We get quite a few people both in store and online that would love to get into training and want to get into better shape but don't really know where to start - this article is for people like this, and I will assume no knowledge of diet or training before we start. I have split this article into sections to break it down - these are an introduction, training, diet, supplements and a summary at the end, I hope this is useful!
 

Now that you have chosen what you want to do the next step is to sort out your training - without good training you will not see results no matter what you eat and what supplements you take. I will outline a couple of good starting points for training however if you can I'd recommend getting someone experienced to show you the ropes especially with regards to weight training. This is worth paying for if you have someone very experienced that is able to teach you as training incorrectly can give you serious injuries and you won't make progress. 

Gaining Muscle

Gaining muscle is fairly easy if you understand how it works but be warned - gaining muscle mass is not a quick process and speaking from personal experience I have gained on average over 2 years about 2lb of weight per month, whereas with fat loss you can expect to lose 1lb/week fairly easily if you dedicate yourself to the task. Before I start a sample workout I'd like to say again - please get these exercises shown to you by someone that knows what they are talking about to show you how to do the weights workouts if possible!

The process that your body goes through to build more muscle is a three step process - first you break down the muscle by lifting weights, then your body repairs the muscle back to the size it was and finally AFTER it has recovered if you have trained the muscle hard enough then it will grow to a larger size to cope with the overload that you are putting on it by lifting heavier weights. It is important to note that you have to give your body the time to do all of this and if you don't give it the time and fuel (food) to do so then you will never put on muscle and will eventually overtrain and actually lose muscle.

With that over with I will explain the difference in broad terms between two types of moves in weight training - compound and isolate lifts. A compound lift is one in which multiple muscle groups are involved - for example the squat involves most of the body in the lift, despite being a leg based exercise. Similarly the deadlift involves most of the muscles in the body. An isolate lift would be something like a bicep curl in which only one muscle group is worked at a time - in this case the bicep. Both of these types of lifts have their place but you should concentrate on the compound moves if you are looking to add some muscle mass.

Rather than trying to give a training regime that would be a re-hash of several other ideas I will provide links to some popular training programmes - if anybody reading this feels that something should be added here please email me on dave@echosupplements.com and I will look into it.

You will also find a new rountine every month in the popular muscle magazines such as Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Musclemag, Mens Fitness and others - try to stick with a routine for at least a few months though to see its real effects - if a routine is difficult that is a good thing!

 

Your diet is the next most important thing after your training, if not on par with it terms of importance. I won't give a complete sample diet as whenver I read one it contains a lot of food that I don't like, and I am pretty easy when it comes to food so I imagine most others will be the same - instead I will give examples of which foods you can plug into the gaps and how much of each is reasonable - you might be surprised! First of all no matter whether you are trying to lose fat or gain muscle you should aim to have around 6 meals per day which if you normally have 3 (breakfast lunch and dinner) will be roughly half of what you expect from a serving - don't worry though you will be eating every 3 hours so you won't go hungry! 
 

Eating to gain muscle is pretty simple and can be figured out from a few simple rules. First of all find out your bodyweight in pounds (lbs) - there are 14 lbs in a stone. I have listed a few common weights in lbs below if you happen to be there then you don't need to go figure it out! I will deal with the protein part of your diet first as this is crucial, and the carbs and fat will follow on from it.

Once you have your weight in pounds, multiply it by 1.5 to get the amuont of protein in grams that you should aim for per day to maximise muscle growth. I will use my own weight as an example to illustrate this - I weigh in at around 200lb at the time of writing. Now this gives me 300g (200 x 1.5) to aim for per day. Now given that I said that you should be having 6 meals per day instead of the usual 3 we divide this number by 6 to get the approximate amount of protein per meal - so 300 / 6 = 50g protein per meal.
 

So now we have the amount of protein we need per meal what do we do to get it? Ideally you should consume the majority of your protein from whole foods (as opposed to supplements) so I will give some examples of what would constitute 50g of protein:

Note that these are just examples - other good sources of protein include milk, cheese, tofu, yoghurt, any fish, pork and most meats - be careful though with some of these as they can also be high in fat as well as protein! Also when buying meats try to avoid processed meats when possible - a burger or sausage is not the same as a chicken breast!

Carbohydrates

Now of course you don't live off protein - you will also need to add in some carbohydrates and fat, but how much? If you are trying to gain weight your carbohydrate intake should be slightly higher than your protein intake - a rough estimate would be your weight in lbs x 1.8 - so for a 200lb person that would mean 360g carbohydrates per day or around 60g per meal.

When choosing carbohydrates you should aim to consume the vast majority from low GI carbs - this keeps your blood sugar levels stable and means you will have a more sustained release of energy throughout the day. A simple rule for choosing the right carbs is that if there is a brown option then go for that - for example wholemeal pasta, rice and bread are all better than their white versions. With that said here are some good sources of carbohydrates:

Obviously this is by no means an exhaustive list but this should give you an idea of what to look for. 
 

Regarding your fat intake you should be aware that there are 'good' fats and 'bad' fats - without going into technical detail you should totally avoid trans-fats wherever possible, and limit your amounts of saturated fats. Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are the best fats to take and cutting these out is a bad idea as they are responsible for lots of your bodily functions. Fat intake should be a lot lower than both protein and carbs, roughly 0.5 x your weight in lbs, or around 100g per day or 15-20g per meal for a 200lb guy. Good sources of healthy fats include:

With your fat intake you should try and make sure you get a good balance of omega 3 to omega 6 fats - most people get lots of omega 6 fats from olive oil but to get your omega 3 fats you need to consume fatty fish or flaxseeds - if neither of these is to your taste then an EFA supplement may be in order - Sci-MX Tri-Omega EFA - is a particularly good choice.

Supplements

What role do supplements play in all of this? Well its pretty simple - mostly they help you meet your diet goals in a cost effective way, in other words treat them as food - whey protein is simply powdered protein and you can think of it as a powdered version of a chicken breast or tin of tuna. I will outline which supplements are good to take to start off with and which can be added at a later time as well as which supplements are most needed.
 

As you may have noticed in the diet section your daily protein requirements are pretty high and the majority of people trying to hit these levels will find it difficult to do so without using a protein supplement due to both the volume of eating required and the cost - protein shakes are much cheaper than the equivalent amount of chicken for example! Good examples of protein supplements would be Sci-MX GRS-5 Protein or BioX Power Whey Complex.

Meal Replacements

Meal replacement supplements are used to replace one of your meals as the name suggests - the difference between this and a protein shake is that in a meal replacement supplement you will also get an appropriate level of carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals. A good choice here with a roughly 1:1 blend of carbs to protein is Sci-MX Lean Grow MRF or for a more carb heavy alternative then Sci-MX Mass System is a good choice.

EFAs & Multivitamins

While not very "exciting" in terms of supplements almost everyone can benefit from taking these two supplements. Most people will be deficient in omega 3 fats so a good choice is Sci-MX Tri-Omega EFA and for a multivitamin you can't go wrong with the MET-Rx Multivitamin product.
 

Creatine monohydrate is the most researched sports supplement in the world today - it has been proven to work for the vast majority of people and its effects include increased strength and muscle size. If you have reached the stage of training where you know what weight you are lifting for each 'big move' (eg. bench press, squat etc.) then creatine is a great product to take. If you haven't reached this stage yet then I recommend you leave creatine supplementation until you have - as otherwise you won't notice the benefits!

Glutamine is the amino acid that is most abundant in the human muscle and as such it is said that supplementing with glutamine (or l-glutamine, same thing) will have a beneficial effect on your recovery. You should be aware however that whey protein is naturally very high in glutamine and that taking large doses of glutamine can lead to stomach discomfort - so if you do opt for glutamine supplementation then split the doses throughout the day.
 

At this stage you may be a little confused - all in one supplements aim to help out the beginner by taking the doses and individual ingredients out of your mind. Most all in one products will contain enough creatine and glutamine and sometimes other ingredients such as beta alanine or HMB that if you take them as recommended - usually twice per day - you can concentrate on your training and diet as you have these bases covered. Good options here are Sci-MX Omni-MX or Boditronics Profusion Reloaded - both of which when taken as recommended will give you enough creatine and glutamine as well as a good start on your protein and carbohydrates for the day!
 

Hopefully this article has been helpful and you should now have a good idea on how to train, eat and supplement for maximal muscle gains - if anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to email me on dave@echosupplements.com and I will add your queries to the article!