Gainful’s Customized Protein Powder delivers a personal performance boost

Building muscle, recovering faster, and performing better all require more protein. While whole foods are best, protein powders can help you reach your goals.

New to protein powders? It’s tricky to know what type and exactly how much to use. Tried many? You know most are chalky, overly sweet, or packed with fillers. Plus, they’re often sold in huge quantities, leaving you with a lot of unwanted product.

As a long-time health and fitness writer, I’ve tried dozens of protein powders over the years. But the first time I tried Gainful, a customizable protein powder free of artificial ingredients and chalky clumps, it was clear this was a different — and far superior — approach to protein powder.

Gainful Customized Protein Powder review

There are many types of powdered protein that can make up a formula. And there are nuanced differences among how whey, casein, pea, egg, and soy — not to mention isolates versus concentrates — affect your ability to best build muscle, lose fat, and enhance recovery. Add to that if you’re a runner versus weightlifter versus pilates devotee, if you have dietary restrictions or intolerances, and it’s hard for even the most serious of athletes to know which formula is right for them.

Gainful’s protein is unique in that it comes as an unflavored base, with zero artificial flavors, sweeteners, or dyes.

Gainful takes the guesswork out of it all. To create your personalized protein formula, Gainful offers a quiz that runs you through a series of questions, including your:

• Fitness goals
• Level of activity
• Type of activity
• Dietary restrictions and intolerances
• Even how much you typically sweat

Based on this, it then designs the perfect protein blend for both your body and typical workout routine. (There’s also a simplified version of this where you can just select a base of whey, plant, low lactose, or ketogenic, and a goal of losing weight, gaining weight, or building muscle to score your personal formula.)

Specifically, Gainful’s quiz customizes what sources and quantities of protein are in your powder. All blends have seven ingredients or less, including things like pea protein, brown rice protein, whey protein, and micellar casein. Depending on your goal and diet, they may also have a boost like green tea extract or non-GMO MCT Oil. There are whey, keto, and plant-based formulas to fit your diet, and each offers up to 26g of protein per serving and all nine essential amino acids.

As someone who strength trains and Olympic lifts three to four times a week but is intolerant of whey (generally considered one of the best protein sources for muscle building), I have a hard time finding a high-quality, plant-based protein that offers more than 17-20 grams of protein per serving. After taking the customizable quiz, my Gainful formula came back as a mix of pea protein, rice protein, and green tea extract and delivers 24 grams of protein per serving.

What’s more, I don’t like the taste of a super sweet protein shake, and my gut hates the filler ingredients and artificial sweeteners in most protein powders. Gainful’s protein is unique in that it comes as an unflavored base, with zero artificial flavors, sweeteners, or dyes. The ingredient list is short and sweet.

All Gainful protein blends have seven ingredients or less.

This clean, flavor-free formula means the powder is super versatile: You can add it to smoothies or baked goods as an undetectable protein boost to up your daily intake. Or, add it to a blender bottle with one of the flavor boosts packets it comes with, which includes options like sea salt caramel, cinnamon toast, or strawberry cream.

The flavors are subtle but tasty — ideal for those who just want to get protein in without feeling like they’ve eaten a whole meal, and the flavor customization also means you won’t get tired of one specific flavor after 75 servings in one tub.

This protein also mixes like a dream: Once you shake it in a blender bottle, the formula becomes light, airy, and, most of all, smooth. The powder doesn’t clump up like many other brands on the market. Best yet: It has none of that chalky texture that gives protein powder a bad name.

And if you have questions about which formula is right for you or why your quiz turned out the custom formula, Gainful offers subscribers access to free, 1-on-1 chats with a registered dietician.

Gainful’s full product range includes Performance Greens, Protein, Hydration, and Pre-Workout.

Where you can buy Gainful Customized Protein Powder

Gainful’s Customized Protein Powder is available on the brand’s website for $45 per bag of 14 servings. If you buy more than one bag, you can save 27%. You can also get 30% off your first order with Wellworthy.

Shop Customized Protein Powder at Gainful.com.