The Seven Types of "Hard-Gainers": An Archetypal Evaluation (credit: u/OatsAndWhey and r/gainit)

jseams1234

https://www.reddit.com/r/gainit/comments/vuhjec/moderator_contribution_the_seven_types_of/

Good Morning Guys and Gals,

Been a bit since I've been here - but I thought this was well done, funny, and relevant to many users on this particular forum.

The Picky Eater

I don't really LIKE to eat, if I'm honest with myself. I eat the bare minimum necessary to curb hunger, and that's about it. I have no idea what foods really exist outside of my narrow food choices. I primarily only eat food my mom buys for the house. I'd rather drink whey powder than eat solid meat. Eggs gross me out. Oatmeal makes me drowsy or sick. And I would never voluntarily eat vegetables. I am reluctant to try new things. I won't eat things because I need them, only because I want them. I think I have a high metabolism because I'm so skinny, even though I eat until very full sometimes. But what's actually happening is I get full quickly because I'm not used to having a full stomach very often. Seems like I eat a lot but in reality I do not.

The Lazy Prepper

I prefer to eat things that are ready immediately when hunger strikes. My mom buys mostly packaged food (things in bags, boxes, and cans). I could just eat 3 times as much breakfast cereal but I can't figure out whether to use a much larger bowl, or refill the same bowl 3 times. Even using a can opener and the stove to heat a can of chili sounds like too much work, and too long of a wait. Forget about making mac & cheese, who has 20 minutes to boil pasta? And the thought of making one big meal and splitting it down into a week's worth of smaller containers is frankly very terrifying. I'm basically a hard-gainer because simple carbs get my blood sugar up so quickly, I rapidly lose my appetite. I often forget to eat when involved in other activities.

The Poor Digester

I really do eat a lot of calories, I average 3200 calories 5 or 6 days per week! I eat more than everyone in my family and all my friends. I really do. And I also make mountains of poop. Gross, I know. I think I "metabolize" a lot, because I can't seem to gain weight. People tell me to "eat even more" but I already eat enough, right? Maybe it's WHAT food I'm eating, coupled with which foods I'm NOT eating, that makes food seemingly fall out the other end. I don't eat vegetables. Very little fruit. I certainly haven't thought about supplementing with enzymes. I think I'm a hardgainer but I actually have a weak gut biome. I wish I knew "it's not how much you can eat, it's how much you can digest". Fiber, dietary enzymes, and probiotics would likely help.

The Fat Preventer

I'm going to gain pure lean mass on my own terms. I want to run a "pure hypertrophy program" while main-gaining new muscle g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y, so that 100% of my gains are contractile tissue with zero fat. I'm reluctant to do a FULL-SEND BULK because I honestly might have some body image issues in the future if I lose sight of my abs. I'm not afraid of doing the "accidental Arnold", but I'm terrified of getting fat! There's so many examples of obese people, like 60% of people right? It has everything to do with too many calories, too much dietary fat obviously, and nothing to do with sedentary lifestyles. I wish I knew I could eat much more fat to help hit calories, and realize true hard-gainers drop fat easily. I knowingly limit food intake, hindering progress.

The Poor Tracker

I am the most prevalent type of hardgainer. I think I eat METRIC *kitten* TONNES of food. Look at me, I just ate an entire medium DiGiorno's Supreme Pizza my myself. I'll also eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's to wash it down later. I do this twice a week. Yes, I eat more than my calories burned for those days. But then I drop back to bare-minimal, while my body tears through whatever calories I was lucky enough to store during my binge episode. People see my ravenous appetite, my svelte figure, and wonder where it goes. People can't see all the food I'm NOT eating at times I'm being food-avoidant. And honestly, I might struggle with a poor appetite until my body forces me to go hard like that. But I've never tracked actual weekly intake. If I did, I'd see I average fewer calories eaten than burned, no matter how much I can put away on 1 or 2 days of heavy eating.

The Orthorexist

I am a close relative to the fat-phobic lean-gainer, and also to the picky eater! But rather than fearing icky foods or unfamiliar flavors, and rather than aesthetic fears of getting fatter, I place unnecessary restrictions on foods for health reasons. I avoid anything that carries any potential risk whatsoever. Eggs? Too much cholesterol; heart attack. Tuna? Too much mercury; brain damage. Milk? The hormones will make me lactate. Soy? Isoflavones will elevate my estrogen. Carbs? Blood sugar will get too high; diabetes. Oats? The phytates will deplete my minerals. I'm actually hungry often but I kind of ignore it since I don't know what foods are okay to indulge in. I spend too much money on supplements like raspberry ketones and pine pollen, when I should be putting it towards eating more calories in general. If I would just loosen up (80/20 Rule!), I could actually gain mass.

The Thyroid Case

I am an actual hard-gainer. I was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, after not gaining weight eating 5000 actual tracked calories regularly. I am on medication for this now. It's hard for me not to laugh at the hundreds of people who come through r/Gainit insisting that they have a "high metabolism". I wish people understood that the prevalence of hyperthyroidism in the United States is approximately 1.2%. And NO, you most likely don't have un-diagnosed clinical problems with this. If you "can't gain weight no matter what", it's a 98.8% likelihood that you're one (or several) of the other types of self-described hard-gainers. You really don't eat enough, and/or have a high activity expenditure. That's it. The very good news here is the vast majority of underweight people CAN and WILL gain scale weight if they figure out how to eat.



These are the Seven Major Types of Hard-Gainer. Or are there additional ones I may have missed?

Which one are you? Or which kind were you before you finally got your situation squared away?

Happy Friday Everyone!