Q: I' ve been weight training for 6 months and I have not gained a single ounce of muscle during that time.

A: That's really hard to believe -- if you're a complete beginner pretty much any program will give you some results in 6 months time. You may not look buff, but I am pretty sure you've gained more than an ounce of muscle. Remember that dramatic changes cannot happen overnight -- educate yourself to optimize your program and stick with it. Every day you'll make a little bit of progress and it WILL really add up over months and years.

Tell me more details about yourself, the program you followed and the diet you ate in these 6 months and I'll tell you what changes to make to accelerate your progress. The more detail you can tell me, the more I'll be able to help you.

If you haven't already, read the Nutrition and Weightlifting articles on this site. They will tell you all the basics you need to know to gain muscle or burn fat. I'll try to summarize them in a nutshell here, to tell you how to gain muscle best:

• To gain muscle effectively, you need to gain weight. So you need to overeat. Have at least 4-5 meals every day (smaller than you regular meals, but more meals in the day). Make sure each meal includes a good amount of meat or poultry or fish or eggs or cottage cheese. Always drink a lot of water. Do NOT eat sweets, junk food, or fried stuff.
• Aim to gain about 2 pounds per month. If you're gaining weight faster, you are eating too much. If you are gaining slower, you are not eating enough.
• Lift weights for 30-60 minutes 3-5 times per week. Select weights that will cause you to reach muscular failure (can't lift anymore) in 6-12 reps. In 30-60 minute session you should be able to do 10-20 sets.
• Focus on big compound exercises like deadlifts, squats, bench press, pullups/pulldowns, rows, shoulder press. Leave small stuff like bicep curls for dessert. A common beginner mistake is to go crazy on bicep curls and bench press and to ignore the rest of the body. Bicep curls + bench press train ONLY 10-15% of all your muscles -- don't ignore the rest of your body

Again, read the articles carefully and do your best to follow the diet and training advice. If you are not sure about something, come back here and ask me a question. Good luck and don't give up!