CHAPTER 7

Mass gainer supplements are getting some serious attention, especially among the young crowd. A prime target are the skinny guys who have trouble gaining weight.

As usual, the promises are among the lines of:

(I’m starting to think these ‘benefits’ come from the same board meeting as the BCAAs’ one.)

Oh, you don’t say! It helps me build lean muscle mass fast? Oh, I’m sold!

I’m going to recover faster, too? Oh my, double sold!

Stimulates protein synthesis? I’m already in, let’s get jacked!

Contains BCAAs?! Mind = blown!

But, do mass gainers work? Let’s find out.

Mass gainers are much like protein powders. A powder that comes in a tub.

But, there is one distinct difference:

The protein powder is low in calories and is mostly protein.

Weight gainers have much bigger serving sizes that contain tons of calories.

It’s not uncommon for a serving to be over 1000 calories.

Here’s the kicker, though:

The macronutrient composition sucks. Bad.

That very same serving that contains a 1000 or more calories will often have as little as 40 grams of protein in it. It will also have some fat, but the majority will be carbohydrates.

Each serving can contain hundreds of grams of carbs, mostly simple sugars.

On the label, you’ll see the usual:

Much like regular protein powder, weight gainers can be consumed by mixing the powder with a liquid (water or milk) and chugging it down.

To put some of you at ease, yes they do. But, the results they bring are not what you’d expect.

Unless your goal is to get as big as possible (read: fat) and you don’t care about your appearance at all, then weight gainers aren’t the best option for you.

It’s usually the newbies who fall for the weight gainers hype. They are led to believe that, with this product, they’ll pack on tons of muscle mass in very little time.

But, to understand why that’s a bad way of approaching muscle growth, let me give you a brief overview of clean bulking vs. dirty bulking.

You see, muscle growth comes slow. And I mean very slow.

In your very first year of lifting, you can expect to gain as much as 25 pounds of muscle mass. But, after that, the number tapers down to a steady 2-3 pounds per year.

Given these numbers, how wise would you say it is to gain 30-40-50 pounds of weight in a year?

Not very, I’d say.

Your body has a limit of how much muscle it can build in a given period and everything over that is going to be fat.

Striving to gain as much weight as you can is going to leave you with a ton of excess fat. You’d have to diet for months to get down to decent body fat levels, wasting time.

Now, let’s take a look at the other alternative: clean bulking.

I know that there are those people out there who don’t believe in bulking and cutting. And I’m not here to argue with them. Dirty bulking followed by excessive cutting is, indeed, dumb.

This is why clean bulking is a much better alternative. You eat in a small surplus, gain no more than 1 pound of weight per month and stay lean in the process.

Once you’re done, you'd have a few weeks of fat loss before you’re looking great. And you actually look good and in-shape year-round.

So, what does all that have to do with weight gainers?

Well, marketing.

You see, weight gainers are marketed as these mass-building products. Consume them for a few months and you’re jacked.

Most guys fall for that and end up dirty bulking. They eat in way too big of a surplus and gain as much as 5-10 pounds of weight per month.

They gain muscle mass, sure. But they also get fat as hell.

Second, most of these products are filled with low-cost garbage. After all, if the product is only made with high-quality ingredients, profit margins would be low.

And not only that, but weight gainers aren’t cheaper for consumers, compared to real foods.

Some weight gainers cost as much as $6 per serving. A serving usually has 1200 calories, 50 grams of protein, 4-5 grams of fat, and 250+ grams of carbs.

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem cheaper to me.

And when you couple that with the fact that you don’t know what ingredient quality you’re getting, I’d say that weight gainers are a poor deal.

First, as we discussed above, mass gainers have a terrible macronutrient ratio. You’re consuming way too many calories with very little protein. The carb content is very high and it’s mostly simple sugars.

Energy crashes are common.

Second, they don’t provide as much (if any) vitamins and minerals that real foods deliver.

Third, it’s very easy to go overboard on calories and end up getting fat.

When I look at most mass gainers out there, I cringe. The amount of bullcrap and broscience that surrounds them is too much for my taste.

So, to recap:

When most newbies think about getting big, they think “Eat big.”. What they’re missing is the quality of the calories and the macronutrients they need.

Sure, a mass gainer might promise 1250 or more calories, but what are those calories?

Is there an adequate amount of proteins, fats, slow-digesting carbs?

Are there enough vitamins and minerals to support bodily functions and well-being?

For the most part, the answer is no. Most gainers are filled with sugars, fillers, preservatives and other low-quality junk your body doesn’t need and can’t do jack with.

If you want to build lean muscle mass, you need a solid nutrition plan and hitting your macro and micronutrient requirements day after day. Filling your body with low-quality crap to hit some arbitrary calorie number is stupid.

You might as well be eating snickers bars. I mean, you still won’t be making gains, but at least they taste good.

They are making false promises they can’t deliver on.

Most of the promises they make are straight up lies. And in other cases, you can get the same benefits from eating real food. I bet you didn’t expect that.

Promises like “Gain more muscle, faster.” and “Aids in recovery.” are more of a marketing tactic to ramp up sales rather than actual benefits of the supplement.

They aren’t backing their claims.

They are reinforcing the idea that mass gainers can mask/out-do a shitty diet.

Again, the promises they slap on the label make it seem as if the mass gainer itself is the only thing needed to get a great physique.

The problem is many newbies who don’t know any better fall for this crap and end up frustrated when they don’t get the results.

To build muscle mass, you need a hell of a lot more than a crappy mass gainer. You need a well-structured training program, good nutrition, adequate recovery, and consistency.

No supplement out there can bypass all the requirements and make you gain loads of muscle. Period.

I don’t like the term “hardgainer”. Yet, I do recognize that there are some guys out there who have a hard time building muscle.

This is usually because of two reasons:

1)They have a low appetite compared to most people. I know some “hardgainers” who can barely eat 2500 calories a day.

2)They are quite active during the day, which makes their TDEE higher. This further contributes to the “weight-gaining problem”.

If you are considering a mass gainer, I urge you to think again. Most gainers are filled with sugar and low-quality ingredients.

Also, the price per serving is also not much different compared to if you were to get those calories from real food.

And, if you find that consuming liquids makes it easier to consume more calories, check out this great homemade ‘gainer’ recipe:

There are many other recipes like this one. The best part is you can customize it any way you like to fit your taste and make consuming more calories a pleasure.