If you're talking about gaining strength you need to continually lift more weight before you reach your natural limit every session. It shouldn't be too hard fo

If you're talking about gaining strength you need to continually lift more weight before you reach your natural limit every session. It shouldn't be too hard for the average man to reach a 180/bench 200/deadlift 240/squat after a years worth of training. It's also hard to gain muscular physiques in general. You have to cut an enormous amount of body fat to obtain things like an Adonis belt but if your goal is strength it shouldn't be too hard to hit novice benchmarks. I also doubt you were seriously burning the amount of calories you think you were working out. Unless you're a professional or Olympic athlete, someone who is training for over 6 hours a day, you will likely never burn more than 400 calories from a "moderate" gym session. People dramatically over estimate how much they burn working out. There's a reason why people say "You can't outrun a bad diet."