First off I’m not a professional or some kind of body building machine.  However I do know the science of a good diet and workout.  Just trying to help people without them having to invest in some bogus program.  I’ve tried to make things as simple as possible.  Most choices will be left to you the reader

Introduction

Before saying anything I’m going to tell you the exact same thing I tell everybody.  This is not a physical challenge.  No, this is a mental challenge, so if you can’t tell yourself to refuse specific foods or if you can’t tell yourself that you will be consistent with working out then DO NOT waste my time.  Nothing can be more annoying than have someone ask for your advice and then ignore it. 

You need to prepare to cut things out of your diet while you will be adding other foods/supplements to your diet.  I’m sorry, but pizza, Hamburgers, fries, and most pastas are horrible diet choices for people who are cutting, so yeah you’re cutting that shit out.

Speaking of cutting, this is a term that you will become very aware of in the coming future if you decide to do this.  The word diet often confuses people.  When people hear the word diet they often time believe that it is a word that is made for losing weight.  In fact most programs including P90X, GSP Rushfit, and Insanity is made for losing weight.  After all, obesity is running rampant across the world so there is a lot of money to be made with these programs.  But wait, what about the people who want to build muscle and gain weight?  This is why I’m here for you.  I will be explaining the “simple rules” to follow for gaining weight or losing weight depending on which one you want.  These are known as cutting and bulking which I will explain in a moment.  Many gym rats gets stereotyped as having no brains, but I can assure you that working out is a mental struggle and a science to many.

Body Types

The three body types are very beneficial with understanding the workout and diet that you need.  There is three body types that you will fall under.  Ectomorph, mesomorph, and an endomorph.  Don’t worry if none of these fit your body type exactly asyou can fall under a mix between two.

Ectomorph

This is why I stated earlier that the over popular dieting word for losing weight is annoying and misleads many people.   An ectomorph is someone who has a small/thin body frame.  They can often times wrap their hand completely around their wrist and have a tough time gaining weight.  This is due to a high basal metabolic rate.  It is hard to gain weight for ectomorphs simply because they burn most of their energy just to survive on a daily basis.

Mesomorph

Many people would consider mesomorphs to be the luckiest between the three.  And in ways they very much are.  Mesomorphs have no problem packing on weight or losing weight making them the ideal body types for body builders.  They have broad shoulders and a medium body frame.

Endomorph

Endomorphs are often times the ones who are targeted in weight loss programs along with mesomorphs.  Endomorphs have a slow metabolism and often times have a short stocky body. Due to a low metabolism they gain weight very easily.

Cutting and Basic Metabolic Rate

Cutting comes from the term losing weight and trying to achieve a low body percentage while keeping as much muscle as possible (Unless you’re a woman then you may not be trying to add muscle).  You do not need some fancy diet or some fancy workout.  In fact this is extremely easy.  The most important thing to do is to have the mentality that you can do it.  To keep things simple a cut requires you to burn more calories (Energy) than you consume. 

What many people don’t seem to understand is that you are burning calories every second of the day.  This is call the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).  BMR is simply put how much calories you need daily to survive.  Everybody has a BMR that is required to survive daily.  To find out your BMR look up a BMR Calculator online and type in your height, age, etc to find out your BMR. 

After finding out your BMR and seeing how much energy you consume on a daily basis you should now be able to see how much food you should be eating.  Working out while consuming your BMR or under will allow you to burn even more energy to lose weight. (Burn more than you consume)

There is a catch though.  Let’s say you want to lose weight but you don’t want to lose muscle.  I know that those programs like P90X makes it look like you are gaining muscle while losing a ton of fat but in reality is that chances are you lost muscle while losing fat.  In fact you always had that muscle in the first place, you just never could see it before because it was buried under a layer of fat.  This also applies to abdominal muscles.  Every single person has abs, they do not appear because you do crunches or situps.  They appear because you have a low body fat percentage.  It is simple.  To lose weight you will also be losing muscle.  There is no ifs and or buts about it, this will happen.  To keep as much as your muscle as possible you will need to consume a lot of protein.  Try consuming your body weight in protein a day.  You may need to get some protein powder but this will help.    Also an important note is to drink a lot of water to flush out your kidneys.  Protein is hard on your kidneys so this is a must.  Also consume as little carbs as you possibly can.

Cut Diet

Try foods such as Chicken, Fish, Turkey, and other clean meats.  Don’t go out eating steak or hamburgers as they also have way too much fat in them.  Get use to eating vegetable, lean meats such as chicken, turkey, and fish.  Don’t consume much sugar as eating anything in excess will automatically transfer to fat.  Get use to calorie counting for your BMR and more importantly get use to learning what is in the calorie.  All calories are not treated equally.  You don’t want a ton of shit fat calories in your food for example.  However fat is also important in your diet and is important to survive.  Simple rule is, don’t consume Saturated and Trans fats.  On the other hand Polyunsaturated and Monounsaturated Fats is good for you.  These are usually found in things such as olive oil or Nuts.

Rules for Cutting

1.  Burn more calories than your BMR
2.  Exercise (Depending on your goal it may be varied)
3.  Eat Lean meats, vegetables, and protein supplements
4. Drink a lot of Water
5.  Avoid Saturated Fats, Trans Fats, and Sugar.

Bulking

The bulk diet is for people looking to gain weight or more importantly muscle.  This is where most ectomorphs struggle.    Just like cutting, while you are bulking you should eat clean foods, though you do have a little more leverage this time around.  Why?  Because it is the opposite of cutting.  Instead of burning more than your BMR you will be consuming more than your BMR.  Precisely 400 more calories than your BMR.  600 more calories if you are still having trouble gaining weight.  In this phase you will also gain a fat. There is no avoiding it and this is why it important to eat clean foods.  To gain as little fat as possible you will need to eat clean foods.

Bulk Diet

You will still be avoiding bad fats and sugar but you will need to consume a little more protein this time around. Lets say you are 130 lbs and you want to be 150 lbs.  This means you will be consuming about 150 grams of protein to gain that 20 lbs.  Muscle is hard to gain so this may take more than a year to gain actually.  Don’t fall in to the hype that you can gain 20 lbs of solid muscle in a few months. I can help you but I’m not magic either.  You can now eat foods such as steak and Hamburger but it is also important to make sure the meat is as lean as possible.  For example try to buy 97% lean beef. You can also eat some pasta this time around that will have carbs.  Carbs is used for energy so it is ok. Carbs are allowed a little more this time.

Rules for Bulking

1. Consume more Calories than you Burn
2.  Lift Heavy and Increase Weight Weekly
3. Eat Lean Foods
4. Drink a lot of Water
5.  Avoid Saturated Fats, Trans Fats, and Sugar

Cut Workouts

When cutting it isn’t uncommon to lose strength due to less energy.  Once again I will leave this as simple as possible.  If you are aiming for keeping muscle you will need to workout 3-5 times a week while lifting heavy.  Use core exercises such as Bench Press, Squats, Pull-ups, etc.  Try and target each part of your body.  I prefer full body workouts but it is up to you on what type of workouts you are looking for.  A few to look into is Full body workouts and Splits.  Nothing fancy is needed.  Just lift heavy and eat correctly.

On the other hand if you are just trying to lose fat and don’t care about muscle(This usually applies to women more often) then your primary workouts should be cardio vascular exercises.  Once again, nothing fancy is needed.  In fact when do cardio exercises I usually do a 30/30 against a wall.  A 30/30 is High Intensity Interval Training(HIIT) which is by far my favorites.  There is many different kinds of HIIT’s  but these are for short bursts of cardio while maximizing calories burned through something called the afterburn effect.  You don’t need to run for hours a day.  To keep things simple, tricking your heart rate will allow you to burn more calories even after exercising.  Most HIIT’s take less than 10 minutes, some less than 5 minutes.

Bulk Workouts.

Once again get use to lifting heavy with core exercises 3-5 times a week.  Try increasing weight lifted each week to gain power and muscle.  This is the most important thing to do while bulking.  Other than that it is all mental.


End Results

Track your body fat percentage and weight.  There is plenty of ways to do this professionally and unprofessionally.  Make sure to keep your mentality up and stay consistent.  If you can do all these I can promise you that you will see results.  Good luck to everyone.

Did you write this? This is very well written and the information is all very accurate. The only thing I will say is the saturated fat bit is incorrect. Saturated fats are traditionally blamed for disease when in reality they aren't harmful for you in the same manner that it is thought. In fact, your heart and brain use saturated fats for food, energy and lubrication.

You can read about it on google. Here's one article talking about the accusations about saturated fats:

http://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recipes/healthy-eating/nutrition/good-and-bad-fats/

Yes I did.  And I'll definitely check into it.  Either way it should be kept in a low amount I would assume.  I've read somewhere before that Sat fats can help with muscle gains due to increased Testosterone so I may need to look more into that.

After doing a little more research on Sat fats and getting some mixed results (Mostly saying bad) i've come to the conclusion that you should have a low amount of Sat fat (Very low)

Why?  Because it is a regular thing for Sat fats to be in junk foods and will add extra unneccessary weight.  Plenty of good foods does have some sat fat in it like steak for example.  So I would say determine what is good foods and bad foods.  At any rate I'd try to keep sat fat as low as possible, especially on a cut.

This is a nice beginner's guide. I decided to start being healthy and resolve to get fit around 9 months ago, and have lost almost 30 pounds since then. BMI is 19.5, and fat % somewhere in the range of 14 or 15

Very well written Jay!

Been a gym addict myself since I joined the Air Force (February). It's amazing what a free gym on base and nothing else to do does to contribute to good health. Since I'm fairly new so any advice you could give me what be great. I don't calorie count, I kind of just gage what I'm eating. I do eat very healthy though. 3 good sized meals per day with a couple snacks in between. Fruits and vegetables at every meal. Good proteins (chicken, fish, turkey). I avoid pig like bacon and sausage as they're high in fat. Also avoid steak.

As for supplements, I take in the morning: vitamin c, b12, l-tyrosine (amazing). Before every meal I take a CLA supplement and garcinia cambogia. They help with basic metabolism, managing good/bad fats, and apatite control. Post work I take 2 scoops of 100% whey (25g). Before bed 2 scoops of 100% casein (25g).

Been revising my workout routine for the last 6 months. Current doing splits. 5 days a week of weights. Days for arms (bi, tri, fore), back, chest, shoulders, and legs. 6th day is cardio/abs which has some cross fit stuff as well. 7th is rest although I might have 2 rest days if I'm feel really sore.

Truly informative and a very helping post inorder to either gain or loose weight,,

And I'm sure that this would really help me to loose my excess fat, lately I hope that I'll get to read more such post in future.

Good post, but I disagree w/ some of the things stated after a good 20-years of doing this both personally and professionally (tho my conclusions are certainly not drawn in a vacuum which you'll discover if you do some basic research):

1. Always eat *more* than you think you need for bulking. When I was nineteen (long, long ago), I tried to play the lean bulk game (which is what the OP seems to be advising) and I ended up basically 'starving' myself of gains. The minute I added about 50% over BMR my gains exploded (they'll be more pronounced for those of you that are a. young and b. not used to eating a lot due to the hormonal shifts involved in sudden over-eating--in fact, if you're under about 23 and do about 50% (yes, 50%) more cals/day, you'll probably get steroid-like results*).

Remember: BMR is what your body uses if you're lying on your back all day, not moving--*no one* burns this few calories a day, even the bed-ridden, so you need substantially more to pack on muscle.

2. You do *not* need to work out, with weights, for more than 20-30 mins a day. You need to familiarize yourself with three movements: bench press (or dips), squats, and deadlifts (there are different variations of all of these, mind you). *Everything* beyond these exercises is supplemental and, if push comes to shove, unnecessary, i.e. if you can only do one, you do these. (You also don't need to do more than one of these a week, BUT if you're younger, you can probably try for twice since you're in a perfect metabolic zone for putting on muscle.)

An important bonus in training in this fashion is that it's a. quick and b. you are A LOT less likely to quit if you're only spending 20 mins in the gym every other day.

3. *Always* train in a reverse pyramid--that is, always do the *heaviest* set first, then succeeding sets are slightly lighter than the first. (Frankly, I do 2 sets of each of the major movements, per week, and that's it.) The first set is an all-out effort set, and should be a weight you can handle--without murdering yourself--for a *max* of five reps. If you can do more than that, you are *doing too little weight*. The second set should be the same as the first *minus* 10-15% of the weight on the first set which should net you roughly the same amount of reps as the first set. If you can do more, you're *doing too little weight*.

4. If you *want* to do some extra 'detail' work, you can do a secondary exercise but along the same parameters as above, e.g. on back day you do deadlifts then do chin-ups (palms facing you). *Never* do this exercise first--always do squats/deads/dips first on their respective days.

Why?: because those exercises recruit the most muscle fibers and, therefore, are the most efficient way to train.

Supplements: creatine is a must, and there are a few others worth taking, but most of it is either junk or not sufficiently supported by empirical evidence to make taking it worth the cash. (If money is no object, however...)

Summation: Yes, I know: this is not the conventional wisdom but, as is always the case w/ CW, it's almost always wrong or off by an order of magnitude.

(Plus, a personal trainer that charges by the hour is NOT going to tell you you only need to be in the gym for 20-30 mins/day, so get the 45-60 mins--or more--arbitrary value out of your head now.)

Note: one caveat; if you are training as an elite athlete *obviously* you will need to do more 'detail' work. My advice is *only* for those looking to gain functional and cosmetic muscle, not to become a champion decathlete. But dont kid yourself: following this training regimen *will* make you *much* stronger and bigger.

*Mind you, there will be plenty of fat hypertrophy as well, but this way you're guaranteeing you get ever pound of muscle you can--you can worry about the fat later when you're cutting (unless you are a true mesomorph, in which case you are almost certainly not reading this thread at all).

(I'm not going into cutting at all because that's a whole 'nother can of creatine...)

(IF you have questions, please PM me--I'm not here enough to follow-up on this w/o prompting.)

Didn't read the entire post, but as far as the bit about gaining, and if you weight 150 lbs you do not need to intake 150grams of protein per day. Probably somewhere somewhere around 100 is more than enough for a number of reasons. Firstly it's 1 gram of protein per pound of muscle. Second your body can only absorb or use a certain amount of protein in one sitting. Therefore if you need an intake of 100grams per day, but eat 50-60 grams in one sitting you wont see much results as your body can only typically absorb about 25-35. So you'd be better off eating 5 meals that contain 20-25 grams per meal. The excess protain your body will piss away or something. If a person is looking to bulk carbs are far more important than protein, and infact most people will make the mistake of eating nothing but chicken breast and tuna, but will neglect carbs.

There are a few other mistakes, but I wont get into them. If you want to bulk, eat lots of carbs and adequate amount of protein, and incorporate plenty of compound lifts into your routine, as well as making sure to work one large muscle on days you're focusing on small muscles in order to get the best gain. IE dead lifts the day you work biceps will lead to better results and so forth.

Good posts guys ^

If you read this thread id advise you to also take in what these other guys are saying. ECM definitely knows what he is talking about it seems so read through his fosho.

Oh and yes i agree with creatine.  Creatine is a must, one of the best supplements easily.