The first fundamental to increase muscle mass is your diet. You want to eat foods like lean ground turkey, red potatoes, and whole wheat foods. Contrary to popular belief it’s important to load up on carbs when going on a mass building diet. You want to eat lots of starchy carbs like oatmeal and whole wheat pasta. Incorporate 4 grams of carbs per pound of body weight. An easy way to get all your carbs is to take a weight gainer but make sure it’s good carbs and not loaded with simple carbs like sugar. You also want to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight and make sure you get some good fat like avocados, nuts and flax seed oil.
Next is your exercise routine. I personally workout six times a week. Three days of weight training and three days of cardio. I’ve found that this routine helps me increase muscle mass while minimizing the amount of fat that I gain. Also to increase muscle mass you want to lift heavy weights. Lift as heavy as you can for 5-8 reps and do 2 sets.
Workout motivation is the most important part of this equation. If you only hit it hard for a week or two then give up then all the workout and diet advice in the world ain’t gonna help you. The biggest mistake most people make is to start in the action stage. Something happens in their life that motivates them to finally start working out so they jump in the gym the next day. Sounds good but what usually happens is that the emotional sting goes away after a couple of days and they are left with no good reason to continue working out.
So that’s the first thing you need to do is figure out what your reason for working out is. Take some time to really think about this. The more the reason hits home for you the more likely your are to follow through. You also want to state it in the positive. So if your reason is you don’t want to be skinny you should state it as “I want to be huge”. Now I know your chomping at the bit to get into the gym. Believe me I understand but you want to hold off for a few days. You need to reaffirm your reason why over and over again for about 5-7 days. If you do this and you have a reason that really gets you going I guarantee that you are well on your way to getting huge.
So get yourself a rubber band and put it on your wrist and every time you catch a glance at it remember your reason why. If anyone asks why your wearing a rubber band just tell them that you like to have one on hand or something like that. Once you get your reason why ingrained in your brain you will be naturally pulled to the gym every time it’s time to go. Your going to want to workout so much that you won’t want to take a day off.