The Hardgainer`s Solution - Jesse Hedeen`s Muscle Blog

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The Hardgainers Solution
How to Feed Your Stubborn Muscles to Make Them Grow
By Jesse Hedeen
The Hardgainers Solution - www.JesseHedeen.com - All Rights Reserved.
Legal Disclaimer
The information presented in this work is by no way intended as medical advice or as a
substitute for medical counseling. The information should be used in conjunction with the
guidance and care of your physician. Consult your physician before beginning this program as
you would with any exercise and nutrition program. If you choose not to obtain the consent of
your physician and/or work with your physician throughout the duration of your time using
the recommendations in the program, you are agreeing to accept full responsibility for your
actions.
By continuing with the program you recognize that despite all precautions on the part of
Hedeen Fitness, there are risks of injury or illness which can occur because of your use of the
aforementioned information and you expressly assume such risks and waive, relinquish and
release any claim which you may have against Hedeen Fitness, or its affiliates as a result of any
future physical injury or illness incurred in connection with, or as a result of, the use or misuse
of the program.
PLEASE READ!!
IMPORTANT INFORMATION!!
This information presented in this program is intended for the generally healthy
population. If you take any medication or have any medical condition please
consult your physician before beginning any exercise program or altering your diet.
If your physician has recommended a diet other than what is shown in this
program, please follow the advice of your physician.
Although the strategies presented in this program are designed to improve one’s
health, there is still the risk of injury. Hedeen Fitness and its owners, agents,
affiliates and employees will not be held responsible or liable for any injury
sustained while following this program.
By following the advice in this program, you are taking responsibility for any injury
you may incur. Lifting weights in your house or gym is done so at your own risk.
Always consult with a physician before starting any diet or exercise program.
Copyright 2014 Jesse Hedeen
All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
Please note Hedeen Fitness takes illegal distribution of copyrighted, intellectual property
seriously. All measures will be taken to ensure any person, persons or group(s) that
distribute this e-book via any method, such as but not limited to email, web forums,
websites, etc will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. All content in this Ebook is
under the legal right of distribution of Hedeen Fitness.
Preface
Thanks for picking up a copy of my ebook “The Hardgainers Solution”! This book
was written to teach Hardgainers such as yourself how to force your body to start
building lean, rock hard muscle mass.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve NEVER been able to build muscle. This eBook is going to
teach you exactly what you need to know in order to change all of that!
I don’t believe in making things more difficult than they have to be. In fact, I pride
myself in making things as simple as possible for others. Building muscle is no
exception. The following eBook is not filled with complex and confusing strategies
or ideas. This book explains exactly what you need to know in a way that is easy to
understand.
By limiting the content of this eBook I’ve been able to pack everything you need to
know to overcome your body’s stubborn refusal to build muscle. You’ll appreciate
that because that means there’s no filler content. This will allow you to get
through all of the information quickly so you can start applying the information
within a few hours!
With that said, let’s get started so you can start growing!
Your Current Intake
In order to start growing you need to know where you are in terms of diet. More
specifically, how much food are you eating? Even more specifically, how much
protein, fat and carbohydrates are you eating each day?
Most of the Hardgainer that I’ve worked with give me the same answer when I ask
them how much food they are eating.
“A lot”
A lot is a terrible answer and it’s my first clue that the Hardgainer has absolutely
no idea how much food they are eating.
You’re probably very similar. I’m going to bet that you don’t know how many
calories you eat on an average day or what your macros look like. It’s all good if
that’s the case. By the time you finish this program you’re going to not only know
all of that but you’re going to understand why it’s important to know it.
The first thing you need to do is calculate your average daily caloric intake. That
means getting out a pen and notebook and writing down all of the food that you
eat and drink on a typical day. If you eat the same thing every day then this will be
easier.
You’re also going to have to do some research on the internet to find the nutrition
information for the foods you eat. All you need to do is type in “Nutrition info for”
then type the food you’re looking up. You’ll get all kinds of responses. Or you can
go straight to nutritiondata.com and search for your foods there.
To make things easier I’ve created a calculator that you can use to figure this out.
All you need to do is select the foods you eat from the drop down menu and your
total will automatically calculate for you.
This calculator comes loaded with quite a few foods, but you will still need to add
some of the foods that are not on there. But don’t worry, it’s quick and easy and
you only have to do it once.
If you have a terrible memory then your other option is to document your meals
for the next few days. Not only do you need to know what foods you’re eating, you
also need to know how much you’re eating.
I know this sounds like a pain, but if you want to get started right figuring out your
average caloric intake is important. Otherwise you’ll be relying on calculators or
equations that won’t give you the most accurate numbers in terms of where you
need to start.
When keeping track of your food, make sure you don’t make any changes to your
diet. You want an honest account of what you’ve been eating. If you decide to
make different food choices just to look better on paper then you won’t be
collecting accurate data. Make sure you just eat normally.
If you’re too lazy to do all of that work (it’s really not that much work) you can use
the metabolic calculator that’s provided in the calculator bundle. Just realize that
it’s much more accurate to determine your maintenance intake by figuring out
your current intake. The more accurate information you use the quicker you’ll
start to grow.
Increasing Your Calories
You know how many calories you need to eat to break even, now you need to
adjust your intake to create a surplus. A caloric surplus is when you’re consuming
more calories than your body needs for energy.
The ONLY time you can put on any kind of significant mass is when you’ve created
a caloric surplus and maintain that surplus over a period of time.
The trick is to create just the right caloric surplus. Too many extra calories will just
make you fat. This is what most guys are doing when they are “bulking”. They are
just eating everything in site with no regard to macro-nutrient intake or total
calories consumed. If you’re after lean gains then this is a bad approach.
The Hardgainers solution is to add a minimal amount of calories each week until
you find the precise intake that causes you to start gaining weight. Ideally I’d
recommend shooting for .5 – 1 pound of weight gain per week. This is a good place
to start.
If you’re not putting on a lot of extra body fat then you can continue to accelerate
your growth by adding more calories. Everyone will be different in terms of how
quickly they can add lean muscle mass.
You just have to find that amount of calories that allows you to grow, consume
that amount consistently and see how your body responds.
To begin adding calories increase your caloric intake by 10%. If you’re consuming
1,800 calories a day, you would add 180 calories for the first week, bringing you to
1,980 calories.
After a week of consistently reaching your increased caloric intake, weigh yourself
to check your body’s response (see the chapter on monitoring your progress). If
that single increase was enough to spark growth then congrats.
However, if you’re a true Hardgainer you probably won’t see much movement in
your weight after increasing your calories just once. More than likely you’re going
to need to continue increasing your caloric intake. I’ll discuss how to continue
increasing your calories in a later chapter but first let’s talk about macro-nutrients.
Optimizing Your Macros
Now that you have an idea of how many calories you are eating during a typical
day and what your increased caloric intake is. The next step is to optimize your
macro-nutrients or macros for short.
Macros are protein, fat and carbohydrates. I talk more about macros in my eBook
“Eating for Aesthetics” so be sure to read through it for a more thorough
understanding of nutrition.
Optimizing your macros is a simple process but requires a little math. For your
convenience I’ve included a calculator that will do this math for you. All you need
to do is enter your information. Below is how your macro nutrients should be
determined if you’d prefer to calculate them yourself.
Protein: 1.5 grams per pound of lean body mass (LBM)
Fat: .5 grams per pound of LBM
Carbohydrates: Calories remaining divided by 4
Using the above parameters for each macro, this is how you would figure out your
starting point. Here’s an example of how it would look for a 150 pound Hardgainer
with a LBM of 130 pounds and a suggested caloric intake of 2,000 calories.
Protein: 1.5 X 130 = 195 grams of protein per day (780 calories)
Fat: .5 X 130 = 65 grams of protein per day (585 calories)
Carbohydrates: 2,000 – (780+585) = 635 calories / 4 = 160 grams of carbs per day.
Now that you know how many grams of protein, fat and carbohydrates you need
to eat each day all you need to do now is eat the right amount of food to hit those
numbers.
Monitoring Your Progress
Before you start adding calories and putting on mass, make sure to weigh yourself.
You’ll want to use your own personal scale, community scales are ALWAYS off. Be
sure to take your weight first thing in the morning before your first meal,
preferably after using the bathroom.
Consistency actually matters when you weigh in, so try to do it at the same time
under the same circumstances every week.
You can get other measurements done as well. Having your estimated body fat
percentage is good to do about every 4 weeks. Circumference measurements are
handy too.
My personal preference is to use before and after pictures and monitor my
progress using the mirror. Because, to be honest I don’t care about the size of my
waist or my arms, I only care about how the look!
Anyways, you can use whatever measurements you want, for the sake of this
program we are only concerned with your body weight.
Increasing Your Calories
Since you are a confessed Hardgainer you’re probably going to have to continue
increasing your caloric intake for several weeks before you reach the amount of
calories that puts you into a surplus.
Every time you increase your calories your metabolism is going to increase as well.
Since you’re a naturally lean individual your metabolism will increase quickly in
response to the additional calories.
This is one of the reasons it’s difficult for you to build muscle. Your rapidly
responsive metabolism makes it tough to create and maintain a caloric surplus
long enough to build additional muscle.
It’s not enough to just eat more. We need to figure out your metabolic capacity,
the point at which your metabolism will stop increasing. Once you find your
metabolic peak, you’ll know exactly how much you need to eat in order to start
building muscle without the extra body fat.
To get to this point, you need to increase your calories by roughly 10% each week.
At this rate it shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to reach the point where you
begin to add weight, yet prevent the accumulation of extra body fat.
When you reach the caloric intake that allows you to put on a solid pound in a
week, stay at that caloric intake until you stop gaining weight. This will allow you
to continue to build muscle while giving your metabolism time to catch up to your
new caloric intake. When your weight gain has stopped you can increase your
calories again.
Where Do the Extra Calories Come From?
When you set up your macros you already tapped out your protein and fat intake.
There’s really no need for you to apply any of your future caloric increases to
either macro nutrient. For now ALL caloric increases will be applied by increasing
your carbohydrate intake.
Each gram of carbohydrates contains 4 calories. If you’re going to increase your
caloric intake by 200 calories (just an example) then you would simply need to add
50 grams of carbohydrates to your daily menu (200 / 4 = 50g).
For many of you this will result in you consuming A LOT of carbohydrates, possibly
several hundred grams worth. If you fall into this category then I would suggest
purchasing a maltodextrin powder or a product like Karbolic by ProSupps.
There are a number of these products on the market. The reason I suggest them if
your carbohydrate intake becomes extremely high is that it’s a lot easier to get all
your carbs with these products.
In a single scoop you’ll get 50 grams of carbohydrates. The best part is that this
powder is mixed easily with water so it’s quick, easy and doesn’t taste too bad.
Trust me it’s a hell of a lot better than grinding through 4 or 5 bowls of oatmeal
every day.
Before using these types of products, make sure that you’ve reached your limit as
far as whole food options like sweet potatoes, rice, oats, barley etc. You want to
make sure you’re getting plenty of fiber (20-30g / day); just consuming Karbolic
won’t help you get the fiber you need.
When you get to the point where you need to keep adding calories but you can’t
stand the thought of eating any more carbs you can bump up your protein and fat
intake a little.
If you get to this point the expanded allowance for protein will become 2 grams
per pound of LBM and your expanded fat allowance will increase to .75 grams per
pound of LBM.
It would be a pretty rare situation where someone would tap out these expanded
recommendations for protein and fat intake. If that situation happens and you still
need to increase your caloric intake further, then it’s back to more carbs for you.
Food Options
I go over nutrition in much more detail in “Eating for Aesthetics” but I wanted to
give you some basic suggestions for what foods are great sources for each macro.
Protein
The best source of protein is animal meat. Chicken, turkey, pork, beef, fish, eggs
etc. Most meat is going to have 20-25 grams of protein in 4 ounces. The big
difference is going to be in the fat content. Fish is usually the leanest, followed by
chicken and turkey then pork and beef. All meat is open season; you just need to
make sure that your fat intake is regulated.
Fat
If you’re eating a lot of meat then your fat intake is going to be mostly taken care
of. On the off chance that you need more fat a few good sources include nuts,
seeds, avocados and oils. I’ve recently become a big fan of using coconut oil, it
tastes great!
Carbohydrates
When choosing your carbs it makes sense to start with complex carbohydrates at
least until you’ve consumed a decent amount of fiber. Complex carbohydrate
sources include oatmeal, brown rice, quinoa, barley, sweet potatoes and my
personal favorite, rice cakes. Again if you need an easier way to get all of your
carbs then a supplement like Karbolic might be a good option for you.
Meal Timing & Frequency
Meal timing is a concept that I think has been given too much attention and
become too complex. Eating specific foods at certain times might offer a slight
benefit occasionally but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t vital to your success
when you’re trying to build muscle.
I suggest keeping things simple. Try to eat a meal within a couple hours of your
workout and one shortly after.
If you like sugar like I do then eating a treat before and / or after your training
session is a good time to do that. Make sure that you’re also consuming a decent
amount of protein before and after your workouts as well.
That’s really all there is to it in my opinion. As long as you’re eating the right
amount of calories by hitting your macro-nutrient goals then you’re on track. The
number of meals you eat and when you eat them is less important as far as I’m
concerned.
If you want to eat several small meals throughout the day then go ahead.
However, if you’re not able to do that then don’t.
For a lot of people eating a few larger meals during the day is a lot easier. Either
method is fine as long as you’re hitting your numbers.
Don’t get hung up on eating a specific number of meals at a certain time of day, it
doesn’t really matter. There is no positive or negative impact either way. Do
whatever is easiest for you to adhere to.
Dieting Mentality
Contrary to popular belief you do not have to eat chicken, rice and broccoli every
meal to build muscle. This approach is commonly referred to as “clean eating”. The
basic idea is that you completely remove any “bad” food from your diet and only
eat “clean” foods.
While I think it’s important to make healthy food choices for the majority of your
meals, I also think that you need to be able to enjoy yourself once in a while too.
This approach is referred to as “flexible dieting” and it’s my preferred dieting
mentality.
When you’re trying to build muscle this approach to dieting is perfect. It offers you
the ability to eat about anything and still pack on muscle without a bunch of fat. It
will take a little practice to learn how to maximize this approach but once you get
it you’ll dig it.
It’s really about learning the nutritional composition of the foods you eat and
understanding how to swap foods around while still hitting your numbers. If you
can eat different foods like a cheeseburger and your still within your macronutrient and calorie goals for the day then you’re good.
That’s not to suggest that you should only eat cheeseburgers, I’m just saying that
eating one now and again while still hitting your numbers isn’t going to have a
negative effect on your goals. You could also call flexible dieting the moderation
diet.
To figure out what foods you can work into your macro-nutrient goals, play around
with the macro tracker calculator. All you need to do is plug in different foods to
see what allows you to hit your numbers.
Timeframe & Goals
Your expectations should be realistic. You’re not going to blow up and be as big as
the guys on the bodybuilding magazines in a month. Will you be bigger? Sure! But
understand that guys that grace the covers of those magazines have spent years
building their bodies.
Following this program you can realistically expect growth at a rate of .5-2 pounds
per week. I suggest aiming for .5 pounds per week to make sure that you’re adding
as little body fat as possible. I’d rather add less muscle and less fat than more
muscle and more fat, but that’s just me.
We are all different in how we respond to diet and training. Some guys are going
to grow like weeds once they find the right amount of calories and optimize their
macros.
Other guys will take longer. Regardless of the amount of time it takes to get the
results you want, it’s worth it! Whether it takes a month or year to build the body
you want, however long it takes is well worth it!
There will be days when it’s hard to follow your diet and keep track of your food,
but if you want results, then you’ve got to find a way to get it done. If you have a
bad day and eat a bunch of crap or don’t eat anything, shake it off and get back on
the plan the next day.
Even at the rate of 1 pound a week, you could have 10 pounds of extra muscle in
two months! Think about how that extra muscle would look on your body! Anyone
can do anything for 2 months, if you can follow this program for two months as
I’ve explained you’ll see results!
The length of time that you decide to follow this program will vary for each
individual. You can continue this program for a long as you want to add muscle
mass. Obviously the amount of mass you want to add will dictate how long you
follow this process.
To keep body fat under control I suggest focusing on fat loss after bulking for 8-16
weeks, depending on how quickly you accumulate fat. You don’t have to cut for
very long. In fact a short 4 week fat loss cycle would be about perfect.
Post Bulk
It might seem hard to imagine now but eventually you’re going to get to a point
where you’ve put on all the extra muscle you want. When you get there you’re
going to want to strip away the extra fat that you’ve accumulated as well, which
won’t be much if you added mass slowly.
Whether it’s a lot of fat or a little fat I’ve developed a killer 4 week, accelerated fat
loss program called “Ripped In 30: Rapid Fat Loss for Those Who Need Serious
Results Fast”. When you’re ready to get lean be sure and grab this program! You
can get more information on the website by clicking here!
Online Coaching
If you’re ready to take it to the next level and hire a professional then I’m your guy.
I work one on one with people all over the world. If you’re serious about your
goals and you’re willing to put in the time, work and effort then I’m willing to work
with you.
You can contact me at my personal email address hedeenfitness@gmail.com or
through my website www.jessehedeen.com. You can learn more about my
coaching services here. Serious inquiries only please!

The Hardgainer`s Solution - Jesse Hedeen`s Muscle Blog

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