Chicken and brown rice is a great meal for your muscle building diet.

Photo credit: My Little Rascal

Let’s face it, you could do everything perfectly in regards to training like lift weights three times per week, do the right amount of sets and reps, write down and record every lift in detail, and spend 45 minutes in the gym each session while getting enough rest every night. But if you do everything else perfectly and neglect what you’re eating everyday for the next 6 months to a year, you will see minimal results (especially for you ectomorphic skinny guys) and just be wasting your time. Eating the right food is of the utmost importance when you are looking to slap on the size.

Imagine bricklayers putting down bricks to build up a home. As long as they have a steady supply of the right bricks (nutrition from food), they can build strong, long lasting walls (your muscles), that will be the support of a great house (your body). Without the right kinds of food, and you can forget having a muscular body. Having a dream body is 75% nutrition, and 25% training, in my opinion.

So this article will let you know exactly what foods you should be eating so you can naturally build muscle as fast as possible.

The basic premise of a bulking diet for us skinny guys is to eat 6 meals per day, every 2.5 – 3 hours consisting of:

1. Protein
   • Chicken breast
   • turkey breast
   • chunk light tuna (less mercury than albacore)
   • salmon
   • egg whites
   • whey (usually received with supplements like OnWhey Protein powder)
   • lean beef (round cuts are the leanest)
   • cottage cheese
2. Carbohydrates – Unrefined/non-processed
   • oats/oatmeal
   • whole grains (breads, cereals, brown rice)
   • wraps (the low carb variety are normally very high in protein and fiber)
   • sweet potatoes
   • beans
   • fruit (whole are better than dried or juice)
   • fibrous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and spinach
3. Fats – the good kind
   • peanut butter
   • nuts (almonds)
   • flax
   • fish oil
   • olive oil
   • dressings (without added sugar or hydrogenated oil)
   • avocado
   • products with omegas

A sample meal might be a chicken breast, 1 cup of cooked brown rice, and a good portion size of vegetables. When you wake up, you could eat a bagel with peanut butter, milk, and an apple.

So there you have it, those are the staples that your muscle gaining/bulking diet consists of. Chicken and rice should be a constant. I prepare my chicken for a week or so at a time on the George Foreman grill and get microwavable brown rice that is easy to make. Then heat that up for lunch and I’m good to go. You get great protein and carbs in that kind of meal.

I realize this list does not contain the most appetizing of food choices, but building the body you desire and that others admire is much more important than satisfying your taste buds and cravings. A saying I love is you should eat for fuel, not for taste. After a while, you get used to it and it’s much better seeing muscle being built where there was once skin and bones. So suck it up, don’t complain and be a man and eat this food!

Another aspect I should mention is that of water intake. You need to be getting about a gallon of water everyday if you’re around 200 lbs. Keep drinking water until your urine is clear. Yes, it’s annoying to keep having to go to the bathroom, but you gotta do what it takes and drinking that much water keeps you regular and helps carry all those nutrients you’ll be taking in to your muscles. Drinking water heavily is important, so it’s best to cut out coffee, tea, juices and cokes. I drink water and skim milk for about 95% of my liquids. It’s ok to cheat every once in a while too on liquid and food, just don’t get carried away.

Always stick to your diet and keep drinking that water and remember, nothing tastes as good as looking your best feels.

Our top rated muscle building program is Vince DelMonte’s No Nonsense Muscle Building. Yes, it has a nice nutritional section and gives you the information you want to know about dieting for a bulk.

The deadlift is one of the kings of muscle building exercises.

Photo credit: alizinha

In your quest to to put on muscle, all exercises are not created equally. If you want to make the most efficient use of your time in the gym and get your dream body as soon as naturally possible, you need to perform free-range, compound exercises and the best of the best for each muscle group are listed below. So forget the “machines”, man up, and hit the REAL weights.

Calves - Standing Calf Raises

You can use your body weight for these or if you have a machine at your gym, that will work too. This movement is easy, lift up and down on your toes to emphasize the calf muscles.

Quads - Barbell Squats

For squats, deadlifts, and stiff-legged deads, you should search for a video on youtube for the proper form. It’s better to see them than to read about these three.

Hamstrings – Stiff-Legged Deadlifts

Lower Back – Deadlifts

Back - Dumbbell Rows

With your left knee/leg on a flat bench, and the other on the floor behind you, grab a dumbbell with your right arm and your palm facing toward your body. Pull it straight up almost into your armpit. Your left arm is out in front of you grabbing on the bench for balance. Your back should be straight, not curved when doing this lift.

Traps - Shrugs (Dumbbell or Barbell)

It’s best to use lifting straps for these. Grab a barbell about shoulder width apart or so, and let the bar hang while standing straight up. This is your starting position. From here, pull your shoulders up with the emphasis focusing on your trapezius muscles. Just go straight up and down inline with gravity. Do not go at an angle or roll your shoulders once you get to the top. Straight up and down is all you need for shrugs. It’s a great exercise.

Shoulders - Seated Dumbbell Military Press

Sit down on a bench that has a back to it. Grab the dumbbells with an overhand grip and hold them above your shoulders with palms forward making a 90 degree angle with your arms. Press upwards over your head until arms are nearly locked and then lower back down to starting position. Don’t touch the dumbbells together at the top. Stop just short of that.

Chest - Flat Bench Press

Lay back on a bench-press bench face up, and grab the bar off the rack with an overhand grip that is slightly wider than your shoulders. Lower the bar to the around your nipples and then push back up until your arms are almost locked out at the top. It’s not necessary to come all the way down where the bar actually hits your chest. Leave a few inches of space and then push back up. Spotters are good here when you are going for your max or lifting a weight that you haven’t done before. For the most part, you can go without a spotter since you will know your limits and you should be able to judge when your last rep is and you should not try to push it beyond that. That’s a good way to get pinned underneath the bar!

Biceps - Barbell Curl

Stand straight up with your feet shoulder width apart and grab a barbell with your palms facing out and about shoulder width. Start at the bottom with your elbows fully extended by your side and curl the bar up. It’s best to keep your elbows pointed towards the floor and your back as straight as possible, but it’s ok to move them a little to get the last couple reps in.

Triceps - Cable Tricep Extensions

Get a rope extension and attach it to the top of a cable machine. Grab the rope on both side with your palms facing towards each other and start at the top. Your fists should be out in front of your shoulders now. Extend all the way down and lock out your elbows. Smoothly raise your fists back up to the starting position.

Forearms - Seated Barbell Wrist Curls
Get a small weighted barbell, and sit at the end of a bench. With your wrists resting on your knees and palms facing up, extend the barbell out towards your fingers, and curl it back with your wrists. You should feel a good flex in your forearms.

To avoid injury, be sure to use perfect form and lighter weight at the beginning of your routine until you get the hang of it. Then gradually increase the weight as long as you can maintain your form. If you’re out of the gym with an injury, you can’t keep building your dream body, so make sure you can lift the weight while using good technique.

Search on youtube for videos of these exercises being performed properly.

The reason these compound exercises are better than the machine versions is that you use more of your overall muscles to lift the free weights. The more muscle you stimulate, the more will grow. With machines, you’re usually restricted to a fixed plain of movement based on one muscle group (like a bicep curl machine for instance). This is ok, but definitely NOT ideal or efficient for skinny guys trying to pack on as much muscle as they can. With free weights like the deadlift or squat, you are using your thighs, glutes, and back and this tells your body to use more muscle to lift the weight and it will respond much more than a leg press machine for example.

These exercises are the staple for any bulking and muscle building program. The top rated muscle building guide we recommend is Vince DelMonte’s No Nonsense Muscle Building. This will work as long as you stay disciplined and follow it as Sean has laid it out for you in his guide. He uses these exercises in the program so it does follow the tenets of building muscle by using compound, free weight exercises.

You must have a clear mental image of where you’re going before you begin.

Photo credit: edwardrodriguez

Humor me for a second. Imagine you just won the lottery. Congratulations! You first order of business is to take a well-deserved dream vacation. I want you to think seriously about this: How exactly would you go about planning for this fantastic getaway? I bet you would start by thinking of all the places in the world that you have always wanted to travel to but never had the money. With that not stopping you anymore, you might want to visit Switzerland for a mountain retreat, or perhaps to Fiji to soak up the sun on the beach for a week. But before you do anything about the details of the vacation, like book a flight or find a hotel, you must first have a set destination in your mind that you want to visit. So what does bodybuilding have to do with vacation planning? A lot really.

When people they decide on changing something in their lives, too many of them just start without having any idea or clear plan of action. To apply this to gaining muscle, they simply start at the beginning without seeing the overall picture and just do some useless routine they saw in a bodybuilding magazine at the grocery store. They give no thought as to WHY they even want to do this, or what the end will be. Getting the body of your dreams starts in your head, and lives there. You must know why you even desire to change your body and have a clear picture of what you will look like as well as the numerical values for the physique you want. In much the same way that you can not plan a vacation without knowing your destination, you can not expect to be successful in building your body without this knowledge firmly planted in your thoughts.

In order to increase the likelihood of seeing your dream physique become reality, let’s start by finding out why you would even consider putting yourself through this transformational process and all the hard times you will surely encounter. Take it from someone who has been there, you will need the extra motivation on those mornings when you would rather sleep in an extra hour than get up out of your warm, comfortable bed to go lift. This motivation comes from figuring out your Why. You need a solid reason so you’ll keep at this and eat your meals consistently for the next six months or until you reach your desired weight. The good news is that it does get a little easier as you see results, but building that momentum from nothing is hard at first. Whether you’re fed up with being the skinny guy who’s afraid to take off his shirt, or you want to attract more women or just want to change for yourself, you’ll need a very strong impetus to get the momentum going. Just think about this and come up with your Why. It will help you tremendously when you feel like giving in to laziness.

You know you should have a strong reason for wanting to start this journey, and now you should know what you are going to look like at the end, at which point, you will work on maintaining, but that is a whole different situation. I want you to go to the advanced search page on the Bodyspace website. From there, enter your sex and in the “Body Stats” section, choose your height and a range for the weight that you think you might like to end up at. For example, I would choose male, 6′2″ and a weight range of 200 – 230. This will allow me to see people that have a body similar to what I want to look like eventually. It gives me a clear idea of what is possible and what I am capable of achieving.

Once you have that crystal clear mental photo, you need to create an affirmation. This is a simple saying that you can memorize and recite at least once a day. My affirmation is as follows: “I’m ecstatic and joyful that I weigh 220 pounds and have 5% bodyfat. My chest is protruding and hard. I can clearly see the razor sharp definition in my cut, six-pack abs. My arms and shoulders are huge. My back is wide and muscular. My thighs are developed and ripped. My thighs are like tree trunks.” I have this memorized and say it when I feel lazy or like not eating something I know I should be. I also visualize the body parts as I say them. Use that as an idea of what to make your affirmation say that fits for you.

With your mental image and affirmation handy, you now know your destination and can begin focusing on the details of how to get there. These details include figuring out which training routine you will use in the gym and the nutrition plan you need to gain weight. As long as you have a solid reason why you want to change your body along with a clear mental image and the weight that you would like to be at the end, pretty much any “skinny guy” workout program will allow you to see noticeable gains. Just remember, that it’s all on you to stay disciplined and follow the guide that you decide on. Our #1 rated product recommended for skinny guys is Vince DelMonte’s No Nonsense Muscle Building. Check out our findings on this guide.

Good luck in your bodybuilding journey. See you in the gym!