6ft, 27m
June 28th- 158lbs
July 22- 166lb

Diet- Clean proteins, whey, fruit smoothies. Breakfast within one hour of waking up and meals every two to three hours. (Using myfitnesspal to track)

Lift Routine- Monday (push), Tuesday (pull), Thursday (legs), Friday (push and pull). Compound workouts with progressive overload. Adding weight each week.

It has been nearly one month, and absolutely loving it. The only supplement I use right now is whey protein. I’ll be adding creatine to that mix here soon. I’ve never consistently worked out like this in my life, though I have been fortunate enough to build a decent frame through surfing for the past 8 years. I recently moved away from the ocean, and needed an outlet.. so here I am! Can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds!

Started my journey almost a year to the day.

My split is PPL, 5-6 times a week. I occasionally take protein and creatine, and my calories range from 2-3k a day, but I have plenty of off days as far as diet goes.

I never thought progress would look like this, super happy so far. Stop worrying about what is optimal and just get in the gym, you will see growth.

I shared an earlier progress post 8 months ago and was super psyched to see messages from other people getting into the gym, please lmk if you guys have any tips or questions!

I’m 6’1”, around 165 lbs 26M ~11-13% BF and I’ve been lifting consistently for years My goal is simple: I want to look bigger, fill out my shirts more, and build more muscle. Growing up was always on the chubbier side.

The problem isn’t that I don’t know \*how\* to bulk. I know I need to eat more and stay in a calorie surplus. It’s the mental side that gets me.

Every time the scale starts going up, even by a few pounds, I start feeling like I’m getting fat instead of making progress. I end up cutting calories back,
maintaining for a while, and repeating the same cycle.

Logically, I know 6’1” at 165 lbs is pretty lean, and I probably have plenty of room to grow before I ever need to cut. But seeing the number on the scale increase just messes with my head.

For those of you who successfully went from skinny to noticeably muscular, how did you get over that mental hurdle? Did you focus more on strength, set a goal weight, or just push through it?

Im 6ft6in and weigh 76.6Kg I am trying to gain weight my maintenance calories is around 3000 but now I need to actually gain weight I have a physical job and workout on my off days about 3 times a week with weightlifting and cardio.

Im struggling to think of ideas on how to hit my calorie goals without eating a bunch of junk food. I dont mind eating an occasional 'unhealthy snack' but would prefer to eat it a bit cleaner. I like to cook and do have the time to meal prep but just dont know what to prep that will give me the right mix of protein, carbs and fat.

Was hoping to get some ideas of meal plans and snacks to make this achievable. My final weight goal is 90Kg I know this is a long time goal any help would be appreciated.

What can I do for my lower abs and to try and loose or reduce the lower ab "podge" that ive got? I do abs 3 times a week with lower being hit on two of them days with reverse crunches and hanging leg raises and my abs are like 4 and 2 halves rather than a 6 pack 😂

What have been your victories this week? Have you made good progress? Set a new lift PR? Enacted a new habit that is helping you greatly? Post it here!

M31, 63-83kg, 177cm, 14 months

Diet: Chicken & rice, pasta dishes, veggies, oats, fruit, nut & muesli bars. And also the occasional chicken parmi & pint at the pub.

I've been going to the gym on and off since I was about 16. Originally started going to strengthen my body after being diagnosed with Scoliosis in my early teens (mild case). My spine makes one side of my rib cage, and therefore my pec, larger. As well as making my stomach protrude slightly (as seen in last photo) along with a slightly rounded upper back and a slightly sunken chest overall, along with a few other minor things. However I never truly committed to the gym life.

After turning 30, I decided to start giving it a proper crack. Eating better, eating MUCH more, going to the gym 6 times a week most weeks.

I've never had a set gym routine, but my usual week would be something as follows:

Chest & triceps

Leg day 1 - glutes, hamstrings, calves

Upper back & biceps

Shoulders & traps

Leg day 2 - quads, glutes , calves

Core & lower back

Greetings Gainers,

INTRO

• As someone born in the mid 80s, the 90s were instrumental to my upbringing, which meant being exposed to such Disney Classics as "Beauty and the Beast", featuring the greatest physical specimen in all of Disney's history: Gaston.
• Gaston is there to represented "external beauty/internal ugliness", and he does a fantastic job of doing exactly that by being ridiculously jacked.
• In the movie, he informs us (through song) that when he was a lad he ate 4 dozen eggs, every morning, to help him get large. Now that he's grown he eats 5 dozen eggs, so he's roughly the size of the barge.

WHAT WAS HE TELLING US?

• He mentions no other meals. To grow quite large, he'd eat one meal a day, in the morning. He was engaging in intermittent fasting.
• His meal was only eggs: primarily fat and protein (almost a 1:1 ratio by gram, with a 66/33 breakdown by calorie), making it most likely ketogenic.
• By combining the two, he created a very small insulin spike with his 1 daily meal, as there were minimal carbohydrates present, which meant minimal blood sugar spike/crash, which is most likely the reason he only needed 1 meal a day: he stayed quite satiated (although he appeared to enjoy his beer).
• The 4 dozen eggs was the bulking diet, while 5 dozen is the maintenance diet: eat 4 dozen eggs until you're so large you need 5 dozen to maintain.

WHAT DOES THE BULKING DIET LOOK LIKE?

• Taking average nutrition for eggs, we're looking at each egg being 70 calories: 5g of fat (about 1.5g of saturated, .7g poly and 2g mono), 6g of protein and .5g of carbs.
• Each egg also has a TON of nutrients (reference the attached photo)
• For the bulking diet, this means 3360 calories, 240g of fat, 288g of protein (so yes: you're getting enough protein) and 24g of carbs. That's going to be MORE than enough fuel for most gainers.
  

BUT AT WHAT COST?

• Well, if you're in the United States and have access to a Walmart, you can often get 5 dozen eggs for $7.13 (screenshot attached).
• Rounding that up to $7.20, this will put you at just about $5.75 per day. Less than $180 a month to bulk like Gaston (caution: no one bulks like Gaston).
• For those of outside of the US, I apologize: I do not know your egg prices.
  

HOW AM I GOING TO COOK ALL THESE EGGS?

• Here is 100 ways to cook eggs. You're sure to find something you like.

CONCLUSION

• Remember that scene in the movie when Gaston drank all that olive oil to get jacked? Me neither. Success leaves clues, and for less than the cost of a McDonald's value meal you can eat like the REAL main character of Beauty and the Beast.

I was told this might be appreciated here. Took me a couple of tries to write a comprehensive post about my own long term delulu about fitness and finally overcoming it.

After 10 years of lifting, I finally accepted reality… and got rewarded with progress. Which I did not expect at all tbh. For over a decade I was still being delulu and trying to find shortcuts. Can I somehow build muscle without actually eating more or hitting protein? Can I just keep cycling through deficits? Is there a magical glute exercise I’m missing? Turns out… no. Like I said, the delusion was strong.

I got to the point of being really frustrated about “putting the work in” and not seeing the physique I wanted. So I had to do some real accountability and reflect on my lifestyle.

I went from eating around 1,600-1,700 calories while doing cardio multiple times a week to eating roughly 2,100-2,500 calories and replacing most of that cardio with steady-state incline walking. I also stopped trying to force generic programs onto my body. I’m quad dominant. My shoulders are super responders and grow well. My glutes though have always existed but like meh. I did not “feel” them. So I finally built a program around my body instead of generic “dr Bubblebutt recommends”.

- Monday – Heavy Lower
Smith machine hip thrusts – 3 × 8–12
Bulgarian split squats – 3 × 8–10/leg
Squats - 3 x 6-8
Leg press – 3 × 8–10
Cable kickbacks – 3 × 8–12/leg
Hip abduction machine – 3 × 12–15

- Tuesday – Upper Body
Arnold press – 3 × 8–10
Lateral raises – 3 × 10–12
Upright rows – 3 × 8–10
Dumbbell curls – 3 × 6–8
Cable curls – 3 × 8–10
Overhead triceps extensions – 3 × 8–10
Cable triceps pushdowns – 3 × 10–12

- Wednesday – Conditioning & Core
Incline treadmill walk – 45 minutes
Cable crunches – 3 × 12–15
Hanging/captain’s chair leg raises – 3 × 10–15
Planks – 3 × 30–60 sec
Mobility/stretching – 10–15 minutes

- Thursday – Glute Hypertrophy
Smith machine hip thrusts – 3 × 10–12
Heel-elevated goblet squats – 3 × 10–12
Step-ups – 3 × 10/leg
Cable kickbacks (standard) – 3 × 10–12/leg
Cable kickbacks (crossover) – 3 × 10–12/leg
Hip abduction machine – 3 × 12–15
Leg extensions – 3 × 8–10

- Friday – Lower Body Strength
Smith machine hip thrusts – 3 × 8–10
Bulgarian split squats – 3 × 8/leg
Leg press – 3 × 8–10
Cable kickbacks – 3 × 8–10/leg
Hip abduction machine – 3 × 12–15
Ham string curls – 3 × 8–10

- Saturday: Rest or light walking
- Sunday: Rest or light walking

The biggest thing I had to accept was that calories determine whether you gain or lose weight. Nutrients determine what that weight is more likely to be. It does matter where the calories are coming from and raging against reality will not change anything. Resistance training creates the stimulus for muscle growth. But adaptation requires resources. Enough carbohydrates to refill muscle glycogen.That glycogen piece was something I massively underestimated. I look depleted in my before pictures. After it isn’t all new muscle.Glycogen is the stored form of carbohydrate inside your muscles. Every gram is stored with roughly 3-4 grams of water. That’s why people often start eating more carbs while lifting and suddenly look bigger, rounder, and more muscular within days. The scale can be incredibly misleading because of this. Two people can weigh exactly the same, but the person carrying more muscle and fuller glycogen stores will usually look leaner, tighter, and more athletic.

Over the past several months I’ve built more muscle than I did during years of spinning my wheels because I finally focused on the boring stuff instead of looking for loopholes.

1. Track your calories.
You don’t have to do it forever, but if you’re trying to change your body composition you should probably know how much you’re actually eating. I’ve tracked calories most of my adult life because, honestly, I like the flexibility and control it gives me.

2. Food quality matters.
Calories determine body weight. Nutrients determine how well you recover, train, and build muscle. I “ghetto rig” recipes all the time. Half a protein shake goes into my coffee instead of cream. I’ll swap ingredients to get more protein or fiber without changing meals I already enjoy.

3. Eat enough protein.
Around 1.6-2.2 g/kg of body weight is where the evidence consistently lands for maximizing muscle growth.

4. Eat your fiber.
I aim for 25-35 g per day. It helps with satiety, gut health, blood sugar, and as someone with PCOS, it makes a noticeable difference. Or whatever they’ve decided to rename PCOS this week.

5. Stop being afraid of carbs.
They’re your muscles’ favorite fuel source. That little jump on the scale after increasing carbs is often glycogen and water inside your muscles, not body fat.

6. Progressive overload is non-negotiable.
If you’ve been lifting the same weight for the same reps for six months, your muscles have absolutely no reason to change. Progressive overload doesn’t always mean adding weight. It can be another rep. A slower eccentric. A better range of motion. An extra set. Better execution. Just give your body a reason to adapt.

7. Muscles don’t own calendars.
One of the biggest myths I keep seeing is that you have to wait 48-72 hours before training the same muscle again. Recovery isn’t determined by a stopwatch. It’s determined by training volume, intensity, proximity to failure, nutrition, sleep, and your own recovery capacity. You absolutely can train lower body multiple times a week, even on consecutive days, if the workload is programmed intelligently. My lower body gets trained three times every week with different priorities each day, and it’s worked far better than chasing every new “glute activation” exercise that trends online. My staples have honestly been boring:
- Hip thrusts
- Bulgarian split squats
- Squats
- Leg press
- Cable kickback variations
- Hip abductions
- Step-ups

My “discovery” was accepting reality. Muscle growth happens when training, nutrition, and recovery all work together. A great program without enough food won’t maximize results. Eating more without progressive overload won’t maximize results. It has to be all of it. Over and over again. For a long time.

Unfortunately, physiology doesn’t care how badly I want a shortcut.

Checking in again a couple months later. I’ve continued my bulk of around 3,500 calories per day. I have also stuck with PPL and have been making some great progress in my lifts. My bench had been lagging behind slightly but I have started doing 5x5’s which has helped tremendously. Excited to keep going! God bless whole milk and god bless Greek yogurt 🫡

Last two photos are current

*TITLE EDIT* I started eating in a surplus in February along with home dumbbell workouts/ push ups but officially started going to the gym in march. So in total this progress is about 5 months.

What have been your victories this week? Have you made good progress? Set a new lift PR? Enacted a new habit that is helping you greatly? Post it here!

I am not in in USA so i took my time to translate to weights. Lol

First time in my life seeing 60+ weights in the scale. Feels good. I tried so many times before to follow a plan and finally seem to get a hang of things.

This is not the end goal, i am planning to go around 75 kg / 165 IBS and cut a little, maybe to 70-72 kg / 158-160 IBS.

What i can say is, honestly everybody has a rhythm of their own. For example, relative to my weight gain, 9 kg in 4-5 months, i gained little fat compared to muscle. Before i tried eating without going to gym to lift and did not saw much progress.

Liquid calories i think is must. Clean bulk all the way, as much as you can, for general health benefits also.

I don't think there is one magic trick to fix all your problems.

I did a lot a lot once, by troubleshooting at every step.

You realize lots of your problems are connected.

For example, bad nervous system, sleep, posture = your body leaks energy and cant build. Stress makes you lose appetite. Your posture also affects your gut position. Try to fix them, so you can eat more and don't feel like throwing up. Eat more, and you will make gains at gym. Learning the forms of your moves and doing with them intention and visualization to see faster and better results. Better results motivate you, and you pick the momentum.

This weight was my original goal before, i read somewhere years ago generally your last 2 digits of your height - 10 is your ideal weight. 75-10=65. So i wanted to share my progress so far. But the more you gain, the more you want to gain and always feel small lol. I think around 70 kgs would look much better. With low body fat of course.

Finally i want to say this is not just the result of 4-5 months. Because there are many years behind with effort with no progress. Its hard to nail everything at first try, so i would say to everyone, keep going kings

Im marathon training and run 6-8 miles everyday. I also workout 6 times a week following a hypertrophy program style lifting with an emphasis on total volume of sets for each muscle group. I run in the early morning and lift in the evening to allow for recovery. For muscles im trying to maintain i do 6-12 sets a week. For muscles im trying to gain size in i try to do over 20 sets a week. Im focusing on upper chest,lats and side delts these 2 months.

I eat 2500-3500 calories a day depending on how much I ran that day to hit maintenance calories and go above it by 100-200 calories. I eat 120-180g of protein a day and fill the remainder with carbs to support my training.

I’m not sure if this is a good mental process. Even though im skinny and I need to gain weight regardless of muscle or fat, I hate the idea that the weight I put on could be unproductive like fat. During periods of high stress when I can’t work out I’ll stop eating simply because I’m afraid of getting fat.

Finally got my shit together after years of never eating and neglecting my body.

I sat around the 70kg mark in 2024, and was diagnosed with ADHD, ended up dropping a lot of weight from the stimulant medication I was prescribed.

I didn't realise just how bad things had gotten until a friend pointed out to me that I was looking extremely unhealthy.

That week, I talked to my doctor about options to balance out my stimulant medication and found an antidepressant that is known to increase appetite.

Since then I've gone out of my way to eat around 4,100cal/day until around the last month or so where I've dialed it back to around 3,800cal/day to avoid too much fat gain. My diet has never been clean, I am not the guy for nutritional advice, I've been doing everything I can to eat those calories in the smallest meals possible but the antidepressants really did the most work here.

I've been doing a PPL/PPL split 6 days per week consistently since I started back in February.

Looking healthier and feeling way better these days!

I took about 7 months to cut all the way down to 180ish lbs at my thinnest (bottom left), maintained there for a few months, and then committed myself to this bulk for the past year or so. I cut on a deficit of over 1000 calories (and shamelessly replaced leg days with an hour of jump roping), and ate at close to 1000 calories over maintenance for the bulk. Never ate particularly clean (McDonald’s on both the bulk and cut genuinely like 5 times a week) but totally eliminated candy and soda from my diet. I only drink water, milk, or protein shakes with the occasional coffee.

PPLPPL routine, 6 days a week, with the first PPL split of the week being lower reps (3 sets of 6-8, one set to failure) and as much weight as I could handle. For the second split of the week I did higher reps (5 sets of 10-12) with about 25% less weight than the heavy split.

I stressed progressive overload VERY heavily, I aimed to move up in reps (from 6 to 7 to 8 or 10 to 11 to 12) or weight literally every workout. If I successfully completed a set of 8 or a set of 12 I added 5-10 lbs to the weight and started the sets over at 6 or 10 again.

I’m definitely in no rush to cut again so I think I’ll try and maintain here for as long as I can. I like the idea of getting myself back up to 229lbs again while staying lean but I don’t know how feasible that is.

Finally started locking in the gym and diet for the past 2 and a half months now. I have adhd and am a perfectionist resulting in me procrastinating locking in bc I feared it wouldn’t be worth it if I didn’t do everything perfectly(sleep, lifts, diet, etc). I had to get over that and just started by forcing myself to go (even if I didn’t know what I was doing was optimal or not) and eventually found myself optimizing everything the more I kept just going. Everything I do now which is just honestly eating better, taking supplements and drinking my protein shake seemed like such a huge task a few months ago. Now it’s as natural as taking a shower every morning.

My split is PPL rest PPL rest. I find that this split helps me immensely since I have trouble getting going to sleep at night resulting in mostly only 6 hours of sleep. So getting a extra rest day between every muscle group has me feeling good everytime I do it again as well as the rest day helps with just burnout and not wanting to go every single day.

My diet isn’t quite locked in yet (as in not counting my calories) but I’m making sure to hit my protein goals and trying to eat more. Always make sure I eat some carbs before hitting the gym too which is just a bagel with peanut butter and honey. I also started taking multivitamins, creatine, fish oil, collagen+biotin, and vitamin d everyday.

I big focus has been my posture hence why I took the progress pic like this lol. So far I’m super happy with my progress and can’t wait to keep going and see myself in a year.

The first picture was during my cross country days. I don’t count calories anymore because it led me down a dark path, so I just eat whatever I want and workout five times a week now.

I started working out as a way to distract myself from depressive episodes. I pretty much just split the days between upper body and legs, recently hitting a squat PR of 275 lbs and a leg press PR of 450lbs.

I do 40 minutes of strength and 20 minutes of cardio pretty much.

I have always had a naturally slender build, and I compounded that by running a ton in my late teens/early 20s. Decided after college that I was tired of being skinny and wanted to work toward the "superhero" build I'd always wanted so I joined a gym for the first time ever. Was initially super intimidated by lifting and kinda just messed around and did what felt right for a while, while staying consistent with workouts 4-6x/week and eating a ton (eating more was definitely key - I grew up in a bit of a diet culture/food shaming household which is wild considering my whole family is tall and skinny).

After years of slow progress, real growth kicked in in 2020 when I built a home gym in my basement and worked with an online trainer for 6 months which honestly helped me blow tf up. I've never really tracked stuff super closely but I currently lift 3x a week using Fitbod, still eat a lot, and ironically am back into running as of May, as I am training for my first marathon this fall. I eat a generally healthy diet with minimal meat but lots of fruits, vegetables, and beans, and drink 2x 50 gram protein shakes per day along with 5 grams of creatine.

This is my 2yr progress. First pic is after a few months lifting. I’ve been stuck around 68kg and have only gained about 1kg total since I started. My diet is vegan.

For the past 18 months I’ve lifted 5 times per week, starting on a PPLPP split, then Chest/shoulders, Back/Arms, Legs/core, Chest/Shoulders, Arms.

I measure around once a month and body fat is consistently 5%. I’m trying to increase muscle mass, and I seem to be building muscle and tone and slowly lifting heavier, but struggling to put on weight. I don’t track my protein, but body scans say protein levels are fine.

Pretty happy with progress, but looking to improve!

My routine is a simple PPL split 4/5 times a week although I have not been totally consistent through the entire 3 years. Always 10 min incline treadmill and aim for 10k steps everyday.

The staples of my diet has been 4 eggs, Greek Yogurt, Protein shakes (Natural PB, Milk, 1 scoop powder, banana) Nuts, Turkey Sandwhiches, and a protein with some veggies for dinner.

And apparently a lot more sun lol

Checking in after about a years worth of bulk/cut. Sort of unsure how to feel about the results, I’m for sure leaner at a similar bodyweight compared to last cut (210 before vs. 207 now), but I don’t feel like i put on much muscle in my most targeted areas, could be the dysmorphia checking in.

I didn’t really push any 1rm and focused instead on getting stronger and hitting rep PRs on previously weak lifts like incline bench, dips, and pull ups. Quite happy overall with how the physique looks after maintaining cut weight for a few weeks, definitely want to add more size to the arms in particular still.

Didn’t run any programs specifically, I just hit shoulders/arms 3x/week and used a rep goal system to progress weights. I’ve been doing quite a bit more cardio and feel better playing sports overall so a big plus there.

Due to sports and other activities I felt pretty beat up and tired in the gym, so this bulk I’ve been essentially only doing 2 sets per exercise and really dialling in the intensity.

I tired to get more angles to paint a better picture than previous posts, but the lighting and setup were awkward, legs are hard to capture. Any critiques, notes on weak points, or questions welcome. I can include training logs and what I’m running currently if interested. Also happy to discuss diet or any other factors below.

TLDR I was unhealthily thin so I started gaining weight, went on a new med and am now too big/ gaining too much

So I (21) started out around 115 lbs three years ago. I'm 5'7 and I'm built pretty athletically, so this was really unhealthy. I will spare you the worst details but people would ask me if I did hard drugs and I was fainting and stuff. Not good. I resolved to try to gain some weight, and managed to put on 35 lbs between May 2023 and March 2025. I still looked really thin at this weight, so I had kind of given up. I was not doing well at the time mentally and in July I went on Abilify, to treat depression that had resisted other forms of medication.

I went into a residential facility in August. There was basically constant food, and there were no scales there. That and I was wearing comfy clothes and so I didn't notice how much weight I'd gained until they gave me back the clothes they had to keep so I didn't manage to hurt myself with a shirt.

So I went on metformin and had a terrible reaction to it, and my insurance doesn't cover GLP-1's, so I'm on this medication that is saving my life but at the same time making me fat. I'm 188 now, and I carry it pretty evenly but like I'm not that tall so I just feel like I'm getting too big. Also I gained it so fast that my entire lower body is covered in stretch marks and it kind of scares me. I know I need to stay on it, at least until I can test out a different med that might have a lower side effect profile; then again, this one was supposedly low-risk.