How To Choose a Good Weight Gainer Supplement

If you have a naturally skinny build like me, you’re probably no stranger to weight gain supplements! And if you’re a skinny build and you haven’t used weight gainers, now is the time to start! Weight gainers are great for thin guys looking to put on some serious mass. The reason being, when you’re thin and looking to bulk it’s all about getting enough calories. Fast metabolisms mean skinny builds need more calories that your average to put on some size.

So today I’m going to look at how to choose a good weight gain supplement. There are hundreds of weight gainers on the market, all ranging in price, calories and ingredients.

In the past weight gain supplements had a bad mane because they were cheap and nasty. They used to contain huge amounts of sugar and fat, and this is where most of the calories came from. Today, things have turned around and there are some real quality supplements out there.

What to look for in weight gainers:

You want to gain muscle, not fat! So here’s some points to look for when choosing a weight gainer. This will help you separate the quality from the garbage.

1. Check the saturated fat content
   Saturated fat is the kind of fat you don’t want to be consuming! Some weight gainers are very high in saturated fat, this is the sign of usually a cheap an inferior product. One serving should not contain more than 5-10g of saturated fat (10 is on the high side). Also check to see how much of the fat in the product is saturated fat. If the product has 20g of fat, in which 5g is saturated it’s generally OK. But if the product has 20g of fat, or which 18g is saturated that’s not good. That means almost all the fat is saturated! High saturated fat is a sign of a cheap product. Too much saturated fat may lead to excess fat gain.
2. Cholesterol
   It’s also important to check the cholesterol content of the product. Generally anything over 100mg of cholesterol per serving is too much. I have seen some products with up to 180g per serving, so watch out for that!
3. Sugars
   Weight gaining supplements are can be stuffed full of sugar to increase the calories and taste. This is not good for you, you want to go for shakes that have a minimal amount of sugar content. A good weight gain supplement will have around 30g of sugar or less, a bad one will have up to 70g of sugar per serving! Always check the sugar content before buying.
4. Protein content
   All good weight gainer shakes will be made with whey protein and have around 40-60g of protein per serving.
5. Protein to carbohydrate ratio
   As a general rule, a good protein to carbohydrate ratio for weight gain shakes is around 1:2. For every 1 gram of protein you have 2 grams of carbohydrates. If the protein content is high than this you’re possibly getting too much of the calories from protein.
6. Taste
   If you’re going to buy 10lbs of any supplement you want it to taste good! Make sure you read reviews and see what other people say about the taste and texture of it. Often you will need to be taking 2-3 weight gain shakes a day, so you want to be sure!
7. Price vs quality
   For every good weight gainer there’s 10 that are cheap rubbish. You’ve got to find a happy medium here. If you go for a cheap weight gainer you will probably gain weight, but a lot of that weight is likely to be fat.

Recommend weight gainers:

I only used to recommend 2 weight gainers, but now after tested BSN True Mass I now recommend 3. These are the 3 weight gainers I’ve tried. They have a good nutritional makeup, are decent on price ans taste/mix well.

1. Dymatize High Protein Mega Gainer (#1 recommendation)
2. Prolab N-Large II
3. Cytosport CytoGainer
4. BSN True Mass

Got questions? Have you tried some good weight gainers yourself? leave your comments about this post below!