Ensure is a supplement that helps you meet your nutritional requirements. It can be very helpful when your solid food does not meet your body’s regular intake of nutrients.
Ensure offers a wide range of products that can support you build muscles or gain weight. It can be particularly helpful for children, people with eating or digestive disorders and older adults.
Ensure also comes in a wide range of flavors, including strawberry, vanilla and milk chocolate. It is also available in many forms, such as powders, ready-to-drink milkshakes, puddings and snack bars.
So, how much ensure should I drink to gain weight? Does ensure help you gain weight faster?
How Much Ensure Should I Drink to Gain Weight?
Regularly drinking 1 to 2 Ensure protein shakes per day can be enough to help you gain weight. However, if you drink more than two servings per day, it can affect you adversely. You may get all the protein you need, but you will get carbohydrates and calories.
Moreover, you can switch to Ensure Plus Calories instead of your regular glass of milk. It is an excellent way to get adequate calories and nutrients on the go.
Each pack of shakes contains 27 essential vitamins and minerals in addition to 13 grams of protein. Hence, you can gain weight upon drinking 1 to 2 Ensure shakes per day.
Further, if you do not want to gain weight but maintain your healthy weight, you can drink one shake per day.
How Does Ensure Nutritional Drink Work?
You need a surplus of calories in your everyday diet if you want to gain weight. You can achieve this by consuming more calories than your body’s metabolism can burn.
By increasing your macronutrient intake, you can gain weight over time. The macronutrients include, but it is not limited to carbohydrates, fats and proteins.
Also, you can consume a lot of sugar and carbs to gain weight quickly. However, it can lead to health complications in the long run.
The extra calories you need to gain weight depend on your age, sex, and current weight. It also depends on your physical activity levels.
You can consume Ensure to increase your calories since it contains nutrient-dense ingredients. You can achieve the calorie surplus by drinking Ensure along with your meals and snacks.
Which Ensure Is the Best Choice for Gaining Weight?
Although many Ensure products can help you gain weight, Ensure Plus is the best choice for helping you put on some weight.
This product provides you with complete nutrition balanced with all the necessary vitamins and minerals that boost weight gain. It contains about 13 grams of superior quality protein.
Ensure is available in 5 different flavors, so you can choose the one you like the most.
• Vanilla
• Milk Chocolate
• Strawberry
• Dark Chocolate
• Butter Pecan
What Makes Ensure Unique?
Ensure is a product by Abbott Nutrition and it has been in use since 1973. Ensure now offers more than ten different shakes and all of these shakes are gluten-free. Furthermore, most of these shakes are certified kosher or halal, or both.
Ensure offers some impressive things that most competitors fail to offer. We shall discuss some of them below:
• Complete, balanced nutrition: Ensure Original and Ensure Plus offer complete and balanced nutrition. Hence, regularly drinking it can help you maintain your healthy weight or gain more.
• Targeted nutrition: They offer targeted nutrition which makes it very popular. For instance, Ensure Plus helps you gain weight, whereas Ensure Light is a low-calorie shake. Plus, Ensure High Protein and Ensure Max Protein aids you in building muscles.
• Advanced nutrition: Advanced nutrition includes products that can offer numerous benefits in a single pack of shakes. For example, Ensure Enlive contains various kinds of proteins and vitamins.
It helps you by supporting your muscles, bone, immunity and heart.
• Specialty therapeutic nutrition: This is a special category that supports you with energy at compromised times. It can include Ensure Compact and Ensure Surgery, which can help you before or after a medical procedure.
Benefits of Ensure Nutritional Drinks
Ensure is very popular across the country for certain reasons. In this section, we shall discuss some of its most distinguished benefits.
Helps Prevent Unintended Weight Loss
Supplemental nutritional drinks like Ensure contain a balance of fat, carbohydrates and protein. Moreover, if you suffer from the risk of losing weight unintendedly, Ensure can be an excellent way to prevent that.
It is also very easy to consume. For instance, if you are caught up in a busy schedule and do not have enough time to pick healthy food, nutritional drinks can be very helpful.
Further, it can be very helpful for kids and seniors who are more prone to unintended weight loss. It can also help them regain the weight they have lost earlier. It is also very palatable to kids and seniors.
Helpful Source of Protein and Nutrients
Ensure and other nutritional drinks provide the required source of protein and nutrients. If you have trouble preparing healthy meals or lose appetite, Ensure can be a reliable source of nutrients.
It provides a balanced intake of fats, protein, calcium, fiber and carbohydrates.
Hence, if you cannot consume them due to your situation, you can depend on Ensure. It can be an excellent easy to consumer source of carbohydrates and protein during a busy day. Moreover, the proteins can promote oxygen levels in the blood and improve your immune system.
Easy to Use
Ensure is one of the easiest ways to gain weight since you do not have to spend much time preparing it. All you have to do is purchase the pack, open it, and gulp down the shakes. Plus, it is very easy to find them in grocery stores and supermarkets.
This ready-made product is an easy way to get balanced nutrition on the go. Moreover, they are not very expensive, so you can easily make room for them in your grocery budget.
Ensure Ingredients
Let’s look at what some of the most popular Ensure drinks contain.
Ensure Original
• Calories- 220 grams
• Carbs- 33 grams
• Sugar- 15 grams
• Fiber- 1 gram
• Protein- 9 grams
• Fat- 6 grams
Ensure Plus
• Calories- 350 grams
• Carbs- 51 grams
• Sugar- 22 grams
• Fiber- 1 gram
• Protein- 13 grams
• Fat- 11 grams
Ensure High Protein
• Calories- 160 grams
• Carbs- 19 grams
• Sugar- 4 grams
• Fiber- 1 gram
• Protein- 16 grams
• Fat- 2 grams
Ensure Max Protein
• Calories- 150 grams
• Carbs- 6 grams
• Sugar- 1 gram
• Fiber- 2 grams
• Protein- 30 grams
• Fat- 1.5 grams
Side Effects
Ensure is generally healthy and useful for adults, kids, active people, and hospitalized patients. However, it does come with some side effects. (Source)
Weight Loss
Sometimes, consuming too much Ensure by replacing your regular diet can lead to fragility. This side effect has the opposite outcome of what you want. Moreover, elders and children are more prone to weight loss.
If you drink Ensure for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you will get about 750 calories a day. This number is definitely not enough to lead a healthy and active lifestyle.
Interactions with Medication
One of the major concerns about regularly consuming Ensure is the possibility of interactions with medication. It includes over-the-counter drugs, supplements and prescription drugs.
These interactions if they occur, can worsen your existing medical condition. It can weaken and heighten the side effects of the condition. Also, it can disrupt the various normal functioning of your body.
Nutrient Deficiency
Although Ensure can provide complete and balanced nutrition, it can not fulfill it alone. Hence, it is better to consume them as an after-meal drink or a healthy drink. Replacing it with your meals can lead you to lose vital nutrients that you need for your body’s healthy and normal functioning.
Ensure drinks do contain essential minerals, high-quality protein and 24 types of vitamins. However, these drinks can not replace meals since it does not meet the nutritional requirement. Moreover, it can hinder the weight gain process, especially in older adults.
As you are aware of the side effects of Ensure now, it is important to take some safety measures. Some of the side effects you should take as a sign includes nausea, flatulence and constipation.
Hence, it is vital to look for these signs and see what you are doing wrong. Here are some tips to make the best of this nutritional drink and gain weight.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/supplemental-nutrition-drinks-help-or-hype
• Eat balanced, healthy, and nutrient-rich meals.
• Drink Ensure shakes as snacks and not meals.
• Exercise regularly.
• Do not consume more than 1 to 2 shakes per day.
• It is better to talk to your physician before starting to drink Ensure products regularly.
Final Takeaway
Ensure comes in a wide variety of ready-to-drink shakes and multiple flavors. Besides, it is very delicious, so you can easily add it to your diet and gain weight.
Also, it is a healthy way to gain weight when you consume it moderately. With nutritional drinks like Ensure, you can make sure you receive enough vitamins and minerals as well.
Hopefully, now you have the answer to your question about how much Ensure should I drink to gain weight!
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