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Tips on how to gain weight quickly are priceless to skinny people who struggle to put on some extra pounds. The world we live in is a contradictory one. There are folks who put on weight rather effortlessly and yearn to lose their weight and fats through unhealthy diets. Yet on the other end of the spectrum, thin people find it tremendously challenging to gain that extra few pounds to enhance their physical appearance and regain some masculine appeal in the case of men. Skinny ladies also dream of fitting nicely into beautiful clothes that look so fabulous on those svelte and voluptuous models. But do not envy those who put on weight too easily, especially those through unhealthy diets. It is better to understand the fundamentals behind healthy weight gain. This is where you can learn more on how to gain weight quickly and healthily.

Before we tackle the issue of how to gain weight quickly, let us look at the reasons why scrawny and thin people fail in gaining weight successfully no matter how hard they try. Survey statistics discovered the following as the top reasons why they are not putting on weight:

1. Poor Diet

Skinny people are not eating right and enough. By that, it means that they are not eating foods that would help them to gain weight. Protein is critical in adding extra weight but many folks do not get enough protein intake. This is where things go awry. So how can they expect to gain weight quickly or for that matter, any significant weight improvement at all? It is important to load more on protein, and less on simple carbs. Read on for specific weight-gain diet foods.

2. Proper Work-out

Eating is not sufficient. We all need to engage in some kinds of physical activities to convert our food intake to healthy mass. This conversion can take place only with proper exercises. People who truly understand how to gain weight quickly do so in a healthy manner with proportionate muscle mass gain.

3. Poor Motivation

Weight gaining or slimming works in a similar manner. Medical practitioners have come to understand that the motivation behind the individual wanting to gain weight is vital to his/her success. Our generation is often called the “instant noodles” generation where everyone desires instant results. Weight gaining is not an overnight mission, but a long-term goal. Failing to understand this is a sure ingredient for weight gain failure.

Once we are able to acknowledge and work around the common grounds for failure, we are well on our way to successful quick weight gain. Are you ready for some easy-to-follow tips on how to gain weight quickly?

1. Weight Gain Diet Foods 101

I mentioned earlier that eating the right foods and eating enough of them is the key to weight gain. Foods such as fast food, chocolates and other junk food like chips won’t do you any good. Any weight gain from such foods would do your health more harm than good.

Cultivate a habit of eating more than your daily energy and calorie needs. First, find out what is your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which equates your daily calorie need/count to maintain your weight at its current level. Next, start planning your weekly dietary plans to increase your weekly intake by 3500 calories to achieve a weight gain of 1-2 pounds within a week. This translates to an additional 500 calories in your daily calorie intake.

Eat more protein-based food stuff such as beef and chicken. Drink more milk for it is a rich source of protein. Balance your meals with vegetables and nuts as well. Eat 5 or 6 small meals rather than 3 big meals to balance the calorie intake.

2. Weight Gain and Muscle Mass Building Routine

You need to tone up the extra weight you are adding to your bodies so that you don’t end up obese. Depending on your preference for physical activities, the 2 kinds of activities recommended here would be useful in complementing with your weight gain diet.

Engage in moderate activities such as brisk walking, jogging or playing a sport for at least 30 minutes for 3-4 times per week. Try to inject some fun into your physical activity so that you would feel encouraged and motivated to cultivate this as a habit and eventually as part of your lifestyle.

Work out in the gym on some resistance training for at least 3 times per week. But before you do so, speak to a qualified physical training instructor who can advise on what exercise routine is suitable for you. If not, go to the library to read up on what are the work-out routines that are ideal for a person of your build and weight.

Knowing these simple tips on how to gain weight quickly should give you better knowledge than most people in the basic building blocks of gaining weight healthily. For more details about the ideal natural weight gain diet foods and more tips on how to gain weight and muscle mass simultaneously, visit my blog for further reading.

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If you have problems gaining weight or if you’re looking for a way to gain weight faster, keep reading. In fact it is very simple and logical to do so. All the processes I’m about to explain have been very well documented. This is not a diet or a supplement, it is something you already posses the power over right now – your brain.

I’m going to discuss:

1. The two branches of your nervous system, their functions and how you can determine which one is dominant in you.
2. How creating an imbalance prevents you from getting the results you want.
3. How you can regain balance to produce the results you desire.

A quick description of the Automatic Nervous System(ANS):

The model of ANS used in clinics originated from Francis M. Pottenger, M.D, 1919. The ANS is the master controller of your metabolism; it controls almost all metabolic processes. The ANS is divided into two divisions on the basis of anatomic and physiological grounds. Nerves from both divisions connect the brain (Hypothalamus) to the organs and glands of the body.

The ANS is like an information transport system with the brain as its switchboard operator. The two divisions, the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system work together to regulate all the activities in the body. To name a few: heart beat, fight or flight, blood pressure, digestion, elimination, repair and rebuilding and much more. In this article, we are interested in the repair and rebuilding activities.

The difference between Parasympathetic and Sympathetic influence is different from person to person. People are more or less influenced by one of these. I encourage you to search the web for a more in depth description of these influences to see where you fit.

Parasympathetic (rest and digest branch): Digestion, Elimination (detoxification), repairing, rebuilding, anabolic processes. People with Parasympathetic dominance tend to be wider build, procrastinate and have excessive appetite and lethargy.

Sympathetic (survival branch): fight or flight response, motivation, stress, catabolic processes. People with Sympathetic dominance tend to be tall, thin, highly motivated, have a low appetite, and excellent concentration.

The key is to be highly motivated and have excellent concentration while training (sympathetic dominant) and then be relaxed and calm in the restitution period (parasympathetic dominant).

Since the parasympathetic branch is the one that builds and repairs our body, along with controlling our anabolic processes, we want that branch to be most active when wanting to gain weight.

Now what you probably don’t know, is that most people in our stressed and modern world are in a constant condition called Autonomic Disregulation where our sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are opposite of what they should be. They are literally jacked out of direction, disturbing every metabolic process including our ability to be anabolic. This is where your mind comes in the picture.

You are, in fact, in charge of whether you want to be disregulated, or if you want to be regulated. Regulated is where your body works at 100% efficiency giving you high health and energy.

When you are stressed, your sympathetic nervous system gets activated and responds with a release of catabolic hormones which makes you alert. Cortisol is one of the many, but is the primary stress hormone. You don’t want to be sympathetic when gaining muscle.

When you elevate your levels of cortisol, your DHEA ratio to cortisol is disrupted. DHEA-S or DHEA-Sulfite is an anabolic hormone. It is a tissue repair hormone and is very closely related to growth hormone, testosterone and all the other anabolic hormones. So when your cortisol goes up, your DHEA goes down, damaging your health.

High levels of cortisol in the body have been related to highly rapid death of brain cells, and rapid ageing. As cortisol levels go up, it affects the memory and ability to learn .In other words, it disrupts the neurocognitivity which enables the neurons to communicate with one another. Look at the patterns of people who consume caffeinated drinks, sports drinks and coffee, etc.

Caffeine creates a sympathetic catabolic response in your nervous system, where glycogen (sugar) is released from your liver, along with cortisol (which makes you feel fresh and alert). Cortisol is a catabolic anti-inflammatory hormone that breaks down muscle tissue and feeds it to the body. Since the high release of glycogen in your body also triggers a release of insulin, your blood sugar crashes, and it crashes with you. It also affects the quality of your sleep and mood because it interferes with anabolic repair cycles.

If you’re waking up in the morning after 7 hours of sleep still tired (not feeling fresh) you are probably not entering deep sleep, because cortisol also disrupts your ability to enter the restorative phases of sleep – REM (Rapid eye movement) Cortisol disrupts your ability to repair your nervous system, and it disrupts your ability for the immune system to do its job. One of the most important changes you can make is to not consume any caffeinated substances after 3pm, because depending on the rate on which your liver is able to detoxify caffeine, it may disrupt your hormonal levels. This will interfere with your ability to sleep and therefore, interrupt your anabolic repair cycles such as DHEA-S. Most physical repair happens between 10pm – 2am – don’t workout and go to bed at 1am. Most psychogenic repair (nervous system repair) happens between 2am – 6am.

Another thing to consider is to avoid full spectrum lighting in the hours before sleep. Light stimulates the pineal gland which stimulates the RAS (Reticular Activation System) which “turns you on” again. As cortisol levels drops during the day, melatonin increases. Melatonin is the hormone that puts you to sleep and makes you tired. So when you come home with full spectrum lighting in your house, it jacks up your cortisol levels again, interfering with your sleep and repair cycles.

Consider what happens when you come home late at night and have coffee with your full spectrum lighting. Guess what… your body’s hormonal cycle is totally confused, ramped and ragged, you sleep poorly and you are not repairing. Next morning you feel awfully tired and like many people do, you drink another cup of coffee! Be smart. If you’re reading this it means you are smarter than most people. So live up to it. We need to be parasympathetic while we sleep. Bear in mind, that just because you are not a fan of caffeine, it does not mean that you’re safe. A high level of stress elevates cortisol just as effective as caffeine.

This discussion gets more technical so take a look at the picture here while reading:
http://www.freakygrowth.com/images/chem-process.gif

Your anabolic hormones are mainly produced from Pregnenolone. When your stress levels are high, your sleep is poor, your exercise habits are wrong and you consume the wrong metabolic stimulators (stuff that stimulate a sympathetic response), your body overproduces cortisol and cortisone. Since both your anabolic hormones and your stress hormones are produced from Pregnenolone, which production do you think the body takes away Pregnenolone from in order to compensate for the overproduction of catabolic hormones? It steals the Pregnenolone which should have been used to create testosterone, Androstenediol, Aldosterone among other anabolic hormones. This syndrome called “Pregnenolone steal” or “Cortisol Escape” will steal 60% of your Pregnenolone to compensate for the overproduction of cortisol (or stress in your life), which will mean 60% less anabolic hormones in your body. That’s a tough fact.

If you want to gain weight and gain muscle, you must be more parasympathetic than sympathetic. It is really that simple. So take some time of for yourself, relax, get to bed before 10pm, stay away from metabolic stimulators (such as caffeine), avoid full spectrum light before bed hours and give it all you’ve got when training.

Copyright 2008, Masszymes Inc. All rights reserved.

There are many methods of gaining weight and most of them are targeted towards people who find it relatively easy to put on mass as opposed to people who we mainly identify as being hardgainers. If you’re a hardgainer yourself, then you should know what I’m talking about, but don’t fret, there are things that you can do to build a substantial amount of muscle.

Identifying Yourself

Now if you think you’re a hardgainer, but you’re not 100% sure of this then there are ways to tell if this is true. Firstly check to see the diameter of your wrists and ankles. Generally hardgainers have very thin wrists and ankles. This means one thing – you have pretty much no chance of becoming a professional bodybuilder!

Don’t let this get you down though, you will still be able to create a body that most guys would die for! You see, the majority of hardgainers who have worked hard to build a lot of muscle have been able to sculpt a body that is both athletic and well sort after by the majority of your male counterparts.

Hardgainers have the ability to rip down incredibly quickly, more so than people who find it easy to gain mass. If you ask me what I’d prefer to be then I would definitely choose skinny over fat, wouldn’t you? Of course you would!

Gaining Mass For A Hardgainer – Training

All hardgainers have one thing in common when it comes to training – they can only build muscle by lifting heavy weights. This means sets of low repetitions – no higher than 8 reps per set and sometimes as low as 2.

You might think this sounds crazy but let me ask you something – how else are you going to shock your body into thinking it’s a lot bigger then what it currently is? Because that’s what it’s all about, you need to persuade your body to believe it has the potential to grow significantly and lifting heavy weights is the only way when it comes to training.

Gaining Mass For A Hardgainer – Diet

The second thing that most hardgainers have in common is concerning diet. Now most hardgainers are naturally small eaters as their bodies only need a small amount of nutrients to support the required energy output in their body.

Now heavy training would naturally require someone to eat more, but not the hardgainer. They rarely get hungry and are satisfied with 3 meals a day. In order for you to grow, you need to again shock your body into thinking that it needs to grow in order to support the level of training it is now undergoing. So you will need to eat SEVEN big meals everyday!

Sounds like a lot and it will be for the first couple of weeks but eventually something amazing will happen – your stomach will expand, which then intern will create more frequent and painful hunger pains. Soon 7 meals a day will seem like nothing.

Stick to these 2 underlying principles and in a few months time you won’t be able to recognize yourself. Oh and one more thing, like everything, the key is consistently, miss a meal and it will escalate, that I promise!