Why is it so hard to gain weight?

Calculate your TDEE - this is how many calories to eat to MAINTAIN weight. Scientifically, 3500 calories = 1lb. So if we divide 3500 calories by 7 days of the week, you need to eat TDEE plus 500 calories to gain 1lb per week.

So that means you need to log and measure EVERYTHING you put in your mouth, and eat TDEE + 500 calories. I assume you are lifting during this time, as the caloric surplus will greatly aid in strength and muscle growth. I would not recommend going any more than that, as you can only build a certain amount of muscle and any excess will turn into fat.

i.e. I am a 27/male/5'7", gymming 4 days a week. I put in my stats and my TDEE comes out to 2300 calories. To bulk, I have to eat 2800 calories DAILY for +1lb per week. If I wanted to gain 10 lbs, that's roughly 3 months of bulking. If I wanted to lose weight, I'd cut and eat 1800 calories daily for -1lb per week.

Remember, consistency over intensity. Skinny people overestimate how much they eat (and overweight people underestimate). The scale and food tracking keeps us all honest. It's not how much you eat in 1 meal or 1 weekend, but what you do day-in-day-out.

dimple215 wrote: »

With some people it's like how much so ever we try to eat more but we don't gain any weight in the end

Typically, those "hard gainers" just aren't eating the right combination or types of foods that are high enough in calories that would allow them to gain. In many cases, they have developed a good set of eating habits that has allowed them to maintain or lose weight easily (i.e. - eating slower and stopping when full as opposed to finishing their plate or eating a bunch of low calorie, high volume foods). Because of these, they have to modify the types of food they eat, but may also have to modify their eating patters (i.e. - increase frequency).