Best Protein Powder For Weight Gain – 5 Easy Options

Protein powder for weight gain is the liquid solution for hardgainers.

Firstly, for skinny guys, the main issue is not getting enough macronutrients from food. The problem is simple, because you just can’t force enough food down your throat throughout the day.

This is where protein powder for weight gain helps.

When you struggle getting enough macronutrients with your meals, drinking calories can be a life saver. So you can turn to protein powder for weight gain and drink your “food”.

In conclusion, this proves to be the easiest way for hardgainers to get an upper hand. So you can finally get enough macronutrients needed to build muscle.

Best protein powder for weight gain shortlist

Best Overall

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pro Gainer

This product is third party tested by Informed Choice. It’s the best overall product, but it comes with a higher price then best buy product.

Best Buy

Universal Nutrition Real Gains Weight Gainer

It’s third party tested by UL Solutions and carries GMP – Good Manufacturing practice certificate. This is the Best Buy – best bang for your buck choice.

Digestion Friendly

MRM Nutrition Gainer

This product is not third party tested. However, it’s more “natural” than the first two choices. It’s also a digestion friendly choice, because of added probiotics.

Top Calories

BSN TRUE-MASS Weight Gainer

This product is not third party tested. But it has the top calories per serving from all products on the list.

Most Natural

Animal Meal

It’s third party tested by UL Solutions and carries GMP – Good Manufacturing practice certificate. This is the most “natural” weight gainer from all on the list.

Main problem with protein powders for weight gain

Protein powders for weight gain should work as a replacement meal for people not able to eat enough food in a day. But most weight gainers have their macronutrient ratios way off for what you need to build muscle.

Firstly, most respectful brands have high doses of carbohydrates and low protein. Secondly, some have high doses of fat. So, this makes those supplements bad for building muscle.

Those kinds of weight gainers will make you gain fat instead of muscle. So you have to be really careful when selecting the right protein powder for weight gain for yourself.

Another big problem with weight gainers is sugar. Sugar causes insulin spikes in your body. This in turn leads to various health problems like diabetes, heart and kidney problems.

In conclusion, when selecting the right weight gainer, one of the important criteria used for selection is the ratio of macronutrients for muscle growth.

Protein powder for weight gain selection criteria

Firstly, when selecting best supplements there are several factors to consider:

1. Supplement medical safety
2. Third party certification

Findings are noted with each supplement considered.

Secondly, for selection of best protein powder for weight gain there are several other factors considered:

1. Best macronutrient ratio for muscle gain
2. Calories per gram of protein (lower is better)
3. Price

What is the best macro ratio for gaining muscle?

According to research optimal macronutrient ratio for building muscle is:

• 25-30% protein
• 55-60% carbohydrate
• 15-20% fat

When you are looking for protein powder for weight gain, the best option would be the one with macronutrients in the above mentioned quantities.

Calories per gram of protein

Now we covered the best possible blend of macronutrients. But this is not all you would want to consider. Since you are buying a protein supplement, you would want to get as much protein per serving possible.

If there is 60g of protein, 81 grams of carbs and 9 grams of fat in serving, it’s 150 grams per serving in total.

You are getting 4 kcal per each gram of protein and each gram of carbohydrate you consume. You also get 9 kcal per each gram of fat you consume.

This will then come out to 240 kcal (for 60g of protein), 324 kcal (for 81g of carbs) and 81 kcal (for 9g of fat) – total 645 kcal.

When you divide 645 kcal by 60 g of protein you get calories per gram of protein. In this case this is 10.75 kcal/g.

You would want to have this number as low as possible.

Price

For the list of 5 best protein powders for weight gain there is a price range from 0.44 to 0.87 USD/ounce.

Prices below 0.5 were noted as low, prices between 0.5 and 0.74 were noted as medium and prices above 0.75 were noted as high.

Price distribution:

• Low = < 0.5 USD/ounce
• Mid = 0.5 – 0.74 USD/ounce
• High = >0.75 USD/ounce

Protein powder for weight gain: Research findings

Research included 20 protein powders for weight gain.

When taken in consideration macro ratios for muscle gain, the list was reduced to 10 best choices. 10 had extremely high portions of carbohydrates and low protein (around 80% carbs and less than 20% protein).

After careful analysis of those 10 shortlisted weight gainers, one was kicked off the list because of lead it contains. Lead may cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive issues. This makes it unacceptable due to health concerns.

Two were kicked off the list because of too high fat concentration. The last two were kicked off because of too high carbs.

This left us the list of five best protein powders for weight gain.

Final selection

With our short list of 5 best protein powders for weight gain, two come up as the best choice. Both had the best macronutrient ratios, low number of calories per gram of protein and competitive price.

Universal Nutrition Real Gains Weight Gainer was selected Best Buy because of its pricing.

But if you don’t mind paying more, you can go with the Best Overall choice Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pro Gainer.

Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pro Gainer has a lower number of calories per gram of protein than our Best Buy choice, a little higher fat and less carbs. Both were pretty close and it’s up to you to vote with your wallet if you prefer one or the other.

Our third choice MRM Nutrition Gainer has a higher number of calories per gram than our first two choices and price is close to our Best Overall choice. This might also be a good choice for you.

Our fourth and fifth choices have a little bit higher fat percentage than the first three choices. It depends what your daily macronutrient intake looks like. So, this might or might not be a problem for you.

Best protein powder for weight gain comparison

Here is a detailed comparison of all protein powders for weight gain:

Weight gain protein powder	Macronutrient ratios	Calories per gram of protein (lower is better)	Price	Flavors	Third party tested	Best for
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pro Gainer	Protein: 37% Carbs: 50% Fat: 13%	10.75	0.67/ounce	– Double Chocolate – Vanilla Custard	Yes	Best Overall
Universal Nutrition Real Gains Weight Gainer	Protein: 35% Carbs: 56% Fat: 9%	11.36	0.44/ounce	– Chocolate Ice Cream – Vanilla Ice Cream – Banana Ice Cream	Yes	Best Buy
MRM Nutrition Gainer	Protein: 29% Carbs: 58% Fat: 13%	13.8	0.64/ounce	– Vanilla	No	Digestion Friendly
BSN TRUE-MASS Weight Gainer	Protein: 27% Carbs: 50% Fat: 23%	15.09	0.75/ounce	– Chocolate Milkshake – Strawberry Milkshake – Vanilla Ice Cream	No	Top Calories
Animal Meal	Protein: 37% Carbs: 38% Fat: 25%	10.91	0.87/ounce	– Chocolate – Vanilla	Yes	Most Natural