Everyone desires to have a muscular and shredded body and yet only a handful are ready to take effort into achieving it.

Thin and underweight people are often amused by the proteins supplement advertisments to increase their muscle weight fast, but just having proteins will not ensure you the desired results. While othere, like the obese, have more of their weight from body fat rather than muscle mass. This people often look bulky and out of shape.

And the answer to acquire huge lean muscle mass, is the combination of strength training exercises and proteins rich diet. It really plays an important part in achieving your shredded body.

By now, you should know that the excess of proteins supplements you consume might not at all be used up in your body.  Proteins, unlike fats and carbohydrates, are not stored in our body. Excess amino acids from proteins are drained off through your urine.

Exercises breakdown your body muscles and so building new muscle requires proteins which can then be taken from your daily proteins supplemets diet. Hence, the stress and strain training followed by high proteins rich diet helps you gain huge and lean muscle mass fast.

I’m not going over proteins supplement in this section. You can find out more from my previous post on Calories to Gain Weight or Protein Supplements to Weight Gain Process. Rather, let touch on on some of the simple workout that can help you gain muscle fast and naturally.

Strength training or resistance workout is by far the most efficient type of exercise in increasing your muscle size. That’s why bodybuilders are big and muscular in size. Below are some simple exercises you can workout anytime:

• Bar dips - involve supporting yor body weight with both your hands and rasing-lowering your body alternately. It works out mainly your chest and triceps.
• Pull-ups - hanging on pull-ups bars and lifting your whole body weight. They are very effective in developing your shoulders, upper backs, arms, and upper body muscles.
• Bench-press - involves lying on your back and lowering the weight steadily just above the chest and then lifting it up again. It develops your pectoral muscle, chest, and tricep.
• Barbell-rows - helps to workout your abdomen, hips, arms, and back muscle.

Dumbbells can be used to perform various exercises specially aim to develop a certain muscle group.

Therefore, even though natural source of proteins supplement can adequately provides you with enough energy for your daily workout, if you don’t exercise, there is not much breakdown of your muscle. The muscle sythnesis process gain momemtum after exercising followed by a high protein rich diets, you will benefit the most to gain lean muscle mass fast.

Whey proteins are taken as supplements by those doing bodybuilding exercises to develop their muscle. They are concentrate source of proteins manufactured from whey which is a leftover fluid in manufacturing cheese.

They are rich and complete source of proteins in concentrated form. Essentially, it provides you the amino acids required for body function.

Whey proteins are available in many form depending upon the proteins concentration level in withim them. 

• Whey Proteins Concentration – contains about 30%-90% proteins and are low in cholestrol content.
• Whey Proteins Isolate – the most concentrated form containing about 90% of proteins by weight. But it has a very low amount of fats.
• Whey Proteins Hydrolysate – these are in hydrolyzed form and tends to be less allergic than any other forms.

Whey proteins play an important role in weight management. If you are thinking of growing your muscle mass and losing your body fat at the same time, they are most probably the option. They are preferred by athletes and those doing bodybuilding workout.

Whey proteins is so popular because it contain branced chain amino acids and other free radicals which are used during synthesis of proteins and help to stimulate muscle growth.

• Leucine – an amino acids help to generate new muscle after rigorous training.
• Glutathione - act an an anti-oxidants and increase your body resistance against diseases.
• Bio-active ingredients - prove to be beneficial in various body activities.

If you are in the process of gaining weight by growing your muscle size, then whey proteins play an indispensable role in your dietray especially after strength training activities.

Recommended Dietray Allowance (RDA) for proteins 1 gram per kilogram of body weight (for an average person). While you are working out, you can increase this intake to 1.3 gram to 2 gram per  kilogram body weight. However, the quantity you can consume daily depends solely on your daily calories requirement and nature of your exercises.

Remember, when you performed any rigorous muscle gain exercises, there incurs a heavy loss to your muscle at the same time. To recover from this loss and add up new muscle mass, whey proteins is the solution after such exercises.

Most people trying their best to seek various advices from their friends and colleagues on how to gain weight quickly. Some prefer to follow different websites that promised to make you pounds of weight in a week.

Don’t be under the misunderstanding that some magical pills or supplements can will help you gain weight fast without taking any efforts. Often these guidelines from various sources might be misleading and you might end up with nothing.

Well, here a a few myths prevalent about people gaining weight rapidly:

Myth 1 : increase 5-10pounds of weight instantly in a week

These ads in various magazines, websites, TV program, might be tempting to a skinny and hardgainers individuals. The fact is that such a large and rapid gain in weight is not at all feasible. You can gain an average of 2 pounds a week if at all you follow good guidelines about diet and exercise.

Myth 2: only taking proteins supplements will increase your muscle

This is obsolutely untrue because you should necessarily have an allied exercise program to make the supplements work. Some supplements are supposed to give you more strength to do your workouts while others help to develop your muscle only after you exercise.

Myth 3: eating any food items in bulk will increase your weight

Not all food items you consume provides you with good amount of calories.Fats provide about 9 calories per gram while carbohydrates and proteins provide about 4 calories per gram in intake. While eating any food items, you should consider it’s composition to know how much calories you should be getting.

Myth 4: overeating can help you increase your muscle

Overeating will not increase your muscle mass but only increase your body fat. You will gain weight by eating more fat-rich foods. To develope your muscles you need to undergo rigorious strength training along with high proteins-rich diet.

Myth 5: forget about meals, just have supplements

Some people tend to replace their meals completely by protein supplements. Remember that this might have an adverse effect on your health. Natural food items not only provide you witth carbohydrates, protein and fat but also with essential nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants necessary for body functions.

Myth 6: creatine supplements can help you gain weight and muscles

This is only true for those who undergo resistance workout and having a balaced diet. Creatine increases your strength to do more exercises and thus stretch your muscles more. It must be consumed in proper amounts and under expert guidance.

Myth 7: women become too muscular by doing exercise

Some underweight women fear that doing exercises while undergoing weight gaining program will make their body look muscular. This speculation is not valid because women have less secretion of hormone testeoterone which limit their muscle growth. Exercises will help them maintain their body shape while gaining weight.

Myth 8: inactivity can help you gain weight

This is partially true for some people. Some individuals tend to put on weight when they start living a passive lifestyle. While for other inactivity and passive lifestyle creates lack of appetite which leads to consume less and hinder their weight gain.

Only having protein supplements will not help you gain weight and muscles. Nor will eating any foodstuffs will get you enough calories. You should make smart choices in choosing your diet. Don’t ever replace your meals completely with supplements which might have an adverse effects on your health.

Hardgainers are the people having a tough time to increase their weight and muscles. They might have tried all sorts of weight gaining programs, protein-rich supplememts, various exercises but little turn out in their favor. Such people have a high metabolism and so they burn more calories than average individuals.

While an average person requires about 2,500 calories, hardgainers might require 500 calories or even 1,000 calories more. Futhermore, they need to put on extra 500 calories daily to gain weight steadily. They must consistently follow their high calories diet and adequate exercise schedule for about 3 months to see visible results.

It’s really a big challenge for hardgainers. If you are one of them, the following few pieces of information may help you out:

1. You need to consume excess calories than an average joe since you are having a high metabolism. Your calories intake should exceed your metabolism rate to help you gain weight.
2. Do not follow the regular weight gain programs. You need a modified one keeping in mind your metabolism rate. It should have a balanced diet and workouts to suit your needs.
3. It is better you do not consume your meals in bulk but divide it into 4-5 meals and 2-3 snacks after an interval of 1.5-2 hour within each.
4. One positive point to note is that as a hardgainer, you have a high possibility to gain weight from muscles and very less from body fats.
5. You should limit your exercises. You should not do stress exercises for more than 45 minutes at a time and three times a week. The “more you exercise more you gain weight and muscles” will not work in case of a hardgainers. Excess exercises can make you lose your weight instead.
6. You should check your weight once in a week after you start a weight gain program. If there is no desirable increase then you should increase your food intake. Increase of 1.5-2 pounds is desirable for you.
7. Modified your workouts to gain better results. Go for compound training and free weight workouts which have shown good results for hardgainers. Exercises must be steadily increased for duration and intensity.
8. Take enough carbohydrates and fats to assimilate the extra proteins your are consuming,
9. Minimize your calories expenditure. As a hardgainers, you are already burning more calories than average. You should try to avoid calories spend on activities like aerobics, running, cycling which give yo no fruitful results.

Increase in calories intake and minimizing calories expenditure must be the goal for hardgainers. Exercises must be done for a limited time and must be suitable modified. Consistency in efforts is very essential to gain desired results.

To gain healthy weight naturally, you have to consume more calories per day to increase your body weight steadily. How much to consume depend on individual metabolism.

What is calories actually?

The food items that you eat provides you with the energy to do your daily tasks and this energy is measured in calories.

To determine the extra amount of calories needed, first you have to understand a few facts:

1. Average calorie requirement to carry out daily tasks for men is about 2,500 calories while that for women is about 2000 calories.
2. Daily calories requirement solely depends on the nature of your work but make sure that your daily intake of calories never fall below about 1,450 calories.
3. You need about 3,500 calories to gain about 1kg-1.5kg of weight per week (on an average considering low digestive efficiency for few people).
4. Plan to take 500 calories more per day to steadily gain weight.
5. Just sitting and writing can make you spend about 100 calories per hour.
6. Walking, doing housework and other such moderate activities can cost you about 200-300 calories per hour.
7. Intense physical activities like running, playing tennis, pulling heavy weight object, exercises by athletes require about 400-500 calories per hour.

Once you determine your daily calories requirement, you can increase it intake accordingly. The nutrient and calories content of the food you are consuming are also important result in weight gain:

• Carbohydrates provide 4 gram of calories per gram,
• Proteins provide about 4 gram of calories per gram,
• while fats provide about 9 calories per gram

You should plan your daily meals accordingly to achieve your target requirements. However, to increase weight many people tend to consume more of fat-rich food items to gain more calories.

 Fat-rich foodstuffs have more energy content (more calories per gram) and will increase your body weight. But proteins are utmost important in building your muscles which in turn increase your body weight.

Weight gain from increase in muscle size is considered healthier than just increasing in body fat. A well balanced diet suggest that of the total calories intake, 50% must come from carbohydrates, 30% from fat and 20% from proteins.

Therefore, your daily calories intake to gain weight should be planned keeping in mind your requirement as per your sex, age, occupation, and your eating habits.