Looking to gain 20-30 pounds, reasonably quickly

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entity999

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Hey everyone,
I'm a newbie here and this is my first post, so forgive me if this has been posted before. I'm a 20 year old male, 6' tall, and about 125-135 lbs depending on the day I weigh myself. As you can likely surmise from that, I'm pretty damn skinny. My weight is odd in that it fluctuates wildly within that range (I have moved from 125 to 135 or 135 to 125 in a matter of 2-3 days in some instances), a phenomenon I attribute to my ridiculously fast metabolism, but never seems to move beyond that range-there've been times, like during finals, when I don't have time to eat that my weight just sits at 125, and times when I eat 3 huge meals every day and work out every day without breaking 137 or 138. So my questions is this-What is the easiest and/or fastest diet and workout regimen I can use to gain 20-30 pounds(of muscle, ideally)? My ideal weight would be about 150-170 (I have a fairly wide frame, so could probably go up to 200 without looking chubby, not that I plan to). I'm a lifetime meat-eater, but I'm not adverse to vegetables either, so any food suggestions are cool for the diet aspect. As for the regimen, I'm currently working in one of my prof's labs, who is very, VERY cool about letting us come in whenever we can, so my schedule's flexible enough to accomodate a regimen of pretty much any frequency/duration. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!
 
Basically, it comes down to a few things. You need to eat a surplus of calories for your body to build muscle. Since you are so light, 2500-2800 calories is a surplus for you. Make it good lean proteins, plenty of good complex carbs, fiberous veggies, and healthy fats. Second, you have to have a solid lifting routine with compounds (deadlifts, squats, bench, dips, pullups, rows) as the backbone of the workouts. This is, of course, what will stimulate your body to grow.

Now, understand one thing. Even under ideal conditions, I think gaining about a pound of muscle a month is considered pretty good. So this could take you well over a year to get where you want to be.
 
Yeah, you need to re-allign your perception here. As a begginer, you stand to gain a lot of muscle quickly, but 20-30 pounds is a tremendous amount of muscle.

Picture this, 20-30 pounds of steak laid out on a table in front of you. That's what you want to add to your body. Doesn't seem like thats going to happen in short order, does it? First things first, get your protein, calories, and meal frequency up. What does your diet look like now?
 
MarkMyWords said:
Basically, it comes down to a few things. You need to eat a surplus of calories for your body to build muscle. Since you are so light, 2500-2800 calories is a surplus for you. Make it good lean proteins, plenty of good complex carbs, fiberous veggies, and healthy fats.
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Any specific examples of foods with these properties? Since weight gain has never been a problem for me, I've never really watched what I eat and know roughly jack squat when it comes to nutrition.

And both of you make good points about the time needed for this...*alters timeframe outlook*
 
As slim as you are you may be able to gain 30 pounds of lean body mass in 3-6 months with the right diet and exercise program. Remember lean body mass is not just muscle, it is also bone, connective tissue, water, organs, etc...

You might want to try a 20 rep squat program. You can find detailed descriptions if you search this site or the web, but to simplify you just do this 3 times a week: 1 set of 20 reps squat, followed by 2-3 sets of 10-12 reps of a pushing exercise and a pulling exercise (overhead presses and chinups for example). Start your squats with a weight that is fairly easy, and squat as deep as you can. Every exercise session add 5 pounds to the squat weight and keep forcing yuorself to do 20 reps. As the weight becomes more challanging you may need to stop and take 1 or 2 or even 3 deep breaths between each rep after the first 10 reps or so. You should be near puking and passing out by the end of the set. Rest 3-5 minutes and then do the pushing and pulling exercises, with about a 60-90 second rest between sets.

Your diet should be lots of unprocessed foods: milk, eggs, meat, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, brown rice, etc. Eat 6 or more meals a day, and drink as much water in between as possible. I have known many skinny bastards who have gained 30-90 pounds of mostly lean body mass in this simple routine over 6 months to 3 years, myself included.
 
i found when i started to bulk putting weight on was easy at first. I gained about 20 pounds in a matter of months. It gets harder later on though.
 
Jake 85 said:
i found when i started to bulk putting weight on was easy at first. I gained about 20 pounds in a matter of months. It gets harder later on though.
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At least the gains are more efficient later in the bulk because protein synthesis will increase overtime.
 
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