Being underweight makes pectus look worse than it is. The evidence-based system for gaining real weight, built around low appetite.
Joined by 1,000+ people fixing their chest without surgery, since 2015
Cartilage, muscle and the shape of your chest all run on what you eat.
If you have pectus and you're skinny, you know the loop. Here's why it isn't your fault, and why it keeps happening.
Your appetite isn't the wall.
You fought it head-on.
To gain on a low appetite, flip every healthy-eating rule: maximum calories, minimum fullness.
Liquid calories you barely register, small meals, eating by the clock. Strategy, not willpower.
Built on The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition by Dr. Eric Helms, the most rigorous evidence-based framework in the field. Rebuilt for one person - someone with pectus who needs to gain weight, not lose it. Every claim carries a citation you can tap and check.
Read them by rating, or by what people actually got out of it - the transformations, the honest reviews, and the messages that land in my inbox every week.
across 12 rated statements
500+ reviews collected since 2015. Open a bar, a tag or a condition to read the published ones.
What the 4.9 is made of
17 published statements · 500+ collected since 2015
read the blog for months before i actually did anything with it. no coach, no brace, just the stuff in the articles done properly. i feel a lot better now and the photos say the rest
DaniloPE
Read the blogCroatia 🇭🇷
Two months in and I've put on 3 kg of muscle. My chest doesn't cave the way it used to when I'm standing relaxed, and that alone was worth it.
MiloPE25
1-on-1 CoachingGermany 🇩🇪
the bell leaves a red ring on your chest the second you take it off, and nobody warns you about that. it fades within the hour and the skin has never been an issue since. 100% satisfied - the sternum sits higher than it has my whole life
PiotrPE25
Vacuum BellPoland 🇵🇱
He knows more about this than the two consultants I paid to see, which says more about them than it does about him. Showed my GP the 9 month photos and he asked me for the website. Half a star off because the time zones make the calls a nightmare from Ireland.
RuairíPE29
1-on-1 CoachingIreland 🇮🇪
watched the youtube for six years before i spent a single cent. bought the program, did it properly for 7 months, and the only thing i actually regret is the six years
TanePE26
PE Exercise ProgramNew Zealand 🇳🇿
Had the flare since i was about 14 and just assumed that was my ribcage, permanently. Brace plus the breathing drills and my mrs asked when i'd lost weight. I hadn't lost anything, it's just the ribs sitting where they should now.
DanielRib Flare27
Rib Flare BraceUK 🇬🇧
first call he told me straight up itd take a year and id hate months 2 through 5. he was right about both lol. 12 months on and my PC is flat. took my shirt off at the beach in january without doing the whole towel thing
DimiPC19
1-on-1 CoachingAustralia 🇦🇺
didnt know you could be breathing wrong for 21 years. thats the whole thing right there. flare started going down on its own once i stopped breathing into my shoulders, which is not what i paid for but ill take it
benjiRib Flare21
Rib Flare CourseUSA 🇺🇸
the brace is made really good, i wear it under the t-shirt at school and nobody has noticed in 4 months. my mother was crying when we compare the photos. sorry for my english
NicoPC17
Pectus Carinatum BraceItaly 🇮🇹
ive bought like four programs for this over the years and quit every one of them by week two. finished this one. i think its cus you cant move on until you can actually hold the position, so theres never that thing where you're guessing if youre ready or not
MateoRib Flare23
Rib Flare CourseUSA 🇺🇸
My son is 15 and had started keeping a shirt on in the pool, which is how I worked out something was wrong in the first place, because he certainly wasn't going to tell me. He would never have stuck with the brace on his own. It was the fortnightly check-ins that did it - he didn't want to turn up with nothing to report. Six months now and the ridge has visibly come down. He swims without the shirt.
Noah's mumPC
Pectus Carinatum BraceUSA 🇺🇸
I went in wanting to debunk it, honestly. Started opening the citations one at a time and they were real papers that said what he said they said. That is a depressingly low bar and nowhere else online clears it.
SanderRib Flare34
Read the blogNetherlands 🇳🇱
every doctor said come back when youre done growing, which is a mad thing to say to a 17 year old whos already miserable about it. did four months of training instead. 4kg on and my t shirts actually sit on something now
JakePE17
USA 🇺🇸
1 cm off the depth in eight months. I had this filed under things about my body that got decided before I was born, and I'd stopped thinking about it somewhere in my twenties, so being wrong about it has been a strange few months honestly.
VincentPE + Rib Flare36
France 🇫🇷
i was the skinny kid who kept his top on at the beach every single year. 6 months, 5kg heavier. took it off in ibiza this summer and genuinely forgot to be weird about it until we were leaving
CallumPE17
UK 🇬🇧
bump is 0.5cm down in 5 months. bro i genuinely thought this was gonna be bench press for a year, its like 80% breathing drills and posture stuff. wasnt what i signed up for but i cant argue with the tape measure
EliasPC16
Norway 🇳🇴
i did abs for two years thinking that was the fix. it was never going to be abs. three months of the brace plus actually learning how to exhale properly and its 1.5cm narrower down there
AlexRib Flare22
USA 🇺🇸
"read the blog for months before i actually did anything with it. no coach, no brace, just the stuff in the articles done properly. i feel a lot better now and the photos say the rest"
"Two months in and I've put on 3 kg of muscle. My chest doesn't cave the way it used to when I'm standing relaxed, and that alone was worth it."
"the bell leaves a red ring on your chest the second you take it off, and nobody warns you about that. it fades within the hour and the skin has never been an issue since. 100% satisfied - the sternum sits higher than it has my whole life"
"He knows more about this than the two consultants I paid to see, which says more about them than it does about him. Showed my GP the 9 month photos and he asked me for the website. Half a star off because the time zones make the calls a nightmare from Ireland."
"watched the youtube for six years before i spent a single cent. bought the program, did it properly for 7 months, and the only thing i actually regret is the six years"
"Had the flare since i was about 14 and just assumed that was my ribcage, permanently. Brace plus the breathing drills and my mrs asked when i'd lost weight. I hadn't lost anything, it's just the ribs sitting where they should now."
"first call he told me straight up itd take a year and id hate months 2 through 5. he was right about both lol. 12 months on and my PC is flat. took my shirt off at the beach in january without doing the whole towel thing"
"didnt know you could be breathing wrong for 21 years. thats the whole thing right there. flare started going down on its own once i stopped breathing into my shoulders, which is not what i paid for but ill take it"
"the brace is made really good, i wear it under the t-shirt at school and nobody has noticed in 4 months. my mother was crying when we compare the photos. sorry for my english"
"ive bought like four programs for this over the years and quit every one of them by week two. finished this one. i think its cus you cant move on until you can actually hold the position, so theres never that thing where you're guessing if youre ready or not"
"My son is 15 and had started keeping a shirt on in the pool, which is how I worked out something was wrong in the first place, because he certainly wasn't going to tell me. He would never have stuck with the brace on his own. It was the fortnightly check-ins that did it - he didn't want to turn up with nothing to report. Six months now and the ridge has visibly come down. He swims without the shirt."
"I went in wanting to debunk it, honestly. Started opening the citations one at a time and they were real papers that said what he said they said. That is a depressingly low bar and nowhere else online clears it."
read the blog for months before i actually did anything with it. no coach, no brace, just the stuff in the articles done properly. i feel a lot better now and the photos say the rest
Shared with each client's permission.
Did I help you with your pectus?
Share your before & after
Before
After
Before
After
“I'm 32. Everything I ever read said the window on this shuts at 18 and after that you either get cut open or you live with it. Nine months, 5 kg on, 1 cm off the depth. Nobody is more annoyed about the wasted decade than me.”
Before
After
“came in skinny with a deep dip and ribs that stuck out at the bottom. six months, 4kg up. funny thing is nobody says anything about the dip, its the flare going down that people actually noticed”
Before
After
“I'm 52. I have both a ridge and a dip, which I'm told is unusual, and I've had the pair of them since I was a boy. Nine kilos off in five months and for the first time my chest looks like one chest. I did not expect to be sorting this out at my age, but there we are.”
Before
After
“The brace did the flare, the training did the rest. Seven months, 6 kg on, 1 cm off the depth. The part I wasn't ready for is that I now own shirts that fit, after about fifteen years of buying everything one size too big.”
Before
After“5 months, 4kg on. still there if i go looking for it. nobody else has said a word”
Before
After“read the blog for months before i actually did anything with it. no coach, no brace, just the stuff in the articles done properly. i feel a lot better now and the photos say the rest”
Before
After“the bell leaves a red ring on your chest the second you take it off, and nobody warns you about that. it fades within the hour and the skin has never been an issue since. 100% satisfied - the sternum sits higher than it has my whole life”
Before
After
“3 months and 5kg later the ridge is sitting lower than its ever been. i was 100% convinced surgery was the only option, like id already looked up how much it costs and everything”
Before
After
“9 kilos in 6 months. the trick nobody tells you is you build the muscle around the ridge, then the ridge is not the first thing people see. before this i am buying only loose shirts, maybe 8 years like this”
Before
After
“before, the carinatum is the first thing i see in every photo of me. now i show someone and they must ask me where it is. i did not have any surgery, only the training”
Before
After
“Four months in and the side profile is the thing that changed. I used to clock myself in every shop window I walked past, at 30 years old, and I hadn't even noticed I was doing it until I stopped.”
PE pectus excavatum · PC pectus carinatum · RF rib flare
Drag each slider to compare.Tap any case to open and compare.Published only with the client's written consent.
Medically reviewed byProf. Dr. Mustafa Yüksel
Tap any message to read it full size. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube & TikTok comments, DMs, WhatsApp and email - real messages from real clients. Names and handles blurred, content untouched.
Case 01Case 02Case 03Case 04Case 05The four that come up most, answered the same way I would answer them on a call.
Take the 60-second quizPosture and breathing shift inside the first few weeks. Visible chest change is slower - in the case log above, Milo hit his at 2 months, Ian at 6. The programs run 16 weeks because that is how long it takes to show in the mirror.
Almost certainly not. The clients on this page were 22 to 32 when they started. Cartilage stiffens with age, so progress is slower, but slower is not stopped. Age changes the timeline, not whether it is worth doing.
Either works. Every program ships with a gym track and a no-equipment track for the same 16 weeks, and you can switch between them mid-program without losing your place.
No, and that matters. A sunken chest and a protruding chest need close to opposite work, and rib flare rides along with both. There is a separate program for each, if you are not sure which you have, the 60-second quiz sorts it out.
The whole program becomes one repeatable cycle you start this week. It isn't a rigid menu. It's a set-track-adjust loop that corrects itself as it goes, so it works for any body.
Start gainingEstimate maintenance, add your surplus (most skinny beginners start at +300–500 calories), hit the number and your protein target every day. Buy the blender. Get the staples in the house.
Compare weekly-average weight. Gaining ~0.25–0.5% of bodyweight a week? Hold. Flat? Add ~250 calories a day (easiest as one extra shake) and re-check. Keep training hard so the food becomes muscle.
Loosen strict tracking, keep the anchors: shake times locked, tinned fish and milk always stocked, eat by the clock. Re-assess maintenance as you get heavier and nudge calories up.
Progress photos, tape measurements, then the next block. The loop, run patiently for months, is how a skinny pectus frame fills out.
One document, front to back: from the number that decides everything to the habits that make it stick. Long on purpose. This is the one guide a skinny pectus person actually needs.
Every research claim has a lime citation number you can tap to see the exact study - 65+ of them, listed in full in the reference section.
I'm not writing this as a doctor looking at a scan. I had the sunken chest, the flared ribs, the shirt that stayed on at the pool, and nobody could tell me what actually works.
Years of consistent, non-surgical training made mine unnoticeable. Everything on this page exists because I needed it to exist ten years ago.
I tested all of it on my own body first, then refined it every time someone hit a wall I had not planned for.
Featured in Healthline · Level 5 DUKE Institute Certified Personal Trainer (ISSA) · Specialised in pectus excavatum, carinatum and rib flare.
Medically reviewed
I don't publish a clinical claim until Prof. Dr. Mustafa Yüksel, MD has checked it
Thoracic surgeon, founder of the Chest Wall International Group
Not in dollars. In time. Side by side, honestly.
This is education, not medical advice. If you are underweight or have any heart, lung or digestive condition, get cleared by your doctor first.
No waiting on a reply, no onboarding call, nothing to install.
One payment, lifetime access, free updates forever. You pull this lever three times a day, every day - it feeds every workout, every vacuum bell session, every rep of correction work you already do.
Try the whole thing for 30 days. Use it, and if it isn't what was described, message me for a full refund, no questions asked. The risk stays with me, not you.
That exact problem is the reason this program exists. Three moves fix it: drink more of your calories (shakes barely register on fullness), eat 4–6 smaller times a day instead of 3 big plates, and pick the densest version of every food so small volume carries big calories. The whole of Part 3 is that playbook, with recipes and food lists.
Not at the right pace. Keep gain to roughly 0.5–1.5% of bodyweight a month, hit your protein, keep training, and the research shows most of the gain is muscle. People get fat by force-feeding way too fast or eating junk with no protein and never lifting - the program is built to avoid both.
If your appetite is low, it's the highest-leverage $40 you'll ever spend - more useful than any supplement. Liquid calories barely register on fullness, so a blender gets hundreds of quality calories down in minutes when a plate would defeat you. A homemade shake also beats any commercial mass-gainer on cost, quality and control.
Two things were probably true: you ate less than you think (counted honestly, almost everyone does), and your metabolism quietly burned off part of the surplus - research shows a 10-fold difference between people fed identical extra calories. The program handles both: a real tracking method, and a simple rule - add ~250 calories and re-check every two weeks until the scale moves.
All of them. Calories, protein and the low-appetite playbook work the same regardless of which way the chest goes. The research on the skinny build is strongest for pectus excavatum, but the system itself is condition-agnostic, if you have a pectus chest and can't gain, it's for you.
No, and on purpose. A rigid menu breaks the first time it meets your kitchen, your budget or your food culture. You get the formulas (your calories, your macros), the food lists, the shake recipes and the daily structure - then you build it from food you actually eat. There's a fully worked example so you can copy the process step by step.
They're the stimulus; this is the building material. Keep your correction protocol exactly as prescribed and layer this eating system on top - fed properly, the same training finally produces visible muscle. There's a dedicated section on combining gaining with correction work, including around surgery.
Almost none. That's one of the honest parts. Creatine (~5 g a day, a few dollars) is the only supplement with strong evidence, and protein powder counts as convenient food, not magic. The program tells you to skip mass-gainers, BCAAs and test boosters and put the money toward real food.
The program has specific guidance for teens: focus on eating enough quality food rather than aggressive bulking - your body is primed to grow and good nutrition supports both height and muscle. Involve a parent and your doctor in any big changes. If you have any heart or lung involvement from the pectus, get cleared first.
The scale moves within 2–3 weeks once you're truly in a surplus. Visible muscle that changes how the chest reads takes months of consistent gaining and training, and slow is exactly what keeps the gain lean. The program asks you for three honest months before you judge it.
Straight away. The moment your payment clears, an email goes out with your link and the password that opens it — usually inside a minute. Read it on a phone, a tablet or a laptop; the password is typed once per device and then the page just opens. If it hasn't arrived in ten minutes, check spam, then message me and I'll send it over myself. Lifetime access, free updates, nothing to ship.
Email me inside 30 days and you get your money back, no explanation needed. Eating plans are personal, and if this one doesn't suit how you live, keeping your money would be a bad trade for both of us.
Take the free 1-minute assessment and get a straight answer for your condition and severity.
Take the assessment →The chat bubble in the corner reaches me directly, ask anything about your case before you decide.
Try the whole thing. If it isn't right for your chest, every dollar comes back.
Start risk-free →The evidence-based gaining system built for a pectus body and a low appetite: your numbers, the Blender Protocol, the 12-week loop, and the habits that make it stick. One payment, yours forever.
Start gaining
P.S. If you've read this far, part of you has already decided. The only thing you can lose by trying is the version of next year where nothing changed. - Mihail
