Keep trying, but it's becoming impossible

Eat.

You can't gain at a deficit.

Eat more!

Don't get me wrong but I wounder how realistic your expectations are? muscle gain is a slow process, you are not going to gain huge amounts of muscle over night, it takes years to build muscle.

If you are eating in a slight surplus, you are meeting your macros, you are on a good lifting program. you will gain weight but it will take time

Upon further review, you're logging is sporadic at best, and even when you do log, you're typically well under your calorie goal. As for that goal, you and I are the same age, and your goal is lower than my cut, so unless you're about 4'10" your goal is way too low. I'm bulking right now and I'm hitting 3500+ daily, for a gain of about 1.2-1.8 pounds per week. You need to eat more, you can hit your protein target all you want, but if you're not in a surplus, you're not going to build an ounce of mass.

Rigger

+1

+2

Are you serious? Filling up on veggies? Veggies are great don't get me wrong, but they should have less priority then your macros on a bulk. Eat more rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beef, pork chicken, dairy, nut butters, fish oil, avocados, etc. If your having trouble getting all your calories from foods, you can try supplementing with a weight gainer shake. You need to eat big to get big, simple as that!

If the 2411 Cal in your diary is your TDEE, you need to be surpassing that number by at least 250 cal every day. Until you get your eating under control, you are not going to build bigger muscles. Diet is 90% of this game.

Do you stretch? I read on Bodybuilding.com that you need to stretch so that the membrane around your muscles can grow/stretch faster. Otherwise they can actually confine your muscles, limiting how big they can get.

while I'm ALL about stretching- I'm not sure this is true... at all.

studies? links? articles?

Sorry, yeah I only just read this and I admit it came from a featured blog or something. But several agreed. While I doubt it's a proven study I think that it's probably good for you no matter what, right (as long as your muscles are warm when you do it and you don't over stretch)? So no harm in trying. Feel free to disregard. I was just brainstorming.

I didn't find the original article I read, but here's another. Other articles have shown up via Google search.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/stretch-your-way-more-muscluar-body-with-this-stretching-routine.htm

"Connective Tissues

The connective tissues that surround the muscles are very tough and hug the muscle fibers tight. This can actually constrict expansion and growth. For muscle hypertrophy to occur the surrounding fascia needs to be stretched and become more pliable in order to give the muscle fibers room enough to expand grow bigger.

Even if you haven't seriously focused on stretching before, the muscle mass that you have built up to this point came about from the stretching and expanding of the muscles encasing tissue. During your workouts when blood is being pumped into the muscles, the surrounding connective tissues are being stretched, that's why you get that tight feeling we call "the pump".

The ideal time to stretch for increasing muscle mass is right after you've trained a particular body part and the muscles are "pumped up" and feeling tight. At this stage the connective tissues are already being stretched from the blood volume in the muscles, and then by manually stretching the muscles as well, you get a double whammy effect and this really increases the muscle fibers growth potential."

I'm 5'4" and weigh 56kg (I actually weighed myself yesterday morning, first thing). I do about 30-40 minutes of rowing most mornings, and strength training only once a week, 3 sets of 8-10 reps.

I would cut back on the rowing, since it sounds like you don't need to burn more calories -- you need to eat them.

Can you lift more in a week, ideally around 3x a week? You may want to try a progressive, compound, heavy lifting program like Stronglifts 5x5. Lift heavy and keep your reps in the 1-5 range for strength.

I'm 5'4" and weigh 56kg (I actually weighed myself yesterday morning, first thing). I do about 30-40 minutes of rowing most mornings, and strength training only once a week, 3 sets of 8-10 reps.

Drop the rowing, lift heavy three days a week, and get your calorie intake up to 2500 every day, and don't be worried about going over that, be more scared to go under it.

What you're doing currently is treading the line between cutting and maintaining, if you want to build mass you need to eat big and lift big, forget the cardio.

Rigger

Ah, this is very helpful advice, thanks. Sounds like I need to lift more then.

And eat more, lifting is only about ten percent of this equation, the other 90 is food and rest.

Rigger