Why do I weigh only 130 pounds?
I'm 5'9" and I weigh 130 pounds, which is very low.
I have absolutely no doubt that if I eat more and apply progressive overload, I can gain more weight. So I will do just that.
So there is no mystery to why I haven't seen gains-- CLEARLY I have not been eating enough or training hard enough. (What, were you expecting me to insist that I have been doing enough? See what I did there..I subverted your expectations.)
The mystery is this: [B] Why is it so EXTREMELY low? Even without the diet and exercise, shouldn't I weigh more than 130 (and that is even with a small amount of visible midsection fat, so if that were gone I'd be about 125)? We've all known people who have never worked out, and as a result they look skinny-- but even these people would be closer to 150. That would be a more normal "baseline". Or how about people who were overweight and went on a diet until they lost all the fat. Even at a caloric deficit, at the end of their fat loss journey they will not be as low as 130.[/B]
I have noticed that when I gain fat (as opposed to muscle) it all goes to the midsection and never to the arms. Most people seem to have better fat distribution, so that may be part of it.
Again, I'll be working on bringing it up through diet and exercise. Eventually, I'm sure I can get up to 150. But why is it that most people wouldn't even have to do anything to get to 150? I'm using that number just as an example, but the point is that we should be more than 125-130 even without any muscle gains at all. Could there be an ADDITIONAL factor that is making my "default" weight even lower than normal?