'How Do I Build Muscle?'

Firstly, let's just acknowledge the fact that the difficulty and patience required to build muscle far exceeds the difficulty and patience required to lose body fat.

Fact.

The rate at which you can lose body fat vs gain muscle tissue is vastly different. While you can drastically change your physique during a 12 week dieting phase, you need to know that 12 weeks is a drop in the ocean when it comes to building muscle. You need to be willing to be in it for the long haul.

Relatively significant fat loss can be achieved in a relatively short timeframe. Providing that you are in a caloric deficit and are performing resistance and cardio sessions appropriately, you're pretty much half way there already. The main obstacles to manoeuvre are those of cravings and generally feeling hungry a lot.

Building muscle, on the other hand, is a different animal altogether. You have to be relentless with your mindset, consistent with your nutrition, progressive with your training and on point with your recovery. Nail every variable consistently, and the average male can expect to gain roughly 1-2 lbs of muscle per month.

Yep, you read that right. 1-2 lbs every 30 days if you do it properly. To put that into perspective, I have clients consistently losing more than double that weight in body fat every week.

Now I must highlight that this article is in no way intended to discredit any individual who has lost a lot of weight in the past, nor those who are currently trying to do so. Its intention is to acknowledge and outline the importance of persistence for those of you who may be trying to add to your frame and are finding it a very long process.

While appropriate training programs and nutrition protocols are both non-negotiable tools for success, they'll only allow you to progress towards your end goal when applied consistently over a timeframe which could well exceed 12 months depending on the amount of tissue you wish to gain.

So stick with it guys, because it will come. You just need to be patient, consistent, persistent and relentless in your efforts.