Yo,
The renowned cheat code to bulking for hard gainers; “mass gainers”. Mass gainers are certainly popular amongst the hard gainers. I mean, it makes sense anyway; high in calories, protein, carbohydrates and they’re typically easy to drink. So to all hard gainers and aspiring bulkers, the question, “Are mass gainers worth it?” Seems like a no-brainer.
So everyone should buy it, right? Wrong. Sure, upfront they appear excellent, but they’re certainly not perfect. Today we’ll be going into if mass gainers are actually worth it. Of course, this is just my opinion and thoughts after research, however, I hope you can learn something today.
Let’s get into it and question whether they’re worth it.
Price
Of course, what better way to determine worth is with the price?
Some mass gainers can go for as low as $35, which can appear quite cheap. Some Mass gainers can also have a price of up to $150. However, these prices are also according to the sizes, which is why it is necessary to calculate how much 1kg is. You should divide the price by the weight.
For example, let’s say for $140, you can get 8kg of mass gainer. So to determine how much 1kg is, you’ll have to do 140 divided by 8, which is $17.5 for 1kg.
Let’s do another, for $180 you could get 5kg. This means you have to do 180 divided by 5, which means that 1kg costs $36.
Let’s do one more, for $50 you could get 2kg of mass gainer, which means that 1kg is $25.
As you can see, the prices vary when you calculate them on a 1kg basis. I recommend that you do this to ensure that you are getting the best bang for your buck. After conducting these calculations over many mass gainers, you may come to realise that there is an ‘average’ price. Some will be more expensive and some will be cheaper.
It’s also important to remember that typically, price relates to quality, where an expensive gainer means you are receiving a higher quality. Furthermore, a cheaper mass gainer may mean that you are buying lower quality.
This is not true in all circumstances, but it is something to keep in the back of your head when determining if the mass gainer is worth it.
Moreover, you need to consider your financial situation. If you are willing to spend a lot of money on mass gainers, then maybe the higher price per kg will be worth it. Differently, if you are willing to only spend a small amount, then the lower price per kg may be better.
These are all factors that you should consider. Typically, however, mass gainers are consumed primarily by teenagers who don’t have as much money as adults, so the lower price is normally chosen.
Circumstances
The next factor to consider if mass gainers are worth it, is your fitness circumstances. By this, I mean if you are “bulking”, “cutting” or “maintaining”.
If you’re bulking, then muscle gain will be your primary goal. Naturally, you’ll want and will need more calories to maintain the caloric surplus. In this situation, mass gainers may be worth it for you, since they will provide easy calories to ensure that your body are consuming more calories than it needs to maintain its weight.
What about if you’re cutting? Mass gainers would not be worth it in this situation. Rather, they would be doing you a disservice. The nature of this supplement is to provide a significant amount of calories. If you are entering a fat loss phase, you will need to be eating fewer calories than your body needs (keeping protein high as well) to maintain its weight, so you should be looking towards foods with low calories.
Therefore, it only makes sense for mass gainers to be avoided, as the calories they provide are quite high. So in a cutting stage, mass gainers are not worth it.
It’s also necessary to consider another set of circumstances. That is if your consumption of mass gainers will be short or long-term. If you are planning on only consuming it for a short term, say, a few months, then the mass gainers may be worth it. However, let’s say that you want to consume it for years. In this situation, then the mass gainers are not worth it, especially if the mass gainer is of lower quality.
This is because mass gainers are a supplement, and should not be relied upon. Instead, whole foods should be the goal to ensure a caloric surplus long time. Whole foods are superior to supplements in terms of nutritional value after all. Short-term, however, it is appropriate and worth it.
Alternative
I would also like to provide you guys with some alternatives to mass gainers, for some high-calorie ideas. If you would like specific recipes using protein powder, feel free to check some out here.
However, if you would like some general advice for alternatives if you believe mass gainers are not worth it for you, here is some general advice.
– More meals throughout the day. Quite simply, more meals mean more calories which will promote the caloric surplus.
– Higher calorie foods such as chicken thighs (don’t be afraid of the fat on the thighs), oats, olive oil, salmon, steak, dried raisins, nuts and milk for example.
– Consuming protein powder instead.
My Final Thoughts
One thing that came to my attention was the ingredients on some mass gainers. Some mass gainers have many, many ingredients and some of these are not necessarily good for the body. These include fillers, gums, thickeners and more.
These ingredients can be quite cheap for manufacturers and are only added to increase caloric intake, therefore allowing the name of “mass gainers”.
Myself, I have never used mass gainers, even when I was underweight. This may be because I was lucky enough to have all the ingredients and necessary foods to maintain a caloric surplus.
Regarding my personal opinion (I am not a professional or dietitian), I believe you should only ever use mass gainers if you are significantly underweight and are looking to pack on a lot of size in a short amount of time (naturally). Other than that, I would not recommend mass gainers.
Your primary option should always be to receive your calories from whole foods, as they’ll always be superior to supplements.
Wrapping it up…
Whether or not mass gainers are worth it will be dependent on your circumstances. However, more likely than not, mass gainers will not be worth it for you. This is because I believe mass gainers should only be used for the reasons I stated previously and the likelihood of people falling into that category is quite low.
Despite my reasoning, you are always free to do what you wish, however, you should keep this information in mind and think about it before purchasing mass gainers. It may save you some time, effort and money after all. Thanks for reading guys and I’ll see you next time.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts on if mass gainers are worth it.
By Declan
