Weight loss(3)

Arrowhead

My wife has always been a bit on the heavy side. When she retired in January 2017, because of Alzheimer’s, she weighed about 190. By February 2020, she weighed about 200. She started losing weight and now she’s about 130. I understand that this is not unusual. However, her PCP thinks I should be giving her Ensure. I don’t know if that will help or is even necessary. I would appreciate any experiences with this from others. I thank you in advance.

May flowers

I give my FIL ensure but I don’t think it is helping him gain weight necessarily. It is giving him some calories and protein which I think is good.

towhee

The doctor might not be thinking as much about weight gain as about nutrition. Certain elements in diet help to avoid pressure sores.

GothicGremlin

I'm not there yet with my sister, but my mom-in-law supplements her diet with Glucerna, which her doctor likes better than Ensure. I don't know the reason for the preference. She drinks it for the calories, but also for nutrition - she weighs right around 85 pounds, and is tiny, tiny.

Jinx Darling

DH has dysphasia and has a hard time getting enough calories down and he was losing weight monthly. We added the Boost Very High Calorie (520 calories from Amazon) to DH diet. It is easier for him to get two of theses down than 3-4 of the Ensure’s, and then we have the Ensure 350 calories to round out his calories and hopefully nutritional needs. There is a product called Benecalorie, a food calorie and protein enhancer, I add to scrambled eggs and we use Muscle Milk in smoothies. It has stopped the weight loss but has not done anything to help him gain any weight to date.

ZackFootInMouth

This is an idea I hadn't considered. But I remember being on Ensure a few times; has the taste improved (or is there a way to alter the flavor myself?)