Q: Hello Mike, I'm 18 years old. I am skinny, 6'1" tall and 148 pounds. I have a history of endurance sports, specifically biking and running. I want to start a mass gain program to build muscle. Your website is great, because I am a vegetarian and I found a vegetarian tab in the nutrition section. I will describe my situation, and I look forward to your advice. I am fit, not strengthwise, but cardio, thanks to biking and running. I'm skinny, but I have stubborn flab that persisted even when I used to run 2 half marathons a week. I'm in college and very busy, plus the food isn't perfect, so making a perfect diet is hard. What is the best/optimum way for me to lose that flab and gain muscle, given the food/time constraints in college? Thanks again.

A: You are in luck! You are actually in the perfect position to build serious muscle if you are willing to put in the eating and the work that it will take. The fact that you are vegetarian is only a minor drawback to building muscle, especially if you eat dairy and eggs. But even a vegan in your position can make good muscle gains.

The reason I say you are in perfect position is because you are at the perfect age to build muscle, at your long skinny frame you have plenty of room to fill out, you most likely have very high metabolism and do not gain fat easily, and your high level of cardio fitness means that you should be used to pushing yourself physically and your body can recover quickly between sets which is very helpful for weight training. The only challenge will be the diet and finding time to eat and work out.

First, the easy part -- weight training. You should start by reading my Weight Training article to learn the basics. Assuming you have access to a full gym at your college you can select any of the Beginner or Intermediate programs listed there. If you are not sure which to pick, start with http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/exercise-program-weights-medium-volu...

The real challenge will be the diet. There are two basic things you need to get: good amount of protein -- at least 150 grams of protein daily and more is better, and enough overall calories that you slowly but surely gain weight. If you don't eat enough calories to gain weight then you won't build any appreciable muscle either -- it's that simple. You must gain weight in order to build muscle. And you must eat enough calories to gain weight, ideally at a rate of about 1 pound every 2 weeks. If you notice that you are not gaining weight, then you simply have to eat more.

You don't want to eat only junk calories, of course, so you should focus on eating healthy foods as much as possible described in my Diet and Nutrition article. But truth be told you at your age, physique, and fitness level can afford to eat more so-so or even outright junk food and still make good muscle gains with not too much new fat. So don't stress too much about the quality of food available to you. Whenever possible, choose healthy foods, but when nothing particularly healthy is available, eat what you can.

For example, if you are on college meal plan, then most likely your breakfast choices will be limited to milk and cereal and maybe an omelette. Normally neither of those is ideal -- milk has good amount of sugar as well as fat if non-skim, cereal has processed carbs, and an omelette usually has a lot of fat. But in your case, that's fine -- you just need to get your protein and calories and breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. So choose skim milk, the healthiest cereal available (usually some kind of bran), and an omelette for protein. 3 cups of skim milk, 1 cup of bran cereal, and a 3-egg omelette will get you around 900 calories with 50 grams of protein and a good start to your day.

If you are vegan and milk and eggs are not an option, then you'll have to improvise more. Beans, peas, lentils, soy beans, and things like tofu will have to be your primary protein source. Getting 150 grams of protein daily from them will be tough, but that's what you need to shoot for. Rice (ideally brown rice, but white rice is OK in your case) and beans is a very healthy and cheap meal, so you'll just need to find some recipes that you can make for yourself if the college meal plan doesn't have good vegan options (as I imagine it would not).

Assuming you continue to be physically active with running and other cardio you should aim for at least 3000 calories daily and most likely it'll only go up from there. If you don't do cardio much anymore, then maybe start with 2500 calories daily. Again, eat enough to gain about 1 pound of weight every 2 weeks. Almost certainly that means that you'll have to increase calories every few weeks as your body adjusts to higher and higher calorie levels. Eating enough will definitely be hard, but as I said before if you don't gain weight you won't gain muscle either.

I do have a couple favorite quick recipes for bulkers that maybe you could use if you are unable to get enough calories and protein from your everyday meals: http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/node/20023 and http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/node/12834

Good luck!