Supplement Series: Mass Gainers

Supplement - noun - something that completes or enhances something else when added to it.

It’s worth saying that at least 80% of your physical fitness is determined by nutrition, sleep, stress level, and consistency. Considering that these factors of your lifestyle are relatively in check, adding certain supplements can have extra benefits that would otherwise be very difficult to sustain through diet alone. 

Mass Gainers

As you know from my article on Energy Balance, weight gain is dependent the relationship between the calories burned and consumed throughout the day. For those who struggle to gain weight, the restricting factor is often as simple as a lack of calories and more often a lack of protein. Considering that some people require up to 4,000 calories per day to effectively gain muscle, finding the appetite to eat that much food can be a daunting task. 

This is where a mass gainer can make it much easier to reach a caloric surplus, especially with some powders containing more than 1,000 calories per serving. 

The short-coming of most mass gainers lies in the lack of vital micronutrients. Regardless of what the marketing claims, the mix of protein powders and carbs are not a super food. For most people, consuming 25% of daily calories through a powder would make it very difficult to acquire adequate vitamins and nutrients in the remainder of their diet. 

As with anything else you put in your body, be sure to read and understand the nutrition label. Almost all mass gainers have a hefty dose of protein, but the remainder of calories are at the discretion of the manufacturer. Typically the rest of the scoop is filled with simple carbohydrates, but some brands throw in "muscle boosters" like glutamine and BCAA's, both of which I will address in a later article. Basically, don't get too tied up in the added boosters with the exception of creatine.

As a general rule, get as much of your daily calories from whole food sources and use powders and pills as exactly what they're intended to be: supplements. If eating enough calories has never been an issue for you, then mass gainers are probably not worth your money.

There are plenty of people out there, myself included, who can't imagine having too small of an appetite. For that crowd, a mass gainer is completely unnecessary. Still, mass gainers can be a useful tool for those hard gainers who tend to lose their appetite long before reaching their caloric goals for the day.

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