Trying to gain some weight this year after a while out of the gym. Got slowed down by my college studies -- I am currently a Biomedical Engineering student -- but trying to balance both now. Throughout my childhood and teenage years I was very overweight, and on the verge of obese. My father's whole side of the family is extremely unhealthy (every one of my uncles and aunts have had a single, double, or triple bypass), and the precedent of eating and living healthy was never set for me early on. In addition to that, during my childhood and even going into my first years of high school, I was extremely unhappy with the way I felt and looked. It wasn't until I started training in amateur mixed martial arts that I lost a significant amount of weight and gained significantly more self-esteem. I felt great, but at the same time I had become very skinny... Today, I'm trying to break the family cycle of living without regard to future health. All of what I know about maintaining a healthy lifestyle I have personally instilled in myself. Over the past few years I have nailed down some great eating habits, learned some solid lifting technique through my high school sports trainers, and improved my outlook on my life to come. Well... all that being said, I'm currently looking to build up mass-- although it's taken me some time to convince myself that I can consume enough calories to do so without reverting back to the unhappy, overweight guy I used to be. I would now consider myself to be quite a hard gainer when it comes to putting on lean muscle. I've come a long way since starting out on my fitness journey, but I love to hear any and all experienced advice the SHF community has to offer. That's about it! Thanks for reading! Train hard everybody! Pierre