Mass gainer and meal replacement are the two most appealing nutritional supplements. Adding them to your routine can level up your fitness game.
But although they sound similar, their composition, benefits, and purpose differ drastically.
Mass gainers favor muscle-building goals, whereas meal replacement drink is more useful for reducing body weight.
Thus, opting for the right nutritional drink becomes crucial from the point of achieving your fitness goal. A thorough comparison of meal replacement vs mass gainer differences can provide in-depth info to make a better decision.
So, without wasting any more of your time, let’s roll with it.
Mass Gainer vs Meal Replacement: Why You Need to Compare?
First and foremost, mass gainers and meal replacements have different nutritional values. The reason is evident because they serve different fitness purposes.
Here’s a more elaborate discussion.
The Difference in Nutritional Value
Mass gainers tend to promote muscle growth.
In other words, it works as a food for faster muscle repair and rebuilding. The high-calorie muscle-building drink contains the main portion of protein.
At the same time, it encompasses a fair quantity of fats and carbs while comprising a little portion of minerals, amino acids, and other nutrients. Particularly, it contains fat and carbs in good quantity than the rest nutrients.
Meanwhile, the job of meal replacement is to replace one meal with a low-calorie substitute drink.
It tends to reduce daily calorie consumption to help lose weight. Thus, it caters to weight loss requirements.
It contains the main quantity of protein along with fibers, minerals, and vitamins. The presence of carbs and fats is lesser comparatively. In short, it replaces a proper meal with a shake containing a proper nutritional value, but with fewer calories.
Support Different Goals
Secondly, there’s a difference in the purpose they serve.
A mass gainer works as an inclusion for a high-calorie diet.
A surplus diet with a high level of protein is suitable for muscle growth.
In contrast, meal replacement is applicable for reducing body weight, as well as maintaining healthy body composition.
In one serving, mass gainers deliver around 500 to 1000 calories per serving whereas meal replacement offers almost 250 to 300 calories per serving.
Evidently, the calorie value of the nutritional drink should align with the requirement of the diet plan necessary for the physical goal they serve.
The comparison of mass gainer vs meal replacement differences is crucial because picking the right nutritional shake supports your fitness appropriately.
We have already opened up the discussion with a brief note on the necessity of the comparison. So, now it is time to jump into the discussion by giving a short account of both.
Meal Replacement vs Mass Gainer: Definition
The two can be described as nutritional drinks. Whether mass gainer or meal replacement, they offer multiple types of nutrition in fair quantity.
This section explores the basic definition of the two terms.
What is Meal Replacement?
Meal replacement is a substitute for a normal meal with a nutritious, yet low-calorie shake. It is available in different forms like bars, powders, and drinks.
Evidently, it should comprise an adequate amount of macronutrients, which is at least close to what you get from a balanced meal.
One of the most affordable options would be buying PhenQ meal shake, which offers 7 meals per bag serving and costs a few bucks to load up on a month’s supply. It also contains key vitamins and minerals with 16 grams of whey protein in each serving. So, it keeps the users full and suppresses untimely cravings.
The low-calorie nutritional drink supports slimming goals. Apart from weight loss aspirants, people into cutting often add meal replacement shakes to their diet. This helps meet the calorie deficiency necessary to achieve your weight loss target.
What is Mass Gainer?
Mass gainers are highly similar to protein powder as they intend to support muscle growth. Usually, they are available in powder form, which requires mixing in water or milk to prepare the drink.
They contain a high quantity of protein as well as large amounts of fats and carbs. Often, people misunderstood mass gainer and protein powder as the same.
In reality, protein powder mainly encompasses protein with a low quantity of fats and carbs, whereas mass gainers have a fair quantity of the last two along with the main portion of protein.
The main job of mass gainers is to increase bulk. It provides sufficient nutrition to repair and rebuild muscle tears caused by intense training.
Thus, for it to work appropriately, working out becomes predominately crucial. Also, workouts like weight lifting and bodyweight workouts, which facilitate muscle growth are great, when taking a mass gainer.
Muscle building requires consuming more than the standard calories. Mass gainers add to the nutritional strategies of bodybuilders.
Currently, when it comes to popularity, protein powder rules the muscle-building category. However, with more available options, the fitness community is changing its perception. Mass gainers have been replacing many popular protein shakes due to a more balanced composition.
The short note on the comparison of mass gainer vs meal replacement clearly explains the ins and outs and differences between the products. Further, understanding the benefits of meal replacement and mass gainers can be beneficial.
What Benefits Do Mass Gainer and Meal Replacement Offer?
Nutritional drinks benefit your body, health, and fitness objective in multitudes of ways. This segment does the job of highlighting those factors.
The Benefits of Mass Gainer
A natural mass gainer offers multiple advantages over a high-protein diet for bulking. We would explore them one by one:
- A convenient way to load protein for bulking
- Easy to prepare than conventional meals
- Makes bulking cycle easy to manage with the right nutrition in an appropriate amount
- Easier to maintain the right quantity of macros and calories for jacking muscle
- Finest sources of quality macros
- Prevents bloating (if the supplements contain digestive enzymes), which is obvious with surplus calorie consumption
Bloating is quite common with mass gainer consumption. Till now, only a tailored formula, like Crazy Nutrition Mass Gainer, with digestive enzymes has been shown to work effectively without bloat.
There are a range of benefits you would receive by adding a good mass gainer to your bulking routine. Likewise, the best natural meal replacement shakes deliver amazing advantages.
The Benefits of Meal Replacement
Meal replacement drink supports your slimming goals. However, this is one of the benefits of the weight loss nutritional shake. We would look here for more.
- Highly convenient for substituting regular meals with a low-calorie drink
- Easy to prepare than a regular low-calorie meal
- Provides a balanced number of macros and micronutrients close to a healthy meal
- Contains a good amount of fibre to suppress hunger
- Improves weight loss experience
The difference in meal replacement vs mass gainer benefits again works in distinguishing the products. Certainly, opting for the right nutritional drink becomes convenient.
Still, knowing which ones are better for your goal can make things effortless. The next segment mainly deals with who should prefer which shake.
Mass Gainer vs Meal Replacement: Target Users
Irrespective of knowing the pros and cons of a mass gainer, it can be difficult to select the right product. So, the following information is available about the differences between the ideal consumer group.
Who Should Use Mass Gainer?
The best natural mass gainers cater to a specific group of people. Of course, they would benefit more from the bulking shake than others. If you belong to the below category, don’t hesitate to give it a shot.
- Busy folks wanting surplus calorie intake with adequate protein amount
- Requiring post-workout nutrition for fast recovery
- Surplus calories for young folks finding it tough to manage calorie intake through diet
- People wanting an on-the-go formula to load protein on office days or college days
- Athletes or bodybuilders add mass gainers to their diet plan strategically to level up protein intake
If any of the above points apply to you, adding a mass gainer to your routine can be a game-changing experience.
Choosing among mass gainers that contain a whey protein blend offers amino acids and will supercharge muscle protein synthesis. It would also transform your dietary efforts, putting forth intense bulking results in a short period.
Who Should Use Meal Replacement?
Meal Replacement also specifies its targeted consumers. Of course, the weight loss shake caters to the slimming industry. Here’s an insight on who should prefer meal replacement.
- People finding it tough to go calorie deficient
- Busy bees finding it hard to pay attention to their diet
- Fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders in the cutting phase who want to trim down fat flabs with additional dietary support
- People looking for an easy on the go healthy yet low-calorie shake
If you belong to the above categories, including meal replacement can be a strategic choice. It supports your dietary habits and banishes overeating to elevate fat loss. Hence, becoming slimmer with the weight loss shake becomes efficient.
Clearly, both of these nutritional drinks cater to unique goals. Thus, making your choice based on what you plan on achieving would be a wise decision when comparing meal replacement vs mass gainer side by side.
However, you need to consider usage instructions for either of these supplements, especially if you’re a beginner. Proper dosage is already half of the process to hit your body goals on time. Understand the right use, and you’re halfway there!
How to Use for Best Results?
You can actually intensify the power of a meal replacement or mass gainer. We won’t tell you to just follow the dosages to get the results.
Of course, it is important for them to work, but additional measures can elevate their efficacy. So, let’s get started.
How to Use Mass Gainer?
It’s best to take mass gainers either before or after workouts to fuel muscle growth and strength.
To further elevate its efficacy, perform workouts as per your training schedule. Perform the exercises causing micro muscle tears.
Go for weightlifting, HIIT, powerlifting, calisthenics, or bodyweight exercises. Always keep challenging your body with the more difficult version of the same workout.
The more muscle tear, the more your body would utilize the macros from mass gainer to pack lean muscle.
On the other hand, avoid junk foods and unhealthy meals; careless eating can hamper the benefit of mass gainers.
Also, rely on a high protein moderate carb diet for maximum advantage. This further facilitates muscle protein synthesis. With mass gainer in your diet, achieving surplus calorie intake make bulking efficient.
Not so surprisingly, the tips to take a meal replacement has quite a lot of differences as compared to a mass gainer.
How to Use Meal Replacement?
For it to work properly, you need to replace your meals with a shake. You should generally substitute your breakfast or lunch with the slimming shake.
Never replace your dinner with a weight-loss drink. Only replace one meal a day and rest meals should be proper food.
Furthermore, whatever food you consume throughout the day should be high in protein and low in carbs and fat.
Also, following a weight loss workout plan becomes mandatory to cut body fat. Go for HIIT, cardio, yoga, and other slimming training program.
The idea is to stay active as much as possible to burn body fat. Performing NEAT can further enhance slimming efforts. And with meal replacement ensuring daily calorie deficiency, achieving your weight loss target gets closer.
This was a short guide on how to use a mass gainer vs meal replacement shake. Keep the points in mind to reap maximum advantages from them.
Though they intend to deliver a huge difference, the perks entirely depend on which product you bought. Yes, you need to know which meal replacement or mass gainer to pick. Find more in the section discussed below.
How To Choose the Right Mass Gainer and Meal Replacement? Tips
The fitness industry is a multi-billion business. The market is full of weight loss and muscle-gaining products.
With respect to mass gainer and meal replacement, the options are limitless. At the same time, not all products work, and those that work don’t offer results exactly similar.
Thus, this segment is dedicated to guiding you on how to pick the right meal replacement or mass gainer.
- Whether mass gainer or meal replacement shakes, the formula may contain sugar. So, go for one with a natural composition and no added sugar.
- Flavoring is another important factor. Instead of opting for nutritional drinks encompassing artificial flavors, go for one with natural flavors.
- Don’t go for mass gainers with less than 500 calories per serving. In terms of meal replacement, don’t go for a pack that has more than 300 calories per serving. Such a product won’t help lose weight due to excess calorie consumption, which might make your goals suffer.
- Buy mass gainers with a good quantity of protein and a fair amount of carbs and fats. On the other hand, explore the ingredients label of meal replacement to ensure that it has vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients.
- Avoid meal replacement and mass gainer shakes containing preservatives and artificial ingredients.
When buying either of these, do pay attention to all of the above points. This would help you buy the right shake for your fitness goals.
All in all, meal replacement vs mass gainer differences are apparent when it comes to calorie level, nutrition chart, and pricing.
So, choose wisely and avoid artificial fillers in your supplement. Plus, always remember to follow up supplementation with a nutritional diet because skipping meals is not the idea here.
In the end, we would leave you with the final opinion on the comparison of the products.
The Final Words
The motive behind the mass gainer versus meal replacement comparison is to pick the right nutritional drink for your goals.
A mass gainer is applicable for bodybuilders, whereas meal replacement is for weight loss and people into cutting.
At the same time, you would want to know if they can substitute for each other or not.
Using a mass gainer as a meal replacement is possible.
It would be better to take half a serving of mass gainer instead of a full serving for replacing your one meal. A full serving would be almost 500 calories, which will hamper your calorie deficiency attempts. Eventually, it can hinder your slimming goals.
Also, use a mass gainer with fewer fats and carbs.
In contrast, replacing a mass gainer with a meal replacement isn’t always a good idea.
You can only use meal replacement as a mass gainer when the meal replacement offers a good per-day serving of protein and carbs.
Take 2 servings to achieve a calorie-surplus diet. If the meal replacement formula is low in protein, you have to use it with a wide variety of proteins in it to cater to muscle-building requirements.
Consequently, it would be much better to just buy a mass gainer instead of going through all this trouble.
Hopefully, now you have got a fair idea of the mass gainer vs meal replacement differences. What did we miss? Do comment your thoughts and share this blog with someone stuck with their buying decision.