Gaining your first 10 pounds (5kg) of body weight is a considerable achievement. But for people who are new to “bulking”, it’s essential to set realistic and safe goals. This post explains how to gain 10lbs in 2 months.
Gaining 10lbs of quality weight in 2 months is realistic for most beginners. A healthy rate of weight gain is generally considered to be up to 4-8 pounds per month. For the best results, combine a caloric surplus with resistance training.
Speaking as an ex-skinny guy who has gone on countless bulking cycles myself, I can say that putting on your first 10lbs is a huge and highly noticeable milestone.
Keep reading to find out how to do it!
Key Takeaways
- Gaining 10lbs of body weight in 2 months is not only realistic but also safe.
- Expect around 4lbs of muscle and 6lbs of fat gain (when combined with training and a high-protein intake).
- 500 daily surplus calories are required to gain 10lbs in 2 months.
- Combine surplus calories with a high protein intake and resistance training to maximize muscle and minimize fat gains.
Why It Is Possible To Gain 10 Pounds In 2 Months
Understanding basic weight gain mechanisms helps to explain why it’s possible to gain 10 pounds in just a couple of months.
So how does your body put on weight?
The simple answer is this:
Weight is gained when you consume more calories than your body requires to maintain its current weight. These are called surplus calories. And they are funneled toward muscle and/or fat gain.
Furthermore, under consuming calories is one of the most common reasons why people are skinny.
So how many surplus calories do you need to eat to gain 10 pounds?
Studies indicate that around 3000 surplus calories are required to gain 1 pound of body weight. Therefore you need 30,000 surplus calories to gain 10 pounds of body weight.
That’s 500 surplus calories per day to gain 10 pounds in 60 days (500 cal x 60 days = 30,000 cal).
Furthermore, you should also combine your caloric surplus with resistance training and a high protein intake to promote muscle over fat gains (see next).
5 Steps To Gain 10 Pounds In 2 Months
Here’s how to eat and train to gain 10lbs of body weight (5kg) in 2 months:
1) Determine Maintenance Calories And Add 500
Maintenance calories are what your body burns daily to maintain it’s current weight. You can determine yours using a TDEE calculator.
Now add 500 calories to your maintenance to start bulking up (surplus calories are particularly important for skinny guys with a fast metabolism).
The resulting number is how much you should aim to eat every day to gain 10 pounds in 2 months.
For example, a person who burns 2200 daily maintenance calories should eat 2700 total calories per day for 60 days.
2) Eat Enough Protein Every Day
10lbs of body weight can come from gains in fat, muscle, or both. Additionally, Protein is the raw organic material required for muscle growth.
In order to promote as much muscle gain (and as little fat gain) as possible, you need to therefore eat a high protein diet and combine this with resistance training.
Aim for 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight per day. This is a widely accepted recommendation for optimal muscle growth.
For example, a 140lb individual should eat around 140g of protein every day.
2) Make A Meal Plan To Reach Daily Nutrition Targets
So you’ve established your calorie target. And you also know how much protein you should be eating.
Now you need to reach those nutrition targets.
The most accurate way to do this is to plan and log your meals. Track the calorie and protein content in each meal for best results.
However, this can be time-consuming.
An easier- albeit less accurate method- is to simply make an active effort to increase your calorie and protein intake until you find yourself gaining 1.25lbs per week on the scales. This results in 10 pounds in 2 months.
4) Perform Resistance Training
Gaining as much lean muscle as possible from your 10lbs of weight gain is important for most people.
To do this, you need to combine your calorie and protein surplus with intense resistance training.
This commonly takes the form of weight workouts using:
- Free weights (barbells, dumbbells, or kettlebells).
- Resistance bands.
- Bodyweight exercises.
Make sure you use a weight- or rep range for bodyweight exercises- that actually challenges and fatigues the target muscle.
For more details, you can check out my complete guide to home workouts for skinny people to build muscle.
5) Track Weekly Weight Gain
Now that you’ve started eating and training to gain weight, you need to start tracking your weekly progress.
Ideally, you should aim to gain 1.25lbs per week in order to gain 10 pounds in 2 months (1.25lbs x 8 weeks = 10lbs).
A simple digital body weight scale (measuring to at least 1 decimal place) is sufficient for this. Note down your weight every morning after going to the toilet and before you’ve consumed food or water.
Now take an average at the end of the week.
Skin calipers can also be useful to track fat gain. Avoid gaining more than 1% body fat per month.
Is It Healthy To Gain 10 Pounds In 2 Months?
10lbs in 2 months is generally ok for skinny people and falls on the upper spectrum of healthy weight gain. If a suitable diet and training program are followed, an untrained individual can expect to put on approximately 4lbs of muscle and 6lbs of fat.
Most experts agree that a healthy rate of weight gain is around 0.25-0.50% of your current body weight per week.
For most people, this equates to around 1lb of added weight per week (or 8lbs in 8 weeks).
Thus, gaining 10 pounds in 2 months is just above this recommended threshold and considered a normal rate of weight gain. It’s by no means considered too fast or too slow.
How Much Weight You Can Gain In 2 Months
Most people can comfortably gain up to 10-15 pounds in 2 months. This requires a suitable bulking diet to be followed. The excess calories from a bulk are used by the body to store fat or build muscle. Resistance training is important to maximize muscle gains.
There is theoretically no limit to the amount of weight you can put on per month. The more calories consumed the more weight you gain.
The primary restriction is instead the number of calories you can consume on a daily basis. Remember, most people find it challenging to eat in a caloric surplus due to the resulting bloated feeling.
Speaking from experience, it’s usually very difficult (though not impossible) for a beginner to consume much more than 500 surplus calories per day.
To see what you can achieve in 2 months, you can check out my photo timeline for how long it takes to go from skinny to muscular.
How Long It Normally Takes To Gain 10 Pounds Of Muscle
Most people take around half a year to gain 10lbs of muscle. This is based on the maximum rate of muscle growth of 2lbs per month for untrained beginners. Consistent training and dieting are essential to successfully put on 10 pounds of muscle in 6 months.
Gaining muscle weight is different from gaining overall body weight.
Whilst there’s no theoretical limit to the maximum rate of total weight gain, there IS a limit to how fast your muscles grow. Thus, most people take a minimum 6 months.
If you want to do it faster, then you can check out my guide to putting on your first 10lbs of lean mass fast.
Conclusion
By following a good program, the average person should not find it difficult to gain 10lbs (5kg) in 2 months.
It requires you to eat around 30,000 surplus calories over the 60-day period (called a bulk). This equates to 500 daily surplus calories.
Bulking should also be combined with resistance training and a high protein intake to maximize muscle and minimize fat gains.
You may also be interested in the downloadable Kalibre Blueprint PDF which details exactly how I gained 40lbs of lean muscle (it’s 100% free!). It details the exact exercises and nutrition (with printables) I used to go from skinny to ripped!
