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First of all, a quick disclaimer, this is only for educational purposes and I cannot be held liable if you try this at home and suffer some type of injury or sickness after following this post.
I have posted countless times on MarineOCS.com on how to gain weight if you are overly skinny but the question always comes up every once in a while. Here is a guide to gain weight and it applies to everyone who feels he has a “fast metabolism”, is a “hard gainer” or simply doesn’t feel he is as big and strong as he should be.
Back in June 2008, after I had started training for OCS (mostly running) for a few weeks, I had found myself getting leaner and leaner (from running so much while eating the same amount of food). I was basically skin and bone at 5 foot 10 and 125 lbs. Back then, I did not know anything about the science of gaining or losing weight. Since a year ago, I have added over 20 lbs, I am now 5 foot 10 and 146 lbs and increasing almost every week. Still lean but fairly decent since I lost nearly 10 lbs while I was at OCS back in Fall 2008. So it is POSSIBLE. Don’t think that because you have been skinny all your life, you are bound to stay that way the rest of your life. The only things you need to accomplish your goal are motivation and dedication.
Food Intake: Eating is at least 80% of all the work. Is it a surprise? There is no magical formula: You need to intake more calories than you spend each and every day. Depending on factors such as size, level of activity and what not, your body consumes between 2300 and 2500 calories a day on average. This means you need to eat 2300 to 2500 calories a day simply to maintain your weight. How do you gain weight, you need to pile extra-calories on top of those 2500 calories. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 3000 calories a day, that is an extra 500 calories. You need 3500 extra calories to gain a pound, hence you would gain a pound a week eating 3000 calories a day (500 x 7 = 3500).
Now, you may wonder why you are not gaining weight while you feel like you are stuffing yourself. The human body is extremely good at regulating your hunger so that you maintain your “normal” body weight over the long run. You have to push through this and eat more than you ever had, and not just in the course of one day, but in the course of months and months of eating more than you would like! Don’t get me wrong, you have to want it really bad!!! Instead of eating 3 times a day, you will need to eat 5 or 6 times smaller portions. You want to have food in your stomach continuously. You will want to puke but you will keep eating, day-in and day-out. This is the extent you will need to reach to start gaining weight!
In terms of what to eat, you need to eat a balanced and nutritious diet day-in and day-out. This means very little cheap calories from junk food. You want to have a solid amount of veggies and vegetables, eat lean meat, whole grains, and avoid processed food. You want to avoid fat and get your fat from olive oil, fish oil and nuts. I am not a proponent of mass gainers and other types of supplements. You want to go as natural as possible. You only have one body, take care of it as much as possible. I used to use whey protein and it helps but it’s definitely not a must. Drinking oversized servings of milk also help pack on the calories.
One thing that skinny people often slack on is breakfast. I use to not eat breakfast. Breakfast is HUGE. You want to get as much calories as possible in the morning so it’s easier the rest of the day to reach your daily goal.
Finally, you want to drink plenty of water. Up to a gallon a day. Hydration is continuous and I almost always wake up in the middle of the night to take a leak and hydrate.
Working-out Eating is 80% of the work, pumping iron is the other 20% unless you want to turn into a big ball of fat. You will need to cut back on the cardio if you are doing any. What you want to focus on is lifting heavy weights and gaining muscle mass. Don’t use machines, they will make you injury-prone. Real men use free weights. It might be humbling to start at really low weights but you are doing it right, and no one give a rat’s ass OK?
There is three main exercises for the skinny guy that are must-do because they are compound exercises that use your largest muscle groups:
- Deadlift: Deadlifting will help you build your lower back - Squat: The squat works your biggest muscles, your thighs and your butt!!! Most important of all exercises - Bench press: Dumbell press is the way to go and work your chest, shoulders and triceps
Then work on whatever muscles you feel like working on that day (yea your favorite exercise the biceps curl if you want). Hit the gym three times a week. Allow two days of consecutive rest a week. Example: M W F and rest on the other days.
Pullups: 21… Pullups always been easy even after adding 15 lbs Crunches: 99. Hit 70 in less than one minute, then I was toast. Should have gone for 71 ;p 3-Mile run: 23:45. This freaking ruined my day. I wasn’t expecting a record-breaking run because I hadn’t run that kind of distance since 6 months ago but wow that sucked. It’s was somewhat shocking how painful it was for such a slow time. At least, my shins didn’t give me any problem.
Candidate: AAAAAAAAAAAH! OMG A LEAF IS FUSED TO MY FACE
Just saw this picture. This gave me a good laugh but also some memories about when I did it. Honestly, I was scared shitless but I did it and will do it again. This one isn’t even half submerged, my culvert was completely submerged.
Stress fractures are fairly common among military recruits and a few candidates always leave OCS with those. I will describe my symptoms so it might help you to know whether you might have them or not. My stress fractures most likely started from shin splints, and it might be initially difficult to distinguish between the twos. You will know you have a stress fracture if you experience some or all of those symptoms: - Dull pain at rest, feels like a bruise - Ice/rest doesn’t seem to improve the situation - Pain may seem to have gone away early in the day after a night of sleep only to come back: I would wake up and the pain would be seemingly gone but we would march to the chow hall, eat, I would stand up, and my legs would be extremely sore from that point on. - Uncomfortable sensation when running/jumping: Felt like a bruise when I ran. Jumping was painful - Intense pain immediately after you stop running: Excruciating throbbing pain running through the entire length of my legs right after a run. That’s how I knew something was wrong… - Limping, knee, foot soreness: I was limping very badly and I thought my right knee was actually messed up
Update: It’s been about 8 weeks for me since. Everything was fine until I decided to push it a little more… A couple hours of pickup basketball games. Now my shins feel … sore. I don’t think it’s anything bad though.
Best: - Saturday afternoon: Knowing that you will be able to go off-base, get an hotel room, and some good chow without anyone yelling at you is priceless. Most of that time was spent talking on the phone, eating, and taking care of your body. Some people also study for the upcoming week but I never really had any issues to assimilate the academic stuff. - Chow: Chow time was happy time although early on, all the yelling was a bit disconcerting. Sit down for a few minutes and just stuff food into your system as fast as you can. Most candidates will tell you that they live from chow to chow. That’s a way to look at it.
Worse: - Coming back from Liberty on Sunday evening: This is by far the worse thing about OCS and makes you almost wish you had no libo to begin with. The reality sets in that you will have to survive another week until next Saturday afternoon. You looked at the schedule and it seems so far away, PT sessions, field events, academic tests. You can often see it on some candidate’s face but then all you can do is saddle up and take on the challenges. - Eating only 3 times a day: This is truly horrible and definitely contributes to candidates breaking down toward the end of the 10 weeks. You will have chow around 5:20AM, before noon, and around 5:00PM which results in you starving most of the evening and night - That’s all, I think the rest is part of the OCS experience really…
Making Marines is a serious business, don’t get me wrong but the unique environment of OCS does makes for some unforgettable stories. I’ll try to share a few here that I can remember and maybe more in the future if anything comes back to me. Like most funny stories, they were that much more hilarious if you were there and may seem totally inconsequential to other people… So be it.
- First one was sometime early on, week 2 I believe. It was a hot day and we were practicing close order drills on the parade deck. After drilling for some time and seeing how nasty we were, the Sergeant Instructor (Come here Poptart!) took us in the shade below a couple trees lining the PT field, so we could hydrate and listen to his instructions. As the SI was teaching us drill, Candidate J. dropped his rifle. The SI looked at him and said “Follow it”. What ensued was one of the most hilarious moment of Delta company, 2nd platoon, OCC-199: Candidate J. wasn’t aware that he was supposed to get down to the floor and perform 10 pushups after letting his weapon fall to the ground. A long moment of silence came next, maybe 5 seconds, with Candidate J. unsure of what to do. The SI looked back at him and repeated “FOLLOW IT!”. Candidate J. then performed an oscar worthy numb-body flop to the ground. There was a moment of silence and shock at what just happened. The entire platoon fought to contain laughter while the SI had that WTF look on his face. Dan, that was freaking awesome.
- Second one was during in-processing. Somehow, I grabbed the wrong skivvy shirt or my buddy/rackmate grabbed the wrong one in the morning rush and we walked around for half a day before anyone told us we were wearing each other’s shirt marked with our names on the back for everyone to see. Everyone had a good time and thank God, it was still in-processing!
- Hearing some poor candidate from Delta 1 on the other side of the squadbay yell “Aye Aye Gunnery Sergeant” in rapid succession for over 15 minutes after lights out (Try it)
- We had one candidate who fell asleep everywhere he went to the point where it was disgraceful so I will call him Candidate Sleepy. Candidate Sleepy had the bad luck to be our first Candidate Platoon Sergeant. Let’s just say the staff really tore him a new one… every 20 minutes or so during those two days. Not only would he occasionally have our entire staff in his face, at the same time but he would attract staff from other platoon. He really did not perform well under stress and he tried to address the staff one time and he once asked permission to speak to a Gunnery Sergeant Chavez. Everyone in the platoon instantly shook their head in disgust as there was obviously no one named Gunnery Sergeant Chavez among our staff, or the entire OCS staff for that matter. Funny in a way but sometimes when someone is really screwed up, it’s not that funny at the moment…
Light Bodies: Just picture being in nearly complete darkness, having a 60-lbs pack on your pack which is nearly half your body weight, you are trying to keep pace with the guy in front of you, sometimes you can keep up with him, sometimes he takes off running like a wild animal and you have to do the same, you can’t see anything in front of you except his pack, you cannot see where you step. It’s so dark that your eyes are out of focus and you are not even able to read what time it is on your watch despite the light. Every once in a while, you step on a rock, some uneven patch of ground, or the remains of a dead candidate from a previous class and you roll your ankle and fight to not fall to the ground. Your shoulders are killing you because of the sheer weight of the pack and your right arm is going numb at times because of your rifle, you are breathing hard going uphill. Your legs are burning pushing up the hill. Now picture that you are only 20 minutes into the hike and that you still have 3, 5, or 8 miles to go to your destination. You already are thinking about how miserable you are and whether you will be able to make it through the latest version of the dreaded HUMP.
Picture 1: Visibility during Humps
If you are light like I am, humps will be more painful than it is for bigger candidates. The weight of the Alice pack is the same for everyone unless you are an integrity violator. It’s obviously much easier for a 6′5, 190 lbs candidate to haul a 60 lbs pack up a steep hill than it is for a 5′7, 130 lbs candidate but it is what it is. Sheer weight won’t be the only issue if you are short (say less than 5′8ish): Everyone is expected to stay within 40 inches so no gaps appear in the formation but shorter candidates cannot keep up without having to churn their smaller wheels a little faster. The only advice I can give you is to not be a light body, you will hurt and your body is more likely to buckle under the stress (stress fractures, rolled/sprained ankle). Anyways, it really sucks but it’s feasible… Also try to be in front of the formation so you will run a little less. Humps are 80% mental, you will hurt the whole time but you won’t feel like you are close to dying at any point except maybe when going up one of those steep hills.
Personally I will be going back bigger and stronger so I don’t have as much of an issue as I did.
It goes without saying but you have to come to OCS physically prepared. Don’t be the candidate who is sent home right away because he could not muster 10 pullups, run a 3-miler in less than 24 minutes, or do at least 70 crunches on the initial PFT. I came to OCS with a 22:04 3-mile run, 19 pullups, and 78 crunches on my contract PFT (243). That morphed into a 21:38/16/80 on my initial PFT. On my intermediate PFT (week 5 I believe), I had a 21:42 run, only 14 pullups, and 94 crunches. I had lost 5 lbs in between so be aware that your body will break down. Not having enough stamina will affect everything you do, not only your O-course or Endurance course time but also your ability to think clearly on your feet, your ability to stay awake in class, your ability to lead other candidates and your state of mind.
Up until week 5, I thought PT was relatively easy. It would push everyone but I was nowhere near the point where I wasn’t able to keep up with the rest of the candidates… Then we ditched the go-fasters and started doing everything in boots and utes and those runs really started to kick my ass (as well as my shins…). Running in boots and utes, with your rifle, LBV, warbelt and two full canteens is a completely different story. If you don’t have enough stamina, you will need that much more mental will to keep up with the rest of the squad/platoon… My advice here is to bring your run time down as much as you can and just work on your overall stamina. Everyone can run a decent 3-mile or do so many pullups when well-rested but how well can you perform after having ran for 2.5 miles and done countless pushups and crunches of all types and after 3 weeks of having slept 4 or 5 hours a night and not eating enough… - I can’t stress enough running 4, 5, or 6 miles once in a while. Your body needs to realize it shouldn’t be exhausted at mile number 3. - Get used to run in boots. You should be running in boots regularly once you have a decent 3-mile pace. It will make running in go-fasters even easier. Ramp up slowly and carefully - Run hills: The trails at OCS are somewhat hilly. Da Nang will make you feel the burn - Combine exercises: Push pulls, ammo can press, more pushups, a 3-mile run in between, some crunches etc… You will never do one single exercises at OCS - Healthy legs: Make sure you go to OCS healthy. Strengthen your shins, take care of your feet, be 100%
Last thing: Make sure you know how to climb a rope using your legs especially after you are already tired. Not being able to climb up the rope will bring a lot of unwanted attention as well as some sort of platoon or company probation which may mean not being to leave base on liberty.
Eating is at least 80% of all the work. Is it a surprise? There is no magical formula: You need to intake more calories than you spend each and every day. Depending on factors such as size, level of activity and what not, your body consumes between 2300 and 2500 calories a day on average. This means you need to eat 2300 to 2500 calories a day simply to maintain your weight. How do you gain weight, you need to pile extra-calories on top of those 2500 calories. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 3000 calories a day, that is an extra 500 calories. You need 3500 extra calories to gain a pound, hence you would gain a pound a week eating 3000 calories a day (500 x 7 = 3500).
Eating is 80% of the work, pumping iron is the other 20% unless you want to turn into a big ball of fat. You will need to cut back on the cardio if you are doing any. What you want to focus on is lifting heavy weights and gaining muscle mass. Don’t use machines, they will make you injury-prone. Real men use free weights. It might be humbling to start at really low weights but you are doing it right, and no one give a rat’s ass OK?
