How to Juice for Weight Gain
People juice fruits and vegetables for a number of reasons: to add more produce to their diets, to help ease various ailments, or as part of a so-called detox regimen. Juice is also a more concentrated source of calories compared with whole fruits and vegetables. So, drinking it can help you take in more calories if you’re trying to gain weight.
But juice doesn’t provide a balance of nutrients, and it can be high in sugar. That means you should get calories from additional sources to help yourself gain weight.
Counting Calories for Weight Gain
Gaining weight requires taking in more calories than you burn.
While fruits and vegetables are nutrient-dense, they aren’t necessarily high in calories. But juicing them removes most of their fiber, making the drink higher in calories.
The number of calories in a glass of juice varies depending on the fruits and vegetables you’re juicing.
Be Mindful of Sugar Content
The calories from juice can help with your weight gain, but you may not want all the sugar.
Fresh juice is also not a good source of protein, fat, vitamin D, calcium, or iron. It may not provide the balanced nutrition you need for healthy weight gain.
Tips for Gaining Weight With Juice
To avoid spiking your blood sugar, you can add some of the leftover pulp from juicing for extra fiber. Fiber can help slow your digestion, so your body doesn’t absorb the sugar as quickly.
Also, try to limit the amount of fresh juice you drink to no more than 8 oz a day. Add other high-calorie, nutrient-rich foods to get the rest of your extra calories. Good choices include nuts, seeds, eggs, and vegetable oils.
For a balance of nutrients, you can also try using your fresh juice in a smoothie. Drinking a 500-calorie smoothie each day in addition to your regular dietary intake could help you gain a pound per week.
To add variety to fruit-juice smoothies, experiment with different kinds of juices and other ingredients, like nut butters, milk, or Greek yogurt.
For a smoothie with 412 calories and 41.4 g of sugar, blend half a cup of fresh orange juice with:
- 1 cup of soy milk
- 1 medium banana
- 1 cup of blueberries
- 1 tablespoon of almond butter
Safety Precautions
Take some simple steps to help prevent foodborne illnesses when you make juice.
First, make sure the produce that you want to juice is free of mold and soft spots.
- Counting Calories: Get Back to Weight-Loss Basics. Mayo Clinic. September 5, 2024.
- Carrot Juice, 100 Percent. U.S. Department of Agriculture: FoodData Central. October 31, 2024.
- Apple Juice, 100 Percent. U.S. Department of Agriculture: FoodData Central. October 31, 2024.
- What You’re Losing When You’re Juicing. Cleveland Clinic. November 3, 2023.
- Selecting and Serving Produce Safely. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. March 5, 2024.
Kayli Anderson, RDN
Medical Reviewer
Kayli Anderson has over a decade of experience in nutrition, culinary education, and lifestyle medicine. She believes that eating well should be simple, pleasurable, and sustainabl...
Jill Corleone, RD
Author
Jill is a registered dietitian and health writer based in Honolulu. She spent the early part of her career working in a traditional setting as a clinical dietitian in a hospital, t...