While trying to gain weight can be challenging, it can be helpful to add beverages to your diet that will significantly contribute to your daily caloric intake. Delicious and easy, here’s a list of five of my favorite calorie heavy beverages to help you gain weight.
Fruit smoothies have gained much popularity over the years with juice bars like Jamba Juice and Robeks making them a popular beverage, but I have found that making them at home is a healthier and more affordable alternative. Not only does making fruit smoothies at home save money, it also enables you to control what goes into your smoothie. A simple smoothie using 1.5 cups of Market Pantry frozen mixed berries, 8 oz of Dole 100% pineapple juice, and 6 oz of Yoplait vanilla yogurt would be about 400 calories. How’s that for a weight gain beverage? It’s so nice to make homemade smoothies because you can increase or decrease the amount of calories your smoothie contains just by modifying the ingredients you choose to put in.
2. Ensure Plus
Growing up I used to think Ensure was only for the elderly, but as I got older I learned that people of various ages drink it because it provides a lot of the vitamins and nutrients they need to stay healthy. It wasn’t until recently that I came across Ensure Plus, a nutritional supplement that provides essential vitamins and nutrients, plus 350 calories per serving. Ensure Plus is quick, easy, and is an excellent meal replacement beverage when you don’t have the time or appetite to eat a meal.
3. Whole Milk
Just for babies? Au contraire. Weight gainers can also benefit from the wonderful calcium-rich and fatty properties of whole milk. Milk is good for you for obvious reasons, but whole milk can also offer an effective way to add calories to your diet. Satisfying and versatile to boot, whole milk can be a great calorie heavy addition to a bowl of cereal or oatmeal, as the main ingredient in a milkshake, or as an accompanying beverage to your meals. One serving (one cup) of Market Pantry whole milk contains 150 calories, 80 of them from fat. Although I would not recommend gorging yourself on whole milk as 25% of a serving is saturated fat, if taken in moderation you will start to see the benefits of this rich beverage to your weight gain goals.
4. Peanut Butter Banana Shake
This is one of my favorite shakes to prepare. It delicious, rich, and, of course, calorie heavy. There are about 445 calories in a peanut butter banana shake using whole milk, and about 417 calories if made with 2% milk. To make, blend a couple tablespoons of Jif peanut butter, a medium-sized peeled banana, a few ices cubes, one cup of milk, and a sprinkle of brown sugar together for about one minute. That’s it. You are ready to enjoy a shake that’s rich enough to replace a meal.
5. Fruit Juice
100% fruit juice is a good beverage to keep on hand when trying to gain weight. Fruits usually contain more calories per serving than vegetables (because of their sugar content), so eating fruit is a good way to increase your daily caloric intake. What’s better is that 100% fruit juice will give you the same benefit as eating fruit, except by drinking it you can consume more calories in a shorter amount of time. One serving (8oz) of Tropicana 100% Orange Juice contains 110 calories. Compare that with one serving of the actual fruit and you can see the difference. Imagine drinking two servings of orange juice a day–that’s easily 220 calories that have been added to your daily caloric intake. Not bad!
