Don't Feel Like Much Of A Man

Hey there everybody. I have a problem I am not sure how to overcome. I really hope somebody who reads this is a dietitian or a physical trainer or something because I feel like I may be posting this in vain otherwise.

Okay, here goes...

I am an ectomorph. That means I burn through calories excessively fast due to my metabolic rate. I'm slightly above average height and I weigh a lot less than I should. 5'9" and 126 lbs. to be specific. So it's hard for me to utilize calories for weight gain purposes, and I've been stuck around 125 since age 13. I'm frail and thin and I can't retain body heat or lift heavy objects or do much of any really physical activity due to the fact that I can't seem to gain any muscle mass or strength.

Now, if that's not enough by itself, I also have a movement-based sleep disorder, so I burn calories in my sleep. And, as if the two weren't enough together, and here's the icing on the skinny cake, I only have 40% of my intestines, and the majority of what is missing is large intestine. That means that I don't absorb liquid nutrients properly, so the whey shakes and weight-gain shakes and ensures and all of those types of things are just a waste of money for me... expensive ingredients to dark brown stool.

Now the average person without these inhibitors who is working to attain body mass eats some 3000 calories a day on a very regimented diet, and a good deal of them come from shakes. I already have to eat that much just to not feel tired. I'm not even sure how many calories I actually absorb from my food at all. I just eat a lot and as healthily as I can, and hope I'm doing the right thing. So I anticipate to be able to gain any weight, I have to continue eating healthily, but I will have to eat more like 4500 calories of proper nutritional food just to make headway.

Now, I have to pay for all of my food out of pocket, but I'm also trying to save money to get the heck out of this place I live in right now because it's... for lack of a better way to word it, a ****-hole. So I guess the issue at hand is I need help from some guys who really know what it takes to physically improve on your physique.

I only post this here because I am embarassed to even bring it up, and this section of the forum felt safest. Being weak and frail makes me embarassed to call myself a man. I feel incapable of doing the things required of me by my job because of my physique. I feel insecure in my relationship because of my physique. That is to say, I am worried that a more manly-looking man will come and sweep my fiancee away from me. She loves me for my mind, and has said so many times, but when I hear that, what I really hear behind it is, "It's okay that you're not as manly as I'd like. I can settle for you being smart." I know she doesn't mean it that way, but if these feelings persist, I worry that it could be damaging to our relationship in the long term.

The long and short of it is... I need help.

Please...

Hey Man!

I am "with you" buddy!

Please read my post in self esteem? It is titled "Not Low, but NO self esteem"

I can relate to you!

PM me anytime!

126 lbs. at 5'9" gives you a BMI of 18.6, which is within the healthy range, so first bit of advice: don't sweat it. Stress can have a major impact on the body's ability to maintain a healthy weight, making it more difficult to gain lean muscle and lose unwanted fat. As far as your fiancee goes, she says she loves you for your mind. Relax, dude. No matter how 'manly' you looked, you're eventually going to get old; your mind will last a lot longer than whatever physique you might have at 20 or 30. And, to put a finer point on it, she's saying she loves you, and she wants to marry you. You know what turns women on far more than being built like Hugh Jackman or Channing Tatum or whoever the latest piece of eyecandy is? Confidence. So look your insecurities in the eye and tell them to piss right off.

On to the technical stuff. I was a trainer for a high school football team, and the first thing we'd tell people is "forget the fads." There's always some new gimmick that promises to 'build muscle fast', and it's always a boatload of crap with just enough 'science' thrown in to make it not so obvious that it's a boatload of crap. Whey hydrolysates, creatine, androstenedione, taurine... Crap, crap, and more crap. The thing to understand about molecular biology is it's all just variations on the same theme: (carbon + hydrogen + something else) swimming in water. Your body doesn't build muscle out of dietary protein. Muscle tissue, like all tissues in the body, are made up mostly of carbohydrates and water. What protein the body does need to build muscle it makes on its own by adding an amine group to a carbohydrate chain. Technically, a person could gain lean muscle on a diet of nothing but twinkies and beer, provided they exercised enough. So forget the fads; eat a healthy, well balanced diet. Eat what you like. Personally I plateaued at 115 pounds (I'm 5'4", so I've got the height issue to deal with as well) until I embraced my Sicilian roots and started piling my plates high with pasta bathed in olive oil. Now, at 35, I weigh about 150 (technically just outside of my healthy weight range, but I have a 3% body fat content). I'm a contractor, so I get a lot of physical activity at work, but I haven't been in a gym since my boxing days... 15 or so years ago.

Trust me; base your diet around a mix of simple and complex carbs, and you'll easily be able to get in that 4500 calories a day. However, I question that number. Basically, you need 20 calories per pound of target body weight. Let's say you want to get to 160. that would give you a BMI of 23.6, which is right about where most guys are happy and still within the healthy range. That requires 3200 calories. You'll want more based on your activity level, but not a whole lot more. So shoot for at least 3200 and don't worry about how much you go over.

Second: you wanna get big, you gotta lift big. This isn't something you can jump right into, so I'm hesitant to go into any detail without knowing more about your current fitness level. How many times a week do you work out and what's your workout like? What's your resting heart rate? Do you have any medical issues that would keep you from lifting weights? Do you smoke, have asthma, or any other breathing difficulties? How old are you? When was your last physical? Do you have cavities? (The last question seems odd, I know, but oral health is often a good indicator of cardiac health.)

Sometimes insanity is a perfectly sane reaction to an insane situation.

I have two small cavities and have had them since I was a teenager. My last physical was just over a month and a half ago. I am 24 years old, and I smoke, but I want to quit. (I just need something to keep my hands busy and keep my mind from focusing on having a cigarette. I've done it before, I can do it again.) I have issues with my knees, but they pretty-much dissolve with yoga and diet. Same with my hands. Basic stretches and diet do away with almost all physical problems, save the big one (more on that later). My resting heart rate is 90-something, high 90's.

Right now I consider my job my workout. I work a job in conservation. That is to say I spend a lot of days swinging axes into trees that need to come down to prevent wild fires, clearing invasive weeds from the environment, and doing a lot of hiking, climbing, and repetitive lifting of fairly heavy (60 lbs) items.

Now, on the note of calories, we must discuss in minor the issue of my digestive system. I had gangrene at 3 days old and the doctor was forced to take 60% of my intestines out so that I would live. Most was large intestine (or colon if you prefer) and that leaves me with a small absorption issue as my food moved through me at nearly 4x the speed of an average person (That is to say, within 3 hours of eating, I am in the restroom) and nothing I have tried so far has slowed it down. So I figure if I eat 4500 calories a day then I should at least absorb 3000 of it.

My goal weight is 150, and if I can use the muscle gain to help my muscles be evenly disbursed between fast-twitch and slow-twitch fibers, or leaning slightly in favor of fast-twitch fibers, I will be happy. I don't care about looking like the hulk, but I'd like to be able to move a television up a flight of stairs on my own or move a wheelbarrow full of gravel across the yard without having to sit down and rub my sore muscles directly after (or spilling it in mid-journey... or both)

I can see your reasons for the higher calorie consumption. I would also suggest leaning more toward simple carbs which are broken down and absorbed faster, also adding some probiotics, such as acidophilus milk or yogurt, to aid in digestion. Basically, I'd point you in the direction of a mediterranean diet. You have an active job, so on one hand you are burning more calories than if you were sitting at a desk; on the other, you probably have a good basis for core strength and fitness. Your resting heart rate is a little high, but that's partially due to smoking (I can't pick on you there; I picked up again myself a few months ago).

It's difficult to slow down your metabolism because that's mostly due to genetics, activity level, and overall fitness-- so the extent to which you could slow it down would require you to be less healthy, which is not what you want. It will slow down as you age, though. Trust me on that. Somewhere between 30 and 35 you're going to notice a big difference.

It sounds like you're more interested in gaining strength with mass being secondary. That's good, because it's easier to build strength. Given your activity level from your job, I'd suggest working out 3 or 4 days a week for 45 minutes to an hour at a time. Much more than that and your body won't have enough time to recuperate between workouts.

To build core strength as well as add mass, you want to focus on big, multi-joint movements: cleans, squats, deadlifts, pullups (or pulldowns). etc. If you have access to a gym, that's great; if not, get yourself a barbell and about 100 pounds of weights in various sizes to start off with. I've always preferred free weights over machines all the way [forget the fads] (the bowflex being the rare exception) because having to keep your balance and focus on form forces you to incorporate surrounding muscle groups.

Notice I said big movements; not big weights. Leave your ego at the door because it will only get you hurt. Build up to the big weights. Start off with a weight you are comfortable with and focus on getting a full movement with good form. If you pile on too much weight, you're only going to sacrifice your range of motion, and half movements will get you half results (if that). There are plenty of resources online and in magazines, books, training videos that I won't go into proper form and range of motion for a wide range of exercises here.

After about 2 or 3 weeks, when you've developed some good form, you'll want to start adding weight. Use a weight you can lift through a full range of motion with good form about 5-8 times. That's your first set. Rest about a minute and do a second set with the same weight. Rest about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes and do a third set with the same weight. Then immediately drop about 20 to 30% of the weight and do a set till you can't life anymore without your form or range of movement suffering; drop more weight and do another set to failure; repeat a third time. This last group of sets are called a 'drop set' and this will really push your muscles into a hypertrophic state. You don't want to rest between the drop sets; beat the crap out of yourself. The first sets are for strength, and the drop sets are for mass. If you have a particular area you want to focus on, biceps for instance, the next phase of your workout would be where you'd want to do isolation movements such as preacher curls.

The major muscle groups you'll want to focus on for lifting and carrying things are arms and shoulders, legs, and back. Your core big movements, then, would be squats (legs and back), deadlift (arms, legs, back, shoulders), bench press (chest and arms), and standing barbell curls (arms, shoulders). So your weekly workout routine will look something like this:
Day 1: Deadlift, 3 sets; squats, 3 sets + a drop set
Rest day
Day 3: Deadlift, 3 sets; bench press, 3 sets + a drop set
Rest day
Day 5: Deadlift, 3 sets; barbell curls, 3 sets + a drop set
Rest day
Rest day

For a boatload of good information and motivation, check out Elliot Hulse's channel on YouTube (Strengthcamp). Don't let the guy's size intimidate you; he has a great philosophy on what strength really is (hint, it's not size).

Sometimes insanity is a perfectly sane reaction to an insane situation.

I have major issues with standing curls. Would a Clean and Press suffice in their place? It incorporates the same movements with more joints involved and stresses my ligaments and tendons a bit less. Or is there a suitable alternative that will accomplish the standing curl's desired effect without the stress to ligaments and tendons?

Clean and press is a great multi-joint movement. I almost included it, but deadlifts and cleans are fairly similar, not the same but similar, and I was going for variety. But yeah, tailor your workout to you. Everyone is different, so there really is no one right way... more like parameters to work within. Even with the deadlifts, there are dozens of varieties you can use. Experiment with grip, stance, elevation; just focus on good form and full range of motion.

Sometimes insanity is a perfectly sane reaction to an insane situation.

And no cheating. That means no bouncing weight to lessen effort spent, no half-motions, no skipping numbers when counting reps, and no forgetting days. I wonder... what if I took the Clean out of the clean and press, and I just left the belt-to-shoulder + military press + shoulder to belt movement? That would reverse the curl grip, add the extra joint movement, and leave my dead-lift muscles alone for dead-lifting. No point in hypertrophying once and then doing it again before you rest. Unless you want an injury of course. lol