Gaining Weight for a “Hard Gainer”

While most people obsess over shedding weight or how to decrease their calories, there’s a lucky group of individuals out there who seemingly burn all the energy they ingest and struggle to gain weight. I was fortunate enough to be in this category when I was a developing athlete. I had a voracious appetite, ate an absurd amount, and still struggled to even maintain my weight. I was just blindly stuffing food in my face, which can kind of work but, I now know there’s a more efficient and effective way.

HS/College/Pro athletes benefit from a combination of age, high activity level, metabolism, and genetics. They need energy to fuel training, facilitate recovery, increase lean mass, and support their daily caloric maintenance needs. You would be shocked at how high some people need to set their calories. It’s reported that Michael Phelps was consuming 8,000-10,000 calories A DAY when prepping for the Olympics. He was eating an entire pizza a day.

Though it can be difficult getting adequate calories from really nutrient-dense, often dubbed “healthy foods”, you should still try to have these make up the majority of your choices. However, that does NOT mean you can’t venture outside of them. “Hard gainers” have some serious leeway here and can include things like burgers, pancakes, egg&cheese bagels, etc. and not have it negatively impact their goal.

So, if you aren’t gaining weight, you aren’t eating enough. Simple as that. I don’t care how much you plead your case and say you eat, it’s obviously not working. Here’s an example of a basic mass gain plan I wrote for a collegiate athlete. This particular player was looking to gain roughly 10+lbs in the offseason, he was around 180lbs. I had already worked with them in previous off-seasons so I had an idea about their metabolism and how they handle calories.

Sample Diet

The diet consisted of two days – a training day and an “off day”. I typically structure diets with 2-4 different days per week. I’ve found this to be effective. He would check in with me each week and I would adjust/add calories when warranted. We ended up getting past 5,000 calories a day.

High Calorie Day

4,300-4,500 Calories

Protein 275-300g

Carbs – 475-500g

Fat – 140-150g

Fiber – >25g

Meal 1: 40g protein, 100g carbs, 28g fat

Example: 5 whole eggs, 5 egg white, 2 cups of oatmeal or 5 slices of cinnamon raisin Ezekiel bread

Example: Overnight oats – 2 servings of oatmeal, 2 scoops of protein powder, chocolate almond milk or chocolate fairlife, 1.5 serving of peanut butter.

Intra-workout: 5g leucine, 3g beta-alanine, 3g glycine, 3g glutamine

Post-workout: 50g protein, 100g carbs, 5g creatine

Meal 2: 50g protein, 85g carbs, 28g fat

Example: 6-8oz barbecue chicken breast, 2 cups of jasmine rice with yogurt butter mixed in 

Meal 3: 50g protein, 85g carbs, 28g fat

Meal 4: 50g protein, 85g carbs, 28g fat

Meal 5: 60g protein, low-carb, 32g fat

•You can combine any meals you want. 

•On “off-days” follow the same plan minus the intra and post-workout meal

•On either Saturday or Sunday use 2 of your consecutive meals as a spot for a “cheat meal” so to speak. I don’t love the term cheat meal, but you get what I’m saying. You’ve been keeping your choices precise during the week, so we will allow some freedom on the weekend to spare you psychologically. 

•The majority of your choices should come from this list below. However, you are free to veer outside here if it doesn’t impede progress or you are struggling to reach calorie goals. 

Need extra ideas on how to ramp calories up? Here are some of my favorite high-calorie items or additions

• Two Chipotle Rice Bowls – 1 steak, 1 chicken (both double meat, double rice), fajitas, hot salsa, guacamole – you’re looking at about 2,100 calories, 140g protein, 200g carbs, 90g of fat. 

• Two Five Guys Burgers – this brings you to – 1,680 calories, 94g protein, 80g carbs, 110g fat

• Monster Protein Shake – 6-8oz chocolate fairlife (might need a little water too),2.5 scoops of chocolate peanut butter cup protein powder, 2 servings of honey roasted natural peanut butter, 2-3 Oreo’s.  (can add oats if looking for more carbohydrates) 950 calories, 92g protein, 60g carbs, 40g fat

• Two Double Egg, Bacon, Cheese on Everything Bagel – 1,000 calories, 60g protein, 120g carbs, 35g fat