Looking to gain weight, instead I lost weight since going Primal page

[GreenGranted]

Hey everyone,

I'm 19 years old, male. I'm relatively short (5'8). I was always very skinny, but I ate lots of bread and other grain products. I've been doing strength training since 4 months, but since eating primal (more than a month now) I dropped from 132 to 125 pounds. I believe I haven't lost any muscle mass, if anything I slightly gained, but my goal is to gain, not to lose weight. I'm looking to get to 140 pounds, at least.

Important to note is that I'm really active. Since starting primal I dropped running, but I've since started to take long strolls (1.5h +) every other day, besides cycling to college 5 days a week (1 hour / day) and walking or cycling any such distance, to friends etc.

My current diet is very primal: lots of biological eggs, meat products, nuts, vegetables, fruits. I dropped every sweet besides (sometimes) chocolate. I do eat quite some dairy: cheese, milk and quarck. All I drink is water and milk.

Bottom line is: what can I do to gain around 8 kilos (18 pounds) of muscle mass? I already work out for 30 - 40 minutes every third day, and I've really seen my muscles take shape. Yet I won't really gain weight. I think I mainly need dietary tips.

Thanks in advance!

[Damiana]

Eat nutrient dense foods. More fats, good oils, butters, and food that contain them like avocados and nuts. When choosing meat, choose fattier cuts, like pork belly instead of rump and ribeye instead of flank, salmon instead of tuna, etc. yes, go for the fruits, since you're not watching carbs. When working out, limit the cardio to sprinting once or twice a week.

[dirk41]

I've had to deal with the same issue. I lost weight after going Paleo and am only now gaining it back. You can up your total calorie intake, but I believe the most effective way is to start lifting heavy weights (squats, deadlift, bench press, etc). I started a few months ago and have gained nearly 10 pounds.

[feren6]

Hey everyone,

I'm 19 years old, male. I'm relatively short (5'8). I was always very skinny, but I ate lots of bread and other grain products. I've been doing strength training since 4 months, but since eating primal (more than a month now) I dropped from 132 to 125 pounds. I believe I haven't lost any muscle mass, if anything I slightly gained, but my goal is to gain, not to lose weight. I'm looking to get to 140 pounds, at least.

Important to note is that I'm really active. Since starting primal I dropped running, but I've since started to take long strolls (1.5h +) every other day, besides cycling to college 5 days a week (1 hour / day) and walking or cycling any such distance, to friends etc.

My current diet is very primal: lots of biological eggs, meat products, nuts, vegetables, fruits. I dropped every sweet besides (sometimes) chocolate. I do eat quite some dairy: cheese, milk and quarck. All I drink is water and milk.

Bottom line is: what can I do to gain around 8 kilos (18 pounds) of muscle mass? I already work out for 30 - 40 minutes every third day, and I've really seen my muscles take shape. Yet I won't really gain weight. I think I mainly need dietary tips.

Thanks in advance!

Hey man! Funny you ask about this, because that's exactly where I was last year! Went primal, and lost a little bit of weight. But with some tweaks, I gained 10lbs of muscle relatively quickly.

Here's what I recommend that you do:
-Lift heavy. Squats, Deadlifts, Bench press. Look into a program like Stronglifts 5x5 -- just google the Stronglifts 5x5 report and read all the way through it. Been doing this for a year now and turned my squat from 45lbs to 255lbs. Boom.

-Reintroduce starch on lifting days. Replenish your fuel with a lot of white rice and potatoes. Nothing wrong with this even if it isn't exactly strict Primal. You're trying to gain weight, you can't limit all of your food choices.

-Don't sweat the small stuff. Throwing non-primal barbeque sauce on top of your meal as long as you don't feel like shit from it.

-Look into the Leangains macro-nutrient cycling protocol. www.Leangains.com, but basically you want to eat High Protein every day, and then on workout days eat high carb (aka lots of white rice and potatoes) and low fat, while on rest days, low carb and high fat (normal primal/paleo). By doing this, I gained a lot of muscle and barely any fat.

-Eat. A lot. Track your calories on workout days and if you aren't going over your maintenance, then eat more.

The key is not to be picky when trying to gain muscle. Eat a lot of protein and don't be afraid of starchy carbs on workout days. I've followed this for about a year now and it's worked extremely well.

Rock on!

[ryanmercer]

Fats *nods* or if you want to step a little out of paleo milk, lots of milk (it's what the competitive bodybuilders do often for builking, drink gallon(s) of milk a day, but I'd just stick with lots of healthy paleo fats).