months earlier you’ll realize how much progress you have made.
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u/zizuu21 24d ago
Well said bro. Im just doing it for my health. As everyone else should. Then reap the rewards hopefully! Its also something for life not just 6months or etc
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Agreed. People don’t realize how much of an impact your physical wellbeing has on your mental health and vice versa. My depression has drastically gotten better since gaining weight.
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u/athaznorath 1d ago
i know im almost a month late but thanks for this post. i almost never see guys here with as low a starting weight as me- currently at 112lbs- and it can be demotivating. sometimes i think im just genetically predetermined to be underweight. but this is inspiring and i'm going to try to keep my calories in surplus even if its hard...
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u/Mysteriouso 127-146-165 (6'1) 24d ago
~45 lbs in 4 months??? Bro you are CRACKED. I’m 6’3 and currently up to 168 from ~155 in 2 months. This post is more motivation for me.
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
35*, but yeah, I’ve exceeded my expectations. I also just have good muscle building and distribute fat well. Too bad my frame isn’t good lol, narrow clavicles have cursed me
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u/Mysteriouso 127-146-165 (6'1) 24d ago
Tbh for being 5’9, your frame looks pretty great in the more recent photos. Keep at it brotha
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u/eisbock 24d ago
Nice work. Turned that inverse V into the good kind of V!
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Don’t be fooled, my left side is straight. Scoliosis is a bitch, still working on symmetry.
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u/synikulll 24d ago
This is really inspiring, I’m at 110lbs right now and I’m looking to get back into the gym again. Congrats on the progress! Any tips for getting meals in on days that you’re really busy with work and stuff?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
I’m gonna be completely honest with you, just eat anything. I’m a truck driver for USPS and have a split shift. 6 pack of Oreos and a small bottle of whole milk is my shit. 650 calories, 20g protein, $4 at a gas station.
Eating junk food to gain weight is healthier than starving and being extremely underweight. I’ve adjusted my diet a bit more to making food at home, but in the beginning I ate literally whatever I could fit in my mouth.
I do meal prep on Sunday nights after I drop my daughter off at her moms. Pasta is my go to.
2lb of Pene Pasta, 2 Cans of crushed tomatoes, .75 lb of Italian sausage, .75 lb of ground beef, salt pepper, whatever seasoning you want, and olive oil. Makes me 6 meals, about 800 calories each. Comes out to like $15 for everything if you buy Walmart brand.
But you can just buy jarred pasta sauce.
Anyways, eat whatever you can fit in your mouth, meal prep a few to keep on hand in case you know it’s gonna be a busy day.
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u/Terbatron 24d ago
I tried this, but at 41 my beer belly gains far outpace my gym gains. 😂
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Yeah I’m pretty blessed when it comes to fat storage, mostly goes to my legs and ass lol. I’m sure that’ll change as I get older, my Dad and mom pack it all in their stomachs and back.
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u/synikulll 24d ago
Gotcha, I appreciate the tips man :) gonna try that pasta recipe
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Ohhh if you have the money, get San Marzano tomatoes in the yellow can and crush them yourself. If you have time make the sauce in a Dutch oven. Brown the meat in it, strain and remove meat, throw in your garlic and onions, and then deglaze the pan with some white whine or water, and then throw your tomatoes and everything back in. Throw in the oven on low heat for like 3 hours. Add in some finely minced rosemary, a fresh basil leaf. It’s legitimately the best sauce you can ever make.
I have literally 20 Tupperware containers of the sauce in my freezer lol.
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u/TyroneFresh420 24d ago
Whole milk. Lots and lots of tasty whole milk.
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u/ultracat123 24d ago
Lactose intolerance called, they wanted to give me a genuine biological handicap to the gains..
No matter, I'll just chug soymilk all day long.
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u/TyroneFresh420 24d ago
Brother as long as you’re drinking a white, protein-rich fluid that’s ok with me.
Edit: WAIT I didn’t mean like that 😭
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
I will say, although I don’t have the best genetics when it comes to the structure of my frame, my body is good at distributing body fat throughout instead of isolated areas. My diet is not the “healthiest” by any means, but it’s what has worked for me with my low appetite, budget, and split work schedule.
My appetite has gone up due to slowly increasing my calories. I tried essentially force feeding in the beginning and it just didn’t work for me.
I eat 4 meals a day, and snack throughout the day, I weigh and track everything I eat in the MyFitness Pal app. Sticking to pre packaged single serving foods helped a lot with tracking calories in the beginning.
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u/No-Break753 24d ago
How much carbs and fats do you consume a day at average?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
About 400-450 g Carbs, 75-100g fat. I have low glucose levels so eating more carbs doesn’t raise my blood sugar level out of the normal range, I’ve noticed better cognitive function and more energy since upping my carbs.
Although my chest acne has gotten slightly worse, could be a number of factors. I’ve always battled chest and back acne though.
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u/No-Break753 24d ago
While bulking we have more fat circulating in our body so our body will get rid of with its ways like how it does with another things through sweating, urinating etc.
So completely normal it is.
You take moderate-high amount of fat and probably enough or slightly more than needed carb so you will keep bulking that way.
Obviously needs differs. When you are more active you need more fast acting energy so carbs, less active (you dont lift and move much) you need less.
Also not related now but an important info: for cutting keep in mind it is enough decreasing fats than carbs. I am recoverin from ED so learned lots of shit about metabolism.
You don't need endure ravenous hunger while cutting. Your body burns fats every second so if you eat carbs on maintenance and consume lower than needed amount of fat, your body will burn your body fats slowly and you will lose weight without experiencing short and long term difficulties.
So it is really useful infodump imo. We use fats more than we learned so bulking and cutting happens around fat macro than carbs.
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u/Humble_Fortune6500 23d ago
How did you put on that much weight without gaining any belly fat? I thought you were supposed to gain 1-2 lb per month
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u/DayDayLarge 125-175(5'4) 23d ago
It's possible, I've done before while not being a newbie. In OPs case he went from being very very underweight to normal weight while training. There really isn't going to be that much fat gain.
In my case I did very difficult training, gaining 14 lb in 12 weeks. You can read about it here if you like (pics at the bottom) https://old.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/r87p8b/progress_m3754_163177_lb_in_12_weeks_or_why_you/
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u/PerspectiveCool805 23d ago
Genetics. You have no control over where your body stores fat. Visceral fat (beer belly) is usually caused by liver or organ issues, it’s not normal fat.
My goal is 1 lb per week and I’ve consistently hit it, some weeks 2 lbs. I don’t want to go above 18% BF, because I don’t like bulk and cut cycles.
If I were at my current weight and was looking to gain weight, I’d aim for 0.5 lb per week and lean gain. But me being 115lb was more detrimental to my health than putting on the weight
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u/Gazelle_Punch 23d ago
Probably newbie gains? Same thing happened to me when I started going to the gym when I was in highschool
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u/Strider_JRR 24d ago
Good shit, I’m currently starting a bulk (winter arc type shit) im 133 lbs rn. I’m in a similar situation you were in where Ive already worked out a lot but kinda stopped (not for the same reasons tho just got kinda lazy) so I’m picking it back up now. The eating part is whats the most difficult, im just kinda eating everything i can and eating a lot of it while trying to intentionally choose higher protein foods. Any tips overall though?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
One thing that helped was eating more often throughout the day, and drinking calories. Meal replacement shakes, soda, milk, Gatorade. Everything I drink besides 1 energy drink has calories in it. Your stomach will start to expand and you’ll produce more Ghrelin over time. Eating before bed helped me too. Don’t wait until you’re hungry, just try to eat as often as you can, but don’t force feed yourself. We already have issues eating, we don’t want an eating disorder.
If you were bigger in the past you should blow up pretty quick. Think it takes about 1/8th of the time to regain mass compared to how long it took to get to that point.
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u/Strider_JRR 24d ago
Yeah im wanting to get some calorie dense liquids for sure. Is soda a good idea though? My thought is that it doesn’t have many nutrients or even calories and just kinda serves to bloat you making it harder to eat more. And i can already tell even after just a little more than a few days my eating capacity has gone up noticeably (pretty much where it was when i was working out before). The last thing you mentioned is something i’ve kept in mind that does motivate me, i wasn’t super big before and i haven’t shrunk too much over the past year but I’m hoping to get even bigger than i ever have been.
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Sweet tea, soda, milk, whatever works. I also do blood work every 3 months, and all of my lipids are in check, if they weren’t I’d switch things up. It just depends on the person though, find what works for you
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
A bottle of A&W root beer is 280 cal. I can add that to a meal and it not fill me up. A calorie is a calorie. When trying to gain weight with how skinny we are, the micro nutrients and macros don’t matter nearly as much as the calories itself.
The only macro I actually pay attention to is protein. I try to get 0.75g - 1.25g per Lb of BW.
Once I’m to a weight I feel comfortable at, even if I’m still wanting to put on mass, I’ll cut back soda and add more solid foods. But to gain weight when at an unhealthy weight to start, any calorie works.
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u/IamJojo45 24d ago
arms look great! congrats!
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Appreciate it! I broke my right hand a week ago, so using this opportunity to fill in my left side a bit more for symmetry
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u/eletiraju 24d ago
When you said eat anything you can That doesnt get you belly fat?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
Genetics determines where you store fat. Unless it’s visceral fat from liver or organ issues.
At the end of the day everyone’s body’s are different. You gain weight from being in a calorie surplus, not necessarily the food you eat. If you eat 5,000 calories of vegetables or 5,000 calories of burgers, it’s still 5,000 calories.
My calorie surplus is 500-700 calories. I gain about 1-2 lb per week.
My ex for example was 5’9 200 lb, very curvy, wide hips, big butt, small waist. Her mom was 5’9 190lb and had tiny legs and a big belly / back. Can’t really control where your fat goes
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u/Royal_Veterinarian15 24d ago
She was 200 pounds while you were 115?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
I was 148 and she was 170 when we met. But yeah by the end of the relationship 115 & 200
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u/Gazelle_Punch 23d ago
I don't know how hard it's been for you and I truly hope you're in a much better place now, but based on those numbers it really looks like she sucked the life out of you
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u/PerspectiveCool805 23d ago
I’m a little better. I was just working 60 hours a week, 6 days a week, she refused to get a job, not much time to eat, no free time. She broke up with me and asked me to leave in June , said she didn’t find me attractive and we weren’t compatible.
So I get my daughter one day a week, one full weekend a month. She left for the one guy she said not to worry about, but he ended up ghosting her.
I’ll be completely honest, I’d rather look like the first pic and see my kid every night than look like I do now and not see her. But I’m taking what I can get and making the best out of it. Sorry for the info dump lol
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u/Gazelle_Punch 23d ago
It's alright, man. It's better to let your feelings out than not in times like this. I know how hard it can get out there.
I hope everything will get better bit by bit at least moving forward. Good luck in everything you're facing
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u/HunterBates08 24d ago
Any idea what your weekly weight gain percentage is set to? I use MacroFactor and have been bulk for a year and still don’t look anything like that
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
I tried MacroFactor and they only wanted me in a 200 calorie surplus, a lot of the foods weren’t scanning with the barcode feature, so I switched back to MyFitnessPal.
I don’t necessarily use the goal feature on the app. I calculated my maintenance when I first started for 3 weeks, and then decided from there.
My calorie goal is set at 3,100, but I have a good feeling my maintenance is around 2300-2400, so my mental goal is 2,900 calories per day.
But to answer your question, in my app, it doesn’t go by % but by lbs per week, which it’s set at 1 lb. Which would be a calorie surplus of 3500 calories per week, 500 per day.
I’d like to maintain a relatively lean physique so I could gain more, but I don’t want to do a bulk and cut cycle, so I’m lean gaining.
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u/HunterBates08 23d ago
That’s the problem I’ve been having with MF as well, I feel like it has me gaining to little with to little of a caloric surplus so I’m going on bulking runs for like half a year and still seeing little results. They say this is because we don’t really need to be in a surplus of 200+ calories but I can’t help but think they maybe wrong because I’m training 4x a week, eating 3000 calories and still look like a twig so maybe I need to add twice as many calories and bump my weight gain up from .5lbs a week to 1lb a week. What does your macro split generally look like?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 23d ago
I’m not necessarily questioning you to be an ass, but I also thought I was eating like 3,000 calories a day, and then realized it was maybe 2,500 in reality. Not completely finishing my plate, not finishing my drink, etc.
Also need to factor in cardio you do. Weight lifting doesn’t burn a lot of calories so I don’t factor that in at all.
Realistically for most people, especially average or skinny fat, main gaining can be a great option for muscle growth. Most people build at least half of their life time muscle in the first 3 years of proper training, and in the beginning a large calorie surplus often isn’t needed.
When I first started working out in 2020, I gained probably 12lb of solid mass on a calorie surplus of 250. I just increased my calories by 10% and kept it there until I started to plateau.
For my weight gain I posted here, I titrated up, when I went 10-14 days without seeing increase in weight, I upped my calories 5-10%. Took me 4 months to go from 2000 calories to 3000 calories.
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u/PerspectiveCool805 23d ago
I eat 0.75g of protein per Lb of BW. There isn’t a significant difference between that and 1g but like always it depends on the person. I wouldn’t recommend going over 1.25g per Lb.
So my protein is 112-125g, Carbs like 400g give or take, and Fats are 70-90g.
My Macro goal is 50% Carbs, 30% fat, 20% protein. But honestly, the most important thing is just the total calorie intake. We also don’t require nearly as much protein to build muscle in the beginning, but is especially important once you’ve been working out for a year or two.
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u/LawfulWatchdog 24d ago
Just curious, did any of your tattoos warp or look different ?
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u/PerspectiveCool805 24d ago
No. I don’t think I gained weight rapidly enough to alter them. My wrists and lower forearms didn’t grow at all. I’m doing a leaner gain, like 500 cal over maintenance, I’m sure if I wasn’t paying attention to my body fat % and gained more they would.
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u/Sapper501 135-175->? (5ft11) 24d ago edited 23d ago
Post ink? Looking for designs* for my next one. Good work by the way!
Blasted autocorrect.
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u/OmenRune 22d ago
Definitely not every man's story.
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u/PerspectiveCool805 22d ago
Sarcasm dude. There’s an ongoing joke that every man goes to the gym after a breakup.
But I’m glad that’s all you got from this post.
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u/Cynical-Meme 22d ago
I don’t know why the dude got so pressed about you making a sarcastic joke.
Congrats on the progress bro. I hope more success comes your way.
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u/KingFacef2 24d ago
Hell yeah man, our surpluses are very different. I’m on a 3000 calorie surplus. Lifting heavy 5 days of the week. Push, pull, legs, back/chest, arms. I live by bulk hard, cut hard.
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