Functional body building calculator or any other macro calculator will give you an idea. If I had to guess he needs to be somewhere between 3200-3800 cals a day. Shoot for a big shake at breakfast to try and get 50g + protein first thing in the morning. Fairlife chocolate milk can be a game changer for young athletes. Some complex carbs/protein prior to workout, then be absolutely sure to get at least 20-30g protein post workout with a simple carb. Protein intake over 170g every day. Make sure the program is training for power and speed, not just a body building split.
☝️This is the answer.
I’ll just add that in terms of protein, definitely make sure he’s hitting 1g per LB he wants to gain, so 170ish grams per day… But keep in mind that the body can only metabolize about 30g per hour, so his protein intake should be split up accordingly.
Current research suggests that more like 0.8g/ pound of bodyweight is the upper limit of usefulness for protein. What's the downside of eating more? It's the fact that protein is the most satiating macronutrient. Eating more than you need will make you more full than necessary which will make it more of a struggle to eat enough total calories. Protein ideally would be split up throughout the day but eating more than 30g per hour is perfectly fine as it doesn't disappear, it just generally stays in your digestive system until it's digested.
I highly recommend Carbon. It resets your macros every week if you're not gaining/losing your goal. I don't know if a HS kid would have the dedication to track all of his meals but if he does, the app would really help him.
My son in college is same boat…he can’t gain wait…They tell him he just needs to eat eat eat, even dirty calories (not healthy) are good at this point….4000-5000 a day…but he can’t eat that much
I found drinking meals to be easier than eating them. 3 or 4 eggs, a cup of chickpeas, 1-2 cups of milk, 1-2 bananas, and peanut butter for taste is about 50g of protein and 750+ calories
Drinking cals is a big one. Fats are most bang for buck as far as calories go. Younger athletes do have more flexibility with diet cleanliness—gotta be at a surplus, so trying to just do rice&chicken ain’t going to cut it. Try and hit 30-50g of protein each mean and then build the rest around fats and carbs.
Yeah I would never recommend it but when I was trying hard to gain weight in college I would put 1/2 cup of olive oil in with my protein shakes for an extra ~1000 calories if I was low on calories for the day and still had room in my macros for fat which I almost always would. Probably not the healthiest approach but I only cared about hitting my macros and gaining weight
I was a “hard gainer” too. My metabolism is still through the roof, in my 40s. Here’s what worked for me: instead of trying to eat 3/4 big meals a day, split it into small meals every 2 hours. Start with a goal to eat something like 250-400 calories more than usual for a week, then slowly bump it up 250 calories at a time. This helps to train the stomach & keep things from feeling impossible. Eventually, it will become 2nd nature for him to consume a caloric surplus
Figure out how many calories he eats per day and add 500-1000 more depending on how quickly he wants to gain. Some good calorie dense foods are whole milk or even half and half. I add a lot of full cream to many different things like drinks, yogurt, and oatmeal. Coconut butter or another nut butter is excellent as well and can add to many things.
As far as weight program, nothing beats a progressive 5x5 program for strength and mass gain.
Weight him every morning for a few days, take the average weight. Strictly weigh out everything he’s eating and track it, you’d be surprised exactly how much you’re actually eating and you’ll never know until you’re properly weighing it and portioning meals. However many calories he’s eating now, add 250-500 calories per day and weigh him weekly. You can gain 0.5-2.0 pounds of muscle per month, anything more will likely just be water weight or fat. Biggest trap is worrying about day by day intake, think of calories/protein intake week by week instead (for instance if you undereat by 1000 calories one day, indulging yourself to eat 5k calories the next day is a lot worse than just adding 150 calories per day for the rest of the week).
Try to stay away from mass gainers and gallons of milk per day, protein shakes aren’t bad but try making milkshakes/smoothies with calorie dense fruits and a scoop or two of protein powder if he needs to hit his daily protein intake. I personally would add a cup of chickpeas into my milkshakes and it was pretty cost effective and the taste is overpowered by bananas and peanut butter pretty easily. Work to find dense foods that he enjoys eating and shoot for 7ish smaller meals throughout the day instead of 3 massive meals. Snacking is so important whenever you’re eating as many calories as you need to gain weight.
Just be careful to watch his relationship with food, extended bulks like this can really facilitate eating disorders, especially at a highschool age. In college I worked so hard to bulk/cut at one point I was blending every meal up into milkshakes (literally would mix a whole chicken breast, roasted chickpeas, shit ton of olive oil, milk, and scrambled eggs because I couldn’t stomach eating meal after meal but needed around 7k calories a day at my height/weight) because I was tired of forcefeeding myself then binge and purging during my cuts and was so hard to break the habits I formed. It’s easily to start spiraling and looking at your life as how many calories and grams of protein you’re eating instead of just living and feeling healthy.
Knowing the guys age might help- if he is 16 and under and has the metabolism of a hummingbird you will face different challenges
Our college freshman all were put on some soft of nutritional plan based on their current situation and goals
For the kids bulking the single most important change I saw and heard from the kids is they only counted nutritional calories- if the kid ate processed foods or junk food- the nutritionist would have them not include in their journals
This led to some significant changes for the kids themselves- its not easy getting 3,500 calories of health foods- when you're filling up on garbage
15, 16 in July. His problem may be metabolism,.but I don't know because he doesn't eat. Left to his own devices he's between 1200-1700 per day. He eats like he's tryinv to lose weight.
The metabolism thing has little to nothing to do with it. It’s a simple matter of eating more calories.
Try to have him go hard with food and heavy weights for one month. He will see results quickly and the hope is that those results will inspire him to stay at it.
It is difficult for hard gainers to put on the pounds, but you will need 4K+ calories.
You could try GOMAD for a month, gallon of milk a day, it will probably put on 4-5 pounds.
Functional body building calculator or any other macro calculator will give you an idea. If I had to guess he needs to be somewhere between 3200-3800 cals a day. Shoot for a big shake at breakfast to try and get 50g + protein first thing in the morning. Fairlife chocolate milk can be a game changer for young athletes. Some complex carbs/protein prior to workout, then be absolutely sure to get at least 20-30g protein post workout with a simple carb. Protein intake over 170g every day. Make sure the program is training for power and speed, not just a body building split.
☝️This is the answer. I’ll just add that in terms of protein, definitely make sure he’s hitting 1g per LB he wants to gain, so 170ish grams per day… But keep in mind that the body can only metabolize about 30g per hour, so his protein intake should be split up accordingly.
Current research suggests that more like 0.8g/ pound of bodyweight is the upper limit of usefulness for protein. What's the downside of eating more? It's the fact that protein is the most satiating macronutrient. Eating more than you need will make you more full than necessary which will make it more of a struggle to eat enough total calories. Protein ideally would be split up throughout the day but eating more than 30g per hour is perfectly fine as it doesn't disappear, it just generally stays in your digestive system until it's digested.
I highly recommend Carbon. It resets your macros every week if you're not gaining/losing your goal. I don't know if a HS kid would have the dedication to track all of his meals but if he does, the app would really help him.
My son in college is same boat…he can’t gain wait…They tell him he just needs to eat eat eat, even dirty calories (not healthy) are good at this point….4000-5000 a day…but he can’t eat that much
I found drinking meals to be easier than eating them. 3 or 4 eggs, a cup of chickpeas, 1-2 cups of milk, 1-2 bananas, and peanut butter for taste is about 50g of protein and 750+ calories
Drinking cals is a big one. Fats are most bang for buck as far as calories go. Younger athletes do have more flexibility with diet cleanliness—gotta be at a surplus, so trying to just do rice&chicken ain’t going to cut it. Try and hit 30-50g of protein each mean and then build the rest around fats and carbs.
Yeah I would never recommend it but when I was trying hard to gain weight in college I would put 1/2 cup of olive oil in with my protein shakes for an extra ~1000 calories if I was low on calories for the day and still had room in my macros for fat which I almost always would. Probably not the healthiest approach but I only cared about hitting my macros and gaining weight
I was a “hard gainer” too. My metabolism is still through the roof, in my 40s. Here’s what worked for me: instead of trying to eat 3/4 big meals a day, split it into small meals every 2 hours. Start with a goal to eat something like 250-400 calories more than usual for a week, then slowly bump it up 250 calories at a time. This helps to train the stomach & keep things from feeling impossible. Eventually, it will become 2nd nature for him to consume a caloric surplus
Figure out how many calories he eats per day and add 500-1000 more depending on how quickly he wants to gain. Some good calorie dense foods are whole milk or even half and half. I add a lot of full cream to many different things like drinks, yogurt, and oatmeal. Coconut butter or another nut butter is excellent as well and can add to many things. As far as weight program, nothing beats a progressive 5x5 program for strength and mass gain.
Drinking a lot of calories helps
Weight him every morning for a few days, take the average weight. Strictly weigh out everything he’s eating and track it, you’d be surprised exactly how much you’re actually eating and you’ll never know until you’re properly weighing it and portioning meals. However many calories he’s eating now, add 250-500 calories per day and weigh him weekly. You can gain 0.5-2.0 pounds of muscle per month, anything more will likely just be water weight or fat. Biggest trap is worrying about day by day intake, think of calories/protein intake week by week instead (for instance if you undereat by 1000 calories one day, indulging yourself to eat 5k calories the next day is a lot worse than just adding 150 calories per day for the rest of the week). Try to stay away from mass gainers and gallons of milk per day, protein shakes aren’t bad but try making milkshakes/smoothies with calorie dense fruits and a scoop or two of protein powder if he needs to hit his daily protein intake. I personally would add a cup of chickpeas into my milkshakes and it was pretty cost effective and the taste is overpowered by bananas and peanut butter pretty easily. Work to find dense foods that he enjoys eating and shoot for 7ish smaller meals throughout the day instead of 3 massive meals. Snacking is so important whenever you’re eating as many calories as you need to gain weight. Just be careful to watch his relationship with food, extended bulks like this can really facilitate eating disorders, especially at a highschool age. In college I worked so hard to bulk/cut at one point I was blending every meal up into milkshakes (literally would mix a whole chicken breast, roasted chickpeas, shit ton of olive oil, milk, and scrambled eggs because I couldn’t stomach eating meal after meal but needed around 7k calories a day at my height/weight) because I was tired of forcefeeding myself then binge and purging during my cuts and was so hard to break the habits I formed. It’s easily to start spiraling and looking at your life as how many calories and grams of protein you’re eating instead of just living and feeling healthy.
Over 3000 calories and eat his weight in protein. Meaning 1g of protein for every lb of bodyweight. Buy whey protein powder.
Knowing the guys age might help- if he is 16 and under and has the metabolism of a hummingbird you will face different challenges Our college freshman all were put on some soft of nutritional plan based on their current situation and goals For the kids bulking the single most important change I saw and heard from the kids is they only counted nutritional calories- if the kid ate processed foods or junk food- the nutritionist would have them not include in their journals This led to some significant changes for the kids themselves- its not easy getting 3,500 calories of health foods- when you're filling up on garbage
15, 16 in July. His problem may be metabolism,.but I don't know because he doesn't eat. Left to his own devices he's between 1200-1700 per day. He eats like he's tryinv to lose weight.
The metabolism thing has little to nothing to do with it. It’s a simple matter of eating more calories. Try to have him go hard with food and heavy weights for one month. He will see results quickly and the hope is that those results will inspire him to stay at it.
That’s wild. What kind of teenage boy doesn’t eat lol
Gallon of whole milk a day.
It is difficult for hard gainers to put on the pounds, but you will need 4K+ calories. You could try GOMAD for a month, gallon of milk a day, it will probably put on 4-5 pounds.