"Factor in starting baseline before judging transformation speed When evaluating whether a fitness transformation is suspicious, it matters whether someone was significantly underweight at the start — because the first pounds gained may simply be restoring a healthy baseline rather than true muscle growth. Research on 431 healthy Italian men found the average untrained FFMI was 19.8; a person starting well below that figure "should have been starting at 160 pounds, not 134 pounds," meaning "the first 25 pounds gained were essentially just getting back to a healthy baseline." Anyone assessing their own or someone else's progress should subtract that 'recovery weight' from total gains before comparing against typical muscle-gain benchmarks. Source: Jeff Nippard, YouTube, How Big Can You Get Naturally? (Science-Based)"