Why does Ensure make you gain weight and does that mean it makes you gain fat?!
Answers: My doctor told me that I need to gain some weight and recommended that I take Ensure daily. What I am wondering is does Ensure really make you gain weight and if so how does it do it? Also, is the weight gained in the form of fat?
Ensure makes you gain weight simply because it is dense in calories. For instance, an 8 oz. bottle of Ensure contains 250 calories. Even more so, an 8 oz. bottle of Ensure Plus contains a whopping 350 calories. Remember that 8 oz is equal to a cup, so that's a pretty small serving size. If you were to drink 2 bottles of the Ensure, it would weigh in at 500 calories, the amount of calories in a typical meal. If you drink 2 bottles of Ensure Plus, you would get in 700 calories, the typical amount of calories in a large meal.
As for the weight gain, no particular food such as Ensure can make you put on a certain type of weight. It all depends on you: your weight and your physical activity. For instance, if you are malnourished and underweight, you will put on mostly organ and muscle tissue weight (your body is smart; it rebuilds the vital organs and muscles first before it starts adding fat). However, if you are overweight, then drinking Ensure would obviously put on more fat (unless you are working out like doing strength training).