Skinny to Strong

In the past and still I have been called many names. Every time I step into the gym I just have to get used to the fact that I will be called names because of my stick figure and the amount of weight I lift. Chicken legs and pencil neck were rarely used on me. No. When I lift weights I am what they call as lifting like a girl. Or lifting the ladies weight. And that trend still continues. Well if I weigh 120 lb it is not very easy to benchpress with a plate (45 lb) on either side now is it. Due to my small frame the 7 foot olympic bar causes stability issues. Only so much of my muscle is there touching the bench to stabilize the bar. And a weak rotator cuff does not help me at all. The best advice these strong gym guys can give is "you are not trying hard enough" or "you are not lifting heavy weights, using light weights will take you no where". These so called advices don't help me. Guys remember I am skinny. I am not bulky like you with your broad shoulders...

Another interesting article http://www.biologiclabs.com/advice/details.asp?article_id=42 I have a weight set point dominant genetics and it does not help me at all in gaining weight. No matter what I eat it just becomes nothing. My body just does not care about what I eat. It just wants to be at the same weight no matter what I do. The curse of a skinny guy. Is there no solution? Food: The author says that skinny guys should just eat and eat like there is no tomorrow until they break the caloric buffer threshold. Beyond which point muscle and weight gain come "thick and fast". Unfortunately he does not exactly say what the caloric buffer threshold is. He says gaining 10 kgs at a time should help the body keep its new weight while loosing fat. Basically I just have to eat a lot of carbs and proteins and any fat that comes with it. It seems I can eat bad food too after I fill my stomach first with good ones. Intriguing. Eating frequency: The author says that I should be...

With my last post I have completed recollecting my past bulking and leaning phases. Now to the present. After my first round of bulking and leaning I understood my body more. I still am not sure what is the best formula for leaning. However I think I have a better understanding of how to bulk up. Since it has been over 4 months of leaning I decided to switch to bulking phase now. Starting this week I am increasing my calorie intake and see if I can lift more weights. Here is what I found out about me when bulking: I should not be overeating suddenly but instead increase my calorie intake slowly and let me body see the change in calories. I should be eating more carbs than either fats or proteins. In fact I decided on 60% carbs, 20% protein and 20% fat ratios. Without all the carbs my body hates me. I have headaches and feel very tired. I should reduce the number of exercises, sets and reps. Instead I should concentrate on lifting heavy with low number of reps. Since my body recovers...

I guess I should be giving the customary before and after photos. So here we go. The left photo is before I started strong lifts and the right one is after. As I mentioned in my previous blogs, I do not maintain photos as I should be. Perhaps I never will. We will see. However I do have several photos from my various visits to friends / parties / outings / hiking trips. So I should be able to find something for almost anything :). Don't know if anyone can notice, but I have gained a few pounds in the right image. The right photo is not from my peak weight of 127 lb (think I was 125 lb at the time), but I have slightly bigger arms, shoulders, chest and belly. Here is one more. This is the photo that is taken when I was at my peak body weight. But since my hands are not visible I did not use it for the before after comparison. I look bigger than the previous 2 photos. But at 17% fat I am not sure if the size increase is a result of muscle or fat. Whatever the case may be,...

During my strong lifts phase I decided to up my calories by at least 500 calories. But how much am I eating now? To get that number I opened an account in dailyburn and started entering what I usually eat. It came out to be something like 1350 to 1500. Then I made a conscious effort to eat 1750 to 2000 calories. Also decided to eat every 3 hours for a total of 6 meals. So I have to eat about 300 calories per meal. Simple enough. I then increased the amount of food that I ate and logged everything in dailyburn. I was not easily able to eat that much food every 3 hours. I felt very full all the time. Then after reading about another skinny guy in strong lifts I decided to go with a lot of milk instead of solid food. I felt slightly better but still felt like I was over eating. During this time I tried to eat clean, but cheated several times. I weighted about 120 lb with about 12.5% body fat when I started. My goal was to gain 10 lbs while not going beyond 17% body fat. I tracked my bo...

As I said in my previous blog, I started to think about getting fit and strong about an year ago. Over the coming few weeks I will post what I have been doing the past year and soon I will catch up to what I am doing now. First I will start with a photo as usual. I looked like this around august of 2008.   I was looking skinny. So, I wanted to get fit. Alright. But I did not know where to start. I decided to do my own stuff (without even thinking to consult any websites), and brought myself a couple of dumbells of 15lb. Seriously that is how much I could lift in those days. I used to do dumbells everyday morning. I did not know about sets or reps at that time. I just did as much as I could. That is all I did. I did not do any other exercises. Can you believe it? Can I ever build muscle doing just bicep curls? Anyway that continued for a while. But nothing improved much. I was not any stronger but my biceps were slightly better. I have always eatten junk food all the time an...

I am a skinny dude. Have always been skinny. And it never occurred to me that I have to put on some muscle until August 2008 (yes last year) when I saw photos of this guy. He not only looks ripped but the veins popping out everywhere looks awesome. And yet he is not huge. Just sharp. Now my wish is to be like this guy. However I have not taken bodybuilding seriously until today. From this day forward I will make sure I write my everyday experience. What I eat, how much I workout and such. I am 5' 5" and weigh about 118lb (53 kgs). This is how I look today So what does it take to become that guy over there? Lets find out.