
Ask HN: What specific physical activities have helped you gain weight? - tyagis
I am in my late 20s and have been skinny all my life, although none of my folks are. Looking for suggestions that have actually worked for somebody.<p>Is it just about high protein diet and lifting weights?
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p333347
Long hours of debugging eating burgers. j/k

I was a fat kid who lost fat at puberty, and by 20s was about 75 at 5,9ish,
reasonably muscular, but for various reasons went down to 59 (no health
issues, just bad nutrition, sleep depravation, and over exuberance with
programming) in mid 20s. I didn't even realize it was so drastic until someone
asked my weight and I said 75 and they ROFL. I was pathetically skinny. I
started lifting, specifically 5x5 (google it), and did bodyweight exercises.
mainly pushups, chinups and squats, and this, along with some generous diet
got me to about 80 in six months (probably 15% fat). I am not sure if in my
case it was 'restoring' the 'native weight', but it certainly helped. Now mid
30s I make sure I remain between 75 and 80.

PS: Go easy on deadlifts. It gets pretty nasty if you have bad form and come
close to lifting 50kgs. It will hurt everything when done wrong - shoulders,
wrists, biceps, back, knees - just like it is supposed to build everything
when done properly. Same applies to squats, rows and ohp. Practice under
supervision of an instructor, or take it really really REALLY slowly to
perfect the form. I did the latter. When executed properly, there is no
exercise as exhilarating as deads, except probably ohp and chinups.

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samblr
I have been skinny all my life but now I weigh 80 kilos which is just below
healthy BMI for my height and happy to share my struggle.

I was 19 when I joined gym and quit - I was not really fit to lift lot of
weights to be frank. Was kind of embarrassed. Then I worked on strength from
body weight exercises. This was a really good foundation when I look back now.
I was able to do 80 pushups in one go. But then I was weighing only 55-58
kilos I think - I should say weighing less helped there! Then joined gym again
- this time I could lift lot of weights but with little gains. Then I quit gym
for long time and I hovered around 62-65 in weight till I was 27. Gosh I was
skinny.

Then I started to work out again. This time it was mostly about finding what
diet works for you. For me it was organic lean meat, organic eggs, plenty of
fruits (juice) and grounded almond. And strictly no alcohol not even a drop of
beer. My weight shot up in 6 months! I was kind of surprised. In the end I
could not believe that was so easy.

(edit)Exercises : Bench press, squats.

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stevekemp
> Is it just about high protein diet and lifting weights?

Pretty much, yes.

You need to lift heavy things, and eat enough (protein is good, obviously, but
you also need other things) to develop muscles.

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RUG3Y
Specific lifts can really help. Squatting and deadlifting has done a lot for
me. If you're skinny and you've never lifted, something along the lines of
Starting Strength or a 5x5 would probably be really helpful for you.

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drakonka
Lifting has helped me the most I think. I didn't gain any dramatic amount of
weight, just 5-7kg or so, but the visual difference is pretty noticeable in
muscle and overall shape from how I used to look.

