Muscle Mass Building

Bala7

What foods/meals are recommended to gain weight in order to bulk up?

How many times a week should the gym be recommended?

Leo_King84

High protein. Meat, eggs, dairy.

It depends on the person and previous lifting experience and general ability, how much time they can spare, etc.

If you're starting out, 3 times a week should be plenty as it's more about learning movement patterns.

nossmf

Muscle is slow to build, so you need to be in this for the long haul. Talking months and years, not days and weeks.

Whatever your "stay at this same weight" balance of calories, add an additional 250-500 per day. This will keep the weight gain slow, which should help minimize gaining fat along with the muscle.

Keep the protein moderately high, at least .6g/lb of bodyweight (.3g/kg). Higher is better, but there's really no need to go all the way to 1g/lb (.45g/kg) for somebody starting out.

Spreading the protein out throughout the day across multiple meals can help with feeling full without feeling stuffed, but it's not a requirement: if you eat twice per day and get all your protein in, that's good enough.

A protein shake immediately after lifting is not required. What's required is getting enough protein at some point during the day.

The idea that you cannot eat more than 20g of protein in a single meal is a myth. Feel free to eat more; the body will simply take a little longer to digest is all.

This thread contains a large variety of protein sources. Many of them are meat or dairy based, but the vegetarian can also get plenty of protein.

As @Leo_King84 said, somebody new to lifting is better served with full-body workouts done 2-3 times per week while you learn how to correctly perform each lift without injury. Compound moves (ones which involve multiple muscles) give more bang for the time and effort than isolation moves (only a single muscle moving).