Nathaniel asks:
“I’m trying to gain some weight, and to do that you need to eat more. The problem is, is that I don’t like the full or stuffed feeling. I like eating to about 80% in a given meal, because you feel light afterwards. I’m just wondering if you have any ideas on that.”
Having put on weight before and going through being stuff I know what you mean.
When I did so I was aiming to add mass fast!
People may think the training is the hard part, but it’s actually the eating that is way tougher for this very reason.
Eating more is important, but there may be some helpful ways of making this easier.
1) Space out your eating more so you don’t have to get stuffed in one sitting.
This could even mean waking up and eating at night as some people have done before. This still means you would be more full throughout the day, but may be more manageable.
2) Eat denser food. Higher calories for the volume. For instance, you could get very stuffed just eating broccoli but it’s not going to help you gain mass. Meanwhile, steak is pretty dense. Oils even more so.
Of course, these denser foods can leave you feeling heavy in the stomach, but less full overall. I’m not a big fan of counting calories, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not useful to be aware of at all. This is especially true with mass gaining.
3) It depends on if you’re trying to gain mass fast, or are okay if it’s done slowly. If the former, you’re going to get stuffed. No way around that.
If slowly, you really don’t need to eat much more than normal. One idea I teach in 80/20 Muscle Gain Challenge which is an upgrade option for The 80/20 Strength Challenge is to add one more meal a day, or simply eat a bit more, like another serving, at each meal.
If your normal eating is maintaining your weight then just a bit more will help you gain.
4) Add in some mental training on top. It’s not all about the food you eat as it is the food you assimilate. I believe programming can help influence this to work better. In fact, it was only when I started using hypnosis that I finally went from being a hardgainer to actually being successful at adding mass. My hypnotic track has helped some others do the same.