What actually matters
Eat slightly more energy than you burn, train hard, and land between 1.6 and 2.2 g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. Everything below is in service of hitting those numbers consistently.
The stack
- Whey or a whey isolate — the easiest way to close a protein gap without cooking.
- Creatine monohydrate — 3 to 5 g daily, any time of day. The most studied supplement there is.
- A mass gainer only if you genuinely struggle to eat enough solid food.
Creatine doesn't need a loading phase. 3–5 g every day, including rest days, is enough — saturation just takes three or four weeks instead of one.