1) How much do you weigh in pounds? Take that number and make it your minimum protein requirement in grams. Figure out what you need to eat to get that amount of protein with sites like nutritiondata or fitday.

2) Figure out your caloric needs. If you don’t want to run the BMR calculations, just estimate 18*weight. Protein has 4 calories per gram. Get the rest of your calories from fat and carbs as you like. Track your food consumption and make sure you are getting enough calories.

3) Be patient. Measure your arms with a tape measure every 2 weeks if you want to know if your arms are growing.

My grievances are predominantly about my diet though. So far its been consisting really only of wholemeal toast in the morning, sometimes oatmeal. A snack on fruit and nuts. Two eggs and a chicken sandwhich. A snack on cereal (yeah…I eat cereal after lunch when I have time constraints lol). More fruit. Maybe a bagel with cottage cheese. And then dinner is usually salmon and pasta or chicken/turkey/rice, but it’s always healthy. I really want to see an increase in my muscle mass, mainly my arms, but it really doesn’t sound like this is going to do anything, judging by your article lol. Please help! It would be SO appreciated!
Kind regards.

2. Workout takes as long as it takes. The idea that a workout must be 60 minutes or less is nonsense based on crap hormonal ideas. My generic bulking routine (Can be found on the support forum) should take maybe 90 minutes tops with warmups.

1) You suggest 40-60 contractions per body part. What about for compound exercises? Would you count a squat towards both quads and glutes, or would you suggest weighting somehow?

2) 40-60 twice a week adds up to alot, especially if you are following your strength training suggestion of roughly 2 mins between sets. Do you have any thoughts about optimal length for a session? Apologies if this has been discussed before, but I couldn’t find it. Is there any length that is too long in the gym? Is there any validity to the oft-repeated suggestion to keep workout short (e.g. 45 mins)?

Two things to work on

1. The body can be trained to handle more calories if you increase them gradually. At least one of the signals for fullness is the physical stretching of the stomach and often, esp. after a period of low calories, the gut doesn’t stretch. IFOCE guys use this to their advantage and eat lots of low calorie/high-bulk foods to increase stretchability. Generally eating more energy dense foods (e.g. peanut butters, etc) to get more calories with less volume will also help.

2. Liquids, liquids, liquids. Liquid calories tend not to generate the same signals of fullness as solids and that can be an easy way to add calories to the diet. The key is that they must be ADDED to the normal diet, don’t start drinking blender bombs and stop eating. So mix up a big blender with a bunch of different stuff: start with 16 oz of milk, throw in some peanut butter, fruit, protein powder. Hell, put in ice cream if you just need calories. Sip on it during the day between meals.

Again, being able to eat more can be trained, it just takes time and progression.

Lyle

Any advice on how to overcome this obstacle?

Take care.