How To Put On Weight? Change Your Thinking

As a professional fitness personal trainer, I am always amazed by the skepticism and pessimism of my skinny (hard gainer) clients when engaging my services to help them gain muscle weight. During my first meeting with such potential clients, they will pose me questions like:-

1) I have been skinny all my life and have been eating a lot, but can’t ever seem to be able to gain weight, what makes you think you can help me to put on weight?

2) Everyone in my family is thin and therefore I am genetically programed to be a hard gainer. So, how sure are you that can help me put on muscle weight? Is it wise to go against my genetics?

c) I have taken all many of weight gainer supplements and have worked out with weights very often without putting on any muscles or extra weight, what makes you so sure you can help me put on weight?

I honestly can’t blame them for being so skeptical because the fact is that they were really skinny and had been trying to get fatter or more muscular without much success. However, it is also because of this negative thinking which is the primary cause of their weihgt problem.

When I started to train them and at the same time change their beliefs, and then when they start to see improvement on their physiques, you can see the overwhelming joy on their faces and gratitude they shower me with. Those were very pleasant experiences indeed.

Now, you may probably heard or the Law of Attraction (LOA)? Simply put, the law of attraction can be defined as “you will get or be what you think or focused on”. This is a simplified definition but the point is made.

Every thought that you think has a meaning that you have attached to it is represented by mental pictures and emotions which are just forms of energy. As you ‘think’ or talk to yourself (self chatter), your mind is defining these words simultaneously. Because we believe in the thoughts that we think and say to be our truths, our minds are continually working to find evidence to reinforce these beliefs.

Henry Ford known to have famously said, “If you think you can, then you can. If you think you can’t, then you are also right”. Therefore, if you think that you can’t gain weight or muscle, then you can’t because after a few feeble attempts, your mind will tell you that it is difficult for you to gain weight and you gave up without searching for other methods to help you to gain weight.

You mind is sabotaging yourself. Since our thoughts are energies and the law of attraction states that energy attracts like energy, you will start to attract more of the same type of energy negative thoughts to you that will confirm what you are thinking. Here are more of the self defeating thoughts that will prevent you from gaining weight.

1) It is not possible for me to gain muscle weight

2) I will never have an attractive body

c) I will never be able to gain weight

You know what? These negative thoughts can be so imbedded into your subconscious that your body believes and obey every thought that you think!!

“Every change in the physiological state is accompanied by an appropriate change in the mental emotional state, conscious or unconscious, and conversely, every change in the mental emotional state, conscious or unconscious, is accompanied by an appropriate change in the physiological state” – Dr Candice Pert, Ph. D.

“It is well known by scientists that when a person has a thought, a chemical presence or reaction occurs, and neuropeptides, the chemical correlates of thought, become detectable. Neuropeptides not only are present in the brain but can also be found throughout the body, including the stomach, kidneys and liver. Thus a thought has a real embodied physical presence.” – Dr Fred Gallo, Ph.D and Harry Vincenzi, Ed.D

“With sensitive EMG instruments, we can show that muscles are activated when we think about anything involving action or emotion, even though there may be no visible movement. Although we do not know how thoughts are generated in the brain, it seems clear that once present, thoughts are amplified by the brain and turned into actions. Every thought we think influences millions of atoms, molecules and cells throughout the body. Besides this straightforward effect on the physical body, we know from general principles of physics that any acceleration of electrons produces some electromagnetic radiation.” – Physicist and psychologist Dr Burl Payne, Ph.D.

The same can be said of fat people who want to lose weight. It is your mind them prevents you from gaining or losing weight. Once you have gotten past these negative beliefs, I can assure you that your success is just around the corner. I am saying this with conviction because I have helped many people overcome their weight issues when they are willing to change their mindsets.

It will be very difficult to become thin if you keep thinking about being fat and by the same token, it will also be very difficult to gain muscle weight when you believe that you will not be successful doing so. If you want to change your body shape, you will have to change your thought habits. If you want to own a ripped and buffed body, then you have to start thinking exactly like the people with ripped buffed bodies think!

Unfortunately, these negative thoughts and self talks may have been with you for many years and are so deeply entrenched in your subconscious mind that even as you are reading this article, you do not believe what I am saying. Get the drift? By being skeptical about this article is the result of your unconscious mind accepting your negative believes.

Yes, I admit that it is difficult to change these deeply entrenched beliefs because you have already convinced yourself that what you think is true. So in order to gain or lose weight, you have to change these beliefs and there are many ways that you can do this such as through positive affirmations and creative visualizations, self hypotism as taught by many motivational gurus such as Anthony Robbins azs an example.

So if you are thin and you want to gain muscle weight, the first thing to do is to change your thinking about yourself.