I’ve been going to the gym for almost 9 months 3-4 times/week. I am really fit now and my muscles are defined. But how can I build mass?

[Anonymous]

People don’t actually see that I go to the gym because I don’t have gains. My arms look like a football player’s (soccer) though, which is not that bad. I am 5’8 (177 cm) and 154 lbs (69 kg). Now I have a quite defined jawline. If I gain weight, I have larger arms, but my face looks puffy. Some people actually say I’m in a very good shape, but others say I’m not athletic.

Updates

3 d

Imagine my body kinda looks like Phil Foden’s

[Sonorous]

Go into a mini-cut to get 10-15% bodyfat percentage lean if you're not. If you are then skip it & just go straight into focusing on tracking your daily calorie intake to figure out what your caloric maintenance would be to sustain that lean weight. After around 2weeks of tracking your food, bodyweight in the morning & averaging it, you should be sure what it is. Then just add 100-250cals extra each day while still training hard.

For instance:

I'm 5'11 & right now I weigh 153-155lbs when I'm under 15% bodyfat & above 10%. My caloric maintenance for those weight ranges are around 2,000cals per day. Recently, I've started to lean bulk so I've been logging everything that I eat & averaging out what it is so that the average for everyday roughly comes out to a surplus of around 250cals per day. I do the averaging in a spreadsheet.

I aim for +250cals because I want to be sure that I'm bulking, due to my caloric maintenance possibly having a broader range than I think. The range could vary from 2,000cals to 2,100 cals for all I know. Possibly even more. I can tell that so far I'm on the right track though because it's been a month & I've gained around 1 lb of fat & still have visible abs & am still trying to really push myself with training, diet, & optimization of sleep & regulating stress levels for better recovery.

[provokeesmokee]

You need protein and excess calories to build mass.

Look up bulking diet calculators for good tools.

[andreasderjuengere]

Building mass: drink beers, and dine at Macdonalds.

[Benj60692]

Eat more and eat well, high protein foods like chicken lean beef eggs, you need to be a calorific surplus to build muscle

[LazerBean]

You're going to have to eat way more protein

[In_Trance]

You have to put the emphasis on changing your diet