Many naturally skinny guys ask me what the fastest way to gain weight is. They assume that I’m going to say eat everything in sight and lift heavy weight! Well, that is partially true, but as a good friend always told me, the devil is in the details. The fastest way to gain weight involves consuming a calorie surplus, but it is a very strategic calorie surplus designed to recover, repair, and build lean muscle tissue while maximizing your anabolic hormone output.
When you are on what people refer to as a “dirty bulk,” you may be consuming 3,000-4,000 calories a day, but you are not doing your long-term health or anabolic hormones any justice. When you consume things like soda, cookies, ice cream, low-quality meats, fried foods, bad carbohydrates that spike your insulin, and all the other crap that is available to you guys today, you are not giving yourself the best chance to build lean muscle mass quickly. You will put on weight fast, but the majority of it will be body fat.
You really have to think of your body like a machine or a high-powered race car. Does a Lamborghini work optimally with regular 87 unleaded and no oil changes? While the Lamborghini may be able to sustain its power and speed like this for a few weeks, it will break down in the long run. This is what happens to your body when you feed it an abundance of low-quality calories.
Not only are you depleting your overall health, but your energy levels are likely to suffer as well. Many of you guys have been eating so poorly for so long that you probably don’t even know what it’s like to feel healthy, energized, and operating like a fine piece of machinery!
I have been at both ends of the spectrum, so I can tell you that the difference between a high-quality calorie surplus full of nutrient-dense foods, high-quality macronutrients, and antioxidants is drastically different than a “dirty bulk” full of junk food, sugar, and fried foods.
That is why I want to share with you guys 3 diet tips that will help to maximize your anabolic hormones and gain weight quickly. This is the fastest way to gain weight: a strategic calorie surplus incorporating the best muscle-building foods that will boost your anabolic hormone levels to sky-high levels!
Increase Your Anabolic Hormones Tip #1: HGH
Human growth hormone is one of your most important muscle-building hormones. While testosterone gets most of the hype, high HGH levels correlate to increase in strength, lean muscle mass, and lower body fat levels.
One of the best ways to increase your natural HGH production is through high intensity interval training. Training your type 2 muscle fibers during 100 percent anaerobic capacity training will build up lactic acid and help to spike your HGH levels. If you’re looking for the fastest way to gain weight and enjoy doing cardio, running sprints and performing other HIIT exercises will actually help you become more anabolic. This is contrary to long distance running and swimming, which are actually catabolic activities.
One of the best diet tricks to boost your HGH levels involves what youeat before you go to bed. Your HGH is secreted through your pituitary gland when you enter your REM sleep cycle. This means that what you eat before you go to bed will either enhance this HGH secretion or blunt its production.
One of the worst things you can do before you go to bed is eat something with sugar. This will spike your insulin levels and prevent HGH from being released. Your HGH and insulin can’t coexist in your body at the same time. They have conflicting goals! While it tends to be okay to consume a high carbohydrate meal full of slow digesting carbohydrates a few hours before bedtime, the real killer is a massive insulin spike before bed!
This is why things like drinking late at night and then binging on junk food and candy before you go to bed are your worst nightmare! HGH will be much higher if you stick with protein and healthy fats late at night. This will keep you anabolic and raise your HGH levels.
Increase Your Anabolic Hormones Tip #2: Insulin
Wait a minute – you just said that insulin is bad for me! Now you are saying that you want to boost your insulin! Insulin is actually a really important “growth” hormone for your muscles, but it’s all about the timing. This is a strategic calorie surplus designed to maximize each of your anabolic hormones at different times of the day. The result is the fastest way to gain weight – period!
The time that you want to spike your insulin is post workout. A post-workout insulin spike is highly anabolic and has been used by pro bodybuilders for the last 40 years. After an intense resistance training session, your muscle cells are begging for replenishment. The best thing you can do is consume a fast digesting sugar with a fast protein for the immediate insulin spike and to shuttle all of the amino acids into the depleted muscle cells.
Your muscles will eat this up, and the insulin spike will serve as a nutrient activator. This also initiates protein synthesis and sets the stage for optimum muscle growth and recovery. You should also be consuming a higher carbohydrate meal about an hour after this post-workout shake to continue raising your insulin post workout and reaping all of the incredible muscle-building benefits. After this, you want to keep your insulin levels low so your HGH can peak late at night.
Increase Your Anabolic Hormones Tip #3: Testosterone
Everybody knows that testosterone is the king of the anabolic hormones, and boosting this alpha hormone is the fastest way to gain weight. If your testosterone levels are sky high, you will be able to build muscle effortlessly and you will increase your strength quickly.
So what are some of the best ways to boost natural testosterone production? The best thing you can do in the weight room is to lift heavy weights frequently. Maximum intensity sets on the compound exercises are a surefire way to boost testosterone production.
A diet trick that has been shown to elevate testosterone is to consume high-quality forms of protein and cholesterol. Cholesterol is actually a pre-cursor to testosterone production. I like to enjoy high-quality forms of protein that are also higher in cholesterol. Some of the best choices are grilled chicken, grass-fed beef, and whole eggs.
Another really important thing to do for maximum testosterone production is to consume healthy fats and omega 3s. I eat a wide variety of nuts such as almonds, cashews, walnuts, and Brazil nuts and take a fish oil and flax seed supplement to get in my healthy fats and omegas. If you are deficient in omega fatty acids, your body will not produce the maximum amount of testosterone. Make sure to get an abundance of healthy fats into your system frequently.
This is the best way to gain weight fast because fats are caloric at 9 calories per gram and also contain omega fatty acids, which elevate natural testosterone production.
I highly recommend that you guys stay away from the natural test-boosting supplements. If you want to try a few all-natural supplements to elevate testosterone levels, stick with zinc, fish oil, and D-aspartic acid.
Remember that the fastest way to gain weight is to eat a calorie surplus that will increase your anabolic hormone output. Follow these tips to boost 3 of your body’s most important muscle growth hormones. Got any other tips on how to boost your body’s natural hormone levels? Please share in the comments below and make sure to check out the YouTube video!
Add comment