Dear Ralph: Bulking up For Bullies

Hello Ralph,
          Just discovered your blog when I came back from school last week. I am a secondary school student and I have been suffering from bullying since I entered school. I thought that when I entered senior level things will be better but it is as if the thing is even getting worse. I live in a boarding school and my seniors are something else. With the way we are handled I really do not blame my class mates that are saying they will do their own when they reach SS3. Anyway I was looking at your fitness section and was wondering if there is anything I can do to become stronger under a short period of time. If it is a medicine or anything I will do it. There is a particular senior I am timing and I want to surprise him when I come back. My school resumes in second week of January so I have less than a month. Please help me out. I need this.very much, the bullying is driving me crazy in this school. I think it is mostly because I am very thin that is why they take advantage of that. I have mates that only because they look bigger, the seniors don't go near them anyhow. So now you see why I need to grow bigger, hope you get this soon. Thank you sir.

                                                                                                                                                   Ofotokun













Dear Ofotokun,
        So sorry to hear of what you have to pass through in school. Guess that culture is still going on till now in secondary schools. I can only hope it hasn't gotten worse than what we experienced in school. First of all I would advice you to just take this up to your parents and do not put yourself in harms way. You could get hurt. But anyway I would still tell you a couple of things that might help but practice with care, so on to your solutions.
        You should know that if your body type is naturally on the smaller size, it might take a whole lot more than a month for you to make the changes you want. So wanting to do this over a period of time shorter than even one month is nearly impossible, but no harm in trying right? So with that, first of all you would need to add some flesh. Try to go for more of carbohydrates and fatty food. They would work better for you in this situation over protein foods. You would still have to take protein later though and I am not asking you to cut it, I just want you to add more carbohydrates and reduce not eliminate protein for now. Proteins are easily broken down and the body spends it faster but the body would hold on to the carbohydrates longer. So as it is, carbs are stored in your system for a longer time and is converted into fat so it can be released as energy to your body.
    Once you have that down then the next thing you would have to do is to increase the food portions. More food portion means more calories, more calories means more food for your body to hold on to. More food for you body to hold on to results in more fat in your system and that ultimately means a physical gain would be noticed in some time.

Now it also depends on how fast your body processes food. If your metabolism is very high then you would process food so much faster and that might be the reason you have your present body size. But just keep at it because it doesn't depend only on food, you would have to exercise.

For your exercises, you would need to put in weight training and a minimal level of cadio training. I know cardio burns fat but you do not have to go all out on this. Just do a little to keep that heart pumping. If you have access to weights then try to do lower reps with bigger weights. Please I do not know your age so be careful and make sure someone is watching over you especially if you want to do a bench press. If on the other hand you do not have any access to any gym equipment then just substitute with different push-ups and home pull ups. That should do a lot in building your upper body and giving you the look you are searching for.

I wouldn't be able to tell you any medicine or supplement you can use for massive muscle gains. You would have to take that up with a doctor around you to make sure you are being safe. But I would strongly advice you against anything like muscle blasts and its close relatives. I don't think they are safe for someone that young. Finally, seriously if reporting the bullying would help, then save yourself the stress and just get it out there to your teachers and parents. Exercising is very good and you aren't too young for it but I fear for your reason for doing it. You might hurt yourself because of frustration and desperation if results aren't coming as quickly as you want them. Just take things easy, you would soon be out of there or at least a senior yourself then you can show people that it's not all seniors that would hurt people. Take things easy man and be careful please.

                                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                                      Ralph