Skinny to Muscular: Transformative Stories

Jared and I were skinny graphic designers who didn’t know anyone who ate a healthy diet, lifted weights, or exercised. We didn’t know anyone who was fit or muscular. I was clinically underweight and showing early signs of heart disease, while Jared was dealing with severe tendonitis that made it hard for him to work.

We had no idea how to build muscle, but I thought we could bulk up with a 30-day challenge. I convinced Jared to join me, and that’s how “Muscle May” got started. It ended up being the spark for our entire Bony to Beastly business.

After 30 days, we had gained over thirty pounds between us, and it was working! We were finally gaining weight. So, we decided to keep going and extended our plan for another three months. By the end of those three months, we had added almost 60 pounds of muscle between us. Since then, I’ve gained another 30 pounds.

Here’s the full story of how we went from skinny to muscular.

THE PROBLEM WITH MUSCLE-BUILDING TRANSFORMATIONS

As a skinny guy, one of my biggest annoyances was seeing “muscle-building” transformation photos where the guys were just showing off their muscles after losing some fat. It’s like Clark Kent taking off his glasses. That’s not a muscle-building transformation; it’s a fat-loss transformation.

Another trend in “bulking” transformations was guys losing weight when they traveled or got sick. They’d take their before photos at these low points, then regain the muscle they’d lost and call it a skinny-to-muscular transformation. But really, it was just a muscle regrowth transformation.

A famous example is Christian Bale. He bulked up for Batman after losing 100 pounds for his role in “The Machinist.”

One of the most famous examples in bodybuilding is Casey Viator. He got an infection and had an allergic reaction to his medication, which made him lose a lot of muscle—probably because he also stopped taking his performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). When he started training again and likely went back to using PEDs, he regained the 60 pounds of muscle he had lost.

Then there’s Tim Ferriss. He built muscle from years of wrestling and playing sports, but lost some of it while traveling and learning to dance. Then, in just one month, he managed to regain all the muscle he lost, going from “Geek to Freak.”

These transformations aren’t always misleading or deceitful. Tim Ferriss, for example, was very clear about his training history and was upfront about regaining lost muscle. That’s totally fine. I like Tim Ferriss a lot—his blog even inspired Jared and me to start our graphic design firm. His “Geek to Freak” transformation gave us the idea for our “Bony to Beastly” brand name. But as someone who’s always been skinny, I just couldn’t relate to his before-and-after photos.

OUR SKINNY “BEFORE” PHOTOS

We were fed up with all the gimmicks and didn’t have anything to sell or prove. We were just graphic designers. I thought it would be interesting to see what happened if two regular skinny guys documented their bulking results while working desk jobs.

Jared and our other roommate, Payam, had some experience with photography. They came up with a plan for taking consistent progress photos:

• Same lighting.
• Same poses.
• Same time of day (first thing in the morning).
• Same stomach contents (after peeing, with just a small glass of water).
• No muscle pumping.
• No tricks.

So, before we dive into our 4-month bulking transformation, let’s start with a bit of backstory. Here I am at 21 years old, wearing a size small T-shirt:

I fluctuated between 120 and 130 pounds at a height of 6’2″. Even on my best days, that put my BMI at 17, which is considered clinically underweight. If you want to check your own BMI, you can do that here.

I wasn’t just skinny in the sense of lacking muscle. At 18, I was diagnosed with a high risk of heart disease. Both my family doctor and my cardiologist told me to eat better, exercise more, and gain weight.

At 21, I bought a muscle-building program for “ectomorphs” and managed to put on 20 pounds of muscle with a tough 3-month bulk. I went from 130 pounds to 150 pounds, raising my BMI from 17 to 19, which put me in the healthy range. I was still lean, but I wasn’t underweight anymore.

So, why am I sharing all this?

First, my “before” photos show me at my peak—when I was the most muscular I’d ever been. When I started this 4-month bulking transformation, I had already gained 20 pounds, so there wasn’t any muscle regrowth going on.

Second, I had already experienced my “newbie gains.” If you haven’t heard that term, it refers to the easy muscle gains people often get when they first start bulking up.

Another plus was that with those 20 pounds gained, I had learned a bit about building muscle. I knew the basics of weightlifting, bulking diets, and a healthy lifestyle. Jared saw me gain those 20 pounds and knew it worked, which is why he agreed to be my training partner.

Here are our official “before” photos. I weighed 150 pounds, and Jared weighed 130. This was the heaviest and fittest we’d ever been. Plus, we were fully grown men who had already gone through puberty.

OUR STARTING MEASUREMENTS

Here are my starting measurements at 6’2″ and 150 pounds:

• Neck: 14.25 inches
• Shoulders: 43.5 inches
• Biceps: 12.25 inches
• Chest: 37 inches
• Waist: 30 inches
• Hips: 36 inches
• Thigh: 18.75 inches
• Calf: 13.5 inches

Keep in mind, I had already gained 20 pounds. At 130 pounds, my neck was just under 14 inches, my biceps were just under 10 inches, and my shoulders were just under 39 inches.

You can see I’d focused more on my shoulders, chest, and arms rather than my legs. I had tried squatting and deadlifting, but my technique was terrible, so I gave up on them. This is what happens when you skip leg day!

Here are Jared’s measurements at 6 feet and 130 pounds:

• Neck: 13.75 inches
• Shoulders: 38.75 inches
• Biceps: 11 inches
• Chest: 33.75 inches
• Waist: 27.5 inches
• Hips: 35.5 inches
• Thigh: 18.75 inches
• Calf: 13.75 inches

Jared’s measurements were similar to mine from the year before, but with slightly bigger arms and legs. We later found out that my torso grew more easily, making me “torso dominant,” while Jared’s arms grew more easily, making him “limb dominant.” This difference influenced the isolation exercises we focused on later.

FINDING A BULKING PROGRAM

Once we had our “before” photos, we needed to figure out how to get our “after” shots. We needed a solid muscle-building routine and a good bulking diet to help us gain weight.

At first, it was frustrating because most of the advice out there was for people looking to lose fat, not for skinny guys trying to bulk up. Thankfully, things have improved since then, and the skinny niche has grown. I like to think we played a part in that.

Back then, skinny guys were called “ectomorphs.” Once I learned that term, I found tips specifically for us. I discovered the term “hardgainer,” which refers to someone who struggles to eat enough to gain weight, and “hypertrophy training,” which focuses on building muscle size.

I also learned about “non-responders.” Many weight training studies don’t control for diet, which is a problem for skinny people with small appetites. We often don’t eat enough to support muscle growth, so we might not see gains and get labeled as non-responders. It can feel like we have bad muscle-building genetics, but that’s not true. With the right bulking diet, we can build muscle just fine.

OUR FIRST TASTE OF MUSCLE GROWTH

We treated the whole thing like an experiment. It gave Jared and Payam a reason to track and photograph everything, but mostly, we were too embarrassed to tell our friends and family we were trying to bulk up. We thought saying, “We’re doing an experiment” sounded cooler than “We’re sick of being skinny.”

As we blogged about our muscle gains, we started getting noticed on bodybuilding.com. Our 90-day progress video even hit 300,000 views on YouTube. Back then, seeing such skinny guys gain muscle so quickly was pretty rare. This was 13 years ago, and the online fitness world was still new.

The attention was a mixed bag. On the downside, I realized wearing “daisy dukes” (cut-off jean shorts) for my progress photos wasn’t the most masculine choice. But on the upside, we started getting emails from lots of skinny guys asking for advice. I shared our routine and diet tips, and that’s how our Bony to Beastly Program was born.

Three months into our bulk, even the personal trainers at the gym began to notice our progress. We had been lifting quietly in the corners at first, so it felt great to finally get congratulated by the staff.

OUR WORKOUT ROUTINES

I’d started with a workout routine by Anthony Ellis for my first bulk, and we tweaked it for our second bulk. We followed a 3-day “Bro Split” with Chest Day (for our chests, shoulders, and triceps), Back Day (for our backs and biceps), and Leg Day (for our legs and abs). A full-body routine might have been a better fit for us, but we made do.

Even though our routine wasn’t perfect and our lifting technique wasn’t top-notch, we gave it our all every workout. That effort alone was enough to spark some serious muscle growth.

We were set on not missing a single workout. So when the gym closed for renovations, we turned a rickety bench press I found by the side of the road into a makeshift home gym.

I remember looking at these and thinking our arms looked amazing. They’re only about 13 inches here, but they’re way bigger than they used to be.

Also Read: 5 Surprising Reasons for Workout Inconsistency

OUR BULKING DIETS

Our bulking diets weren’t perfect, either. Back then, there was this popular mass gainer supplement called Myoplex. Running our graphic design firm kept us busy, so I remember driving to meetings with Myoplex and water bottles stashed in the glove box. If we were too swamped to sit down for a proper meal, we’d mix the powder with a bit of water before our meetings.

But we stuck to our routine. We made sure to eat three meals and two snacks every day. Our meals mostly consisted of chili con carne, stew, lasagna, fish and potatoes, cottage cheese with strawberry jam, muesli cereal, and Greek yogurt with berries. We got all the nutrients and calories we needed, and it worked. We were gaining weight consistently every week.

Here’s what made our bulking diet work:

• We cooked in bulk, like making a big pot of chili on Sundays and reheating it during the week. We did the same with homemade protein bars. This made sticking to our diet easier, and these recipes were so helpful that we included a whole bulking recipe book in our Bony to Beastly Program.
• We ate enough calories to gain weight at a steady pace. With 500-1000 extra calories per day, we managed to gain about 0.5–2 pounds a week, depending on the week. We weren’t perfectly precise, but it led to consistent growth.
• We got enough protein to build muscle effectively. While most research suggests 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight, we aimed for one gram per pound. Protein supplements often exaggerate their contents, so we wanted to ensure we were hitting our targets.
• We ate mostly whole foods. Though we used some weight gainer shakes and added maltodextrin to our workout shakes, we mostly stuck to minimally processed foods—oats, ground meat, trail mix, legumes, rice, milk, yogurt, potatoes, chicken, and so on.
• We ate frequently and included protein in every meal. Back in 2010, intermittent fasting wasn’t a thing, and that was fortunate for us—eating often is better for muscle growth. We had 4–6 meals a day, each with at least 20 grams of protein.
• We ate plenty of carbs. Low-carb and ketogenic diets weren’t popular then, which worked in our favor since carbs are great for muscle growth.
• We started most days with bulking smoothies, which were easy to make, gentle on the appetite, and quick to digest.

MARCO JOINS THE TEAM

While Jared and I were busy bulking up, we blogged about our progress on our design blog. One day, an old high school friend suggested I contact a strength coach his university football team used. He said this coach, who was once naturally skinny but had gained over sixty pounds of muscle, was great at helping athletes bulk up quickly. This coach had just graduated with a health science degree but was already helping college, professional, and Olympic athletes get bigger.

At first, I thought it was a crazy idea. I wasn’t about to cold-call a university strength coach for bulking tips. But my friend laughed and said, “You know him already! It’s Marco!”

Turns out, Marco was a high school acquaintance of mine. He had bulked up to 205 pounds and was now making a name for himself as a top strength coach. While Jared and I were focusing on design, Marco was studying health sciences and working as a strength and conditioning coach. He had even trained under top experts like Eric Cressey, the head strength coach for the New York Yankees. This experience had launched him into coaching college, professional, and Olympic athletes.

When Marco and I first talked, he congratulated us on our muscle gains without pointing out any mistakes. But when I asked if we were doing anything wrong, it opened up a whole new conversation.

OUR BULKING MISTAKES

For about an hour, Marco broke down our routine and showed us how to improve it. His tips weren’t just about gaining more muscle and strength, which was our main goal, but also about keeping our joints healthy, avoiding injuries, and improving our overall health and posture.

He shared that many athletes push their bodies too hard in their quest to get bigger. A common misconception is that lifting causes wear and tear on the body. In reality, lifting stresses our bodies in a way that helps us grow stronger. For example, running and squatting don’t wear down our knees—they actually make them stronger. The real problem comes from too much stress with too little recovery.

Marco made some key changes to our workout and diet:

1. Full-Body Workouts: He switched us to a full-body workout routine, which I was excited to try since I’d read about its benefits. Each workout started with two compound lifts, like squats and chin-ups, or deadlifts and push-ups. This setup allowed us to do supersets, alternating between exercises to keep our workouts shorter but more intense. This approach not only helped with muscle growth but also kept our heart rates up.
2. Exercise Selection: Marco chose exercises that matched our experience level. We moved from complex barbell lifts to simpler variations, like switching from back squats to goblet squats, which helped us learn proper technique while still stimulating muscle growth.
3. Avoiding Failure: Instead of always pushing to failure, we now stopped 0–2 reps before it. This adjustment helped us focus on better technique and reduced soreness and aches.
4. Isolation Lifts: We continued to do isolation exercises, especially for our arms. Unlike some popular programs that focused mainly on big compound lifts, Marco included these exercises to help us build muscular arms. For beginners like us, isolation lifts were a reliable way to challenge our muscles without needing perfect coordination or balance.
5. Periodization: Our training was organized into five-week phases. Each phase started with lower training volume to prevent excessive muscle damage and gradually increased in volume. This approach helped us avoid plateaus and continually stimulated muscle growth with new exercises and techniques.

These changes made our workouts more enjoyable and effective. We started seeing bigger improvements in our upper backs and shoulders, better posture, and significant strength gains. This new approach also made me realize how crucial good training is. The more efficiently we train, the more muscle we build, and the fewer nutrients spill over into fat gain.

OUR THREE-MONTH BULKING RESULTS

Our first month got off to a bit of a rough start, but with Marco’s help, we were building muscle faster than we ever thought possible. There was this meme floating around saying you could only gain 20 pounds of muscle in your first year of lifting. It looked like we might end up doubling that!

Jared had started at 130 pounds and quickly bulked up to 163 pounds. In just three months, he gained 33 pounds with barely any extra fat. His posture also got a lot better, and he no longer had to deal with tendonitis while working at his desk.

I had already gained twenty pounds before we even started, and in just three months, I added another 25 pounds, bringing my total weight gain to 45 pounds with hardly any extra fat. I was stunned. It felt like our genetics had suddenly become amazing overnight. We could hardly believe it—it seemed too good to be true.

It turns out that since we were starting so far from our genetic potential, we could build muscle much faster before hitting any limits.

The average guy has about eighty pounds of muscle. But imagine someone like me, starting with just forty pounds of muscle. It’s like starting behind the starting line. We weren’t breaking any rules of muscle growth; we were just catching up to where the average guy starts, and then eventually moving beyond that. After catching up, muscle growth returned to normal rates.

FINISHING WITH A CUT

Our bulk had gone really well, and we didn’t feel fat at all, but we were tired of overeating. We had originally planned to follow the usual bulking and cutting cycle. This meant spending a few months building muscle and gaining some fat (bulking), and then burning off the extra fat (cutting).

Since bulking was going so well, we could have continued, but we were ready for a change. Even though we hadn’t gained as much fat as we thought we would, we decided to switch to cutting.

So for the next four weeks, we added some extra cardio to our hypertrophy workouts and drastically cut our calorie intake. We went from gaining 1–2 pounds a week (eating 500–1000 extra calories) to losing 1–2 pounds a week (eating 500–1000 fewer calories). We loved it. After all the time spent feeling full, it was refreshing to feel hungry again.

OUR “AFTER” PHOTOS & MEASUREMENTS

I started my bulk at 150 pounds, bulked up to 175 pounds, and then cut down to around 167 pounds. Adding these results to my first bulk, I ended up 40 pounds heavier than the year before and leaner than ever. My chest, traps, shoulders, and legs had really grown.

Notice that I’m wearing the same shorts. I didn’t cut them shorter—my glutes grew so much they pulled the shorts up higher in the back. All my clothes fit differently now. I had to toss out my small T-shirts and buy medium ones, then large ones.

Here are my before-and-after measurements:

• Body Weight: 150 lbs to 167 lbs (+17 pounds)
• Neck: 14.25″ to 14.5″ (+0.25 inches)
• Shoulders: 43.5″ to 47.5″ (+4 inches!)
• Biceps: 12.25″ to 13.25″ (+1 inch)
• Chest: 37″ to 38.25″ (+1.25 inches)
• Waist: 30″ to 29.25″ (-0.75 inches)
• Hips: 36″ to 37.25″ (+1.25 inches)
• Thighs: 18.75″ to 21″ (+2.25 inches)
• Calves: 13.5″ to 14″ (+0.5 inches)

Jared started at 130 pounds, bulked up to 167 pounds, and then cut down to 163 pounds, gaining a total of 33 pounds. He began with just a hint of abs and ended up with well-defined abs.

Here are his before-and-after stats:

• Body Weight: 130 lbs to 163 lbs (+33 pounds)
• Neck: 13.75″ to 14.25″ (+0.5 inches)
• Shoulders: 38.75″ to 41″ (+2.25 inches)
• Biceps: 11″ to 12.5″ (+1.5 inches)
• Chest: 33.75″ to 35.25″ (+1.5 inches)
• Waist: 27.5″ to 29.25″ (+1.5 inches)
• Hips: 35.5″ to 37″ (+1.5 inches)
• Thighs: 18.75″ to 22″ (+3.25 inches)
• Calves: 13.75″ to 15″ (+1.25 inches)

THE BIRTH OF BONY TO BEASTLY

When we shared our progress photos on our design blog, they took off. This was back in 2010 when the online fitness scene was still pretty new. Resources for skinny guys like us were scarce.

We started getting flooded with emails from other skinny guys eager to bulk up. They saw our results and wanted to know our secrets. It wasn’t just online, either—our friends, family, and even people at the gym were asking us for bulking advice.

I spent a whole year working my design job from 9 to 5 and then answering emails from 5 to 10 pm, 4 to 5 days a week. That meant I was spending over twenty hours a week coaching these other skinny guys through their bulking journeys.

To make things easier, I put our plan into a PDF guide that covered everything: the workout routine, the diet, the lifestyle changes we made, and how to tweak it based on their progress. Every 5 weeks, they’d send in new progress photos, and we’d discuss the next phase. It was a hit and produced great results.

During this time, I wanted a break from bulking, so Marco switched me to a strength training routine. I went from barely benching 135 pounds to pushing 225 pounds for a set of five. My goal had been just to bench 185 pounds for one rep, so I was amazed.

My strength shot up without gaining extra muscle mass, which showed me that focusing solely on strength training for muscle growth wasn’t the best approach.

After coaching dozens of clients over that year, Jared, Marco, and I decided to dive in and create The Bony to Beastly Bulking Program, turning it into a full-fledged business.

Once we had a prototype of our official bulking program, I put it to the test. I packed on another eighteen pounds, going from 167 to 185. In just a couple of years, I’d gained 55 pounds total.

I’d always thought my skinny frame meant I’d never be strong or muscular. But in just a few months, I discovered my potential was way higher than I’d imagined. I felt healthier and more athletic than ever. My doctor was amazed at how much my health had improved—I wasn’t at high risk for a heart attack anymore. Plus, I started sleeping better, too.

MORE BULKING TRANSFORMATIONS

Here’s a story about one of our very first Bony to Beastly members, Albert. He’s a doctor working 80 hours a week and often had to grab meals from the hospital vending machines. Despite the challenges, he was determined to go from skinny to muscular to set a good example for his patients. He managed to gain 25 pounds and ended up leaner than when he started.

Our bulking routine was designed for five months, but Albert took a bit longer to complete it. He had to take breaks from exercising when work got really busy. The photo above shows his progress after sticking to the bulking routine for five months.

Here’s another great example from GK, demonstrating how quickly and effectively ectomorphs can build muscle.

And here’s one of my favourites, Klaus, who started out skinny-fat and totally transformed his physique by building muscle and losing fat, finishing 22 pounds heavier than when he started:

Here’s Ariel’s skinny to muscular transformation. He’s a great example of building broader shoulders:

Over the years, we’ve improved and refined the program. We’ve run nearly 15,000 guys through the program now, and we’ve remade the program 3 times, making major overhauls with each major update.

GAINING 70 POUNDS

We still try to walk the walk. I’ve gotten married and had my first son. Even after all these years, I’m still feeling grateful that I took the effort to bulk up. It’s helped me live a productive and healthy life, and I get to feel like a strong husband and father.

If I compare my physique at 32 to how I looked at 22, the difference blows me away. I’ve gone from benching the barbell and deadlifting 95 pounds to benching 3 plates for 1 rep and deadlifting 4 plates for 8 reps. I didn’t realize that was possible for someone like me to do naturally.

That’s the story of how we went from skinny to muscular. Jared ultimately gained 50 pounds. Marco and I have each gained 70. It transformed our physiques, our health, and our entire lives. That’s why we’re so passionate about helping other skinny guys bulk up.