Transformation: Skinny Shreenath Ganesh Bulks Up!

February 2011 to January 2016  |  5 years  |  @shreenath91

Shreenath started at 110 pounds and got to 168, but the useful part of his story is the two years he wasted first. He is unusually honest about them.

Where he started

Shreenath was the skinny kid who never ate properly. He was athletic on top of it, which only made him look thinner. Over time he stopped feeling hungry at all and would simply skip meals, sometimes for long stretches, and he undereat for years without really registering it.

He was teased for it. In his words, he was the skinny kid who was not capable of anything.

The turning point

Weighing in at 110 pounds during his first year of college in 2009. He knew he had to do something and admits he was too lazy and too intimidated to start.

What actually got him moving was not insecurity, which he points out is where most people start. It was his close friends joining a gym and getting bigger while he stayed the same. Ego, basically. He is candid that this is what did it.

What he changed

Volume went up slowly over years, which is the pattern he credits most. Four days a week for the first two years, five days a week for the next two, and six days a week for the six months before this was written. No cardio beyond daily activity.

The rotation now runs push, pull and legs for power, a rest day, then push, pull and legs for hypertrophy.

The hardest part

Wasting the first year and a half. He says he messed around in the gym with his friends doing whatever, and he still grew, which was the trap. The growth made him confident enough to think he had it figured out.

So he started drinking protein shakes, eating eggs, and eating an enormous amount of everything else. He put on a lot of fat that then took a long time to lose, and he calls it the biggest mistake he has ever made. Coming up in India at that time, he says flexible dieting was not something anyone around him knew about. It was all bro advice, and he did most of it wrong.

His three mistakes, in his order: the all-out dirty bulk, not giving himself enough time to grow, and being impatient about losing the weight afterwards.

Where he is now

He has not competed, though he says it sits in the back of his mind. What he counts as the achievement is the gap between who he is now and who he was, mentally as much as physically.

The three lessons: patience, consistency, and knowing what training volume actually works for him.

Everything I have learned was learned the hard way. Shreenath Ganesh

His advice if you are starting today

Patience, consistency and determination, which he acknowledges is what everyone says. His more specific one: work out what your actual maintenance calories are before you do anything else.

Results vary. This customer's results are not typical and depend on individual effort, training, nutrition and consistency. Statements on this page describe one customer's personal experience and have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. No product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.