Losing weight isn’t all about exercise and training. People must consider a healthy diet alongside regular training to achieve their weight goals.
But, while preparing the diet plan, you must include food with the highest benefits and fewer calories. Peanuts are one such legume that offers taste, nutrients, and numerous benefits.
Peanuts are highly nutritious seeds with multiple macro and micronutrients. These nutrients could be helpful in effectively building muscles and losing weight.
Moreover, you get options to consume these seeds in your preferred ways like raw, fried, salted, etc.
As peanuts offer multiple benefits, this article will cover everything you need to know while eating peanuts for weight loss.
Contents
Benefits Of Peanuts For Weight Loss
Rich In Healthy Fats
Peanuts are a significant source of multiple nutrients, including proteins, fiber, and healthy fats.
Primarily, peanuts contain a high amount of healthy fats like monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA).
Unlike other harmful fats, healthy fats would help in different metabolic activities and prevent risks of certain diseases.
Healthy fats in peanuts may help lower the cholesterol levels in the blood, especially bad cholesterol, or LDL.
Moreover, they may reduce inflammation that could lead to several chronic disorders. Peanuts could be helpful during weight loss as they promote sufficient usage of stored fat as energy.
Lowers Hunger
Peanuts are highly fibrous and the richest source of proteins. Consuming peanuts or peanut products regularly may help reduce hunger, which is essential to lower calorie intake.Generally, an individual must consume fewer calories than calories burnt to initiate the weight loss mechanism.
Here, peanuts could be a better option for restricting calorie intake. Peanuts’ protein and fiber content may help you stay full for a longer period.
Moreover, peanuts could help prevent excessive snacking throughout the day to restrict the consumption of carbohydrates, and unhealthy fats.
Boosts Body’s Metabolism
Peanuts could potentially help increase the body’s metabolism. Generally, peanuts have been linked to increasing the thermic effect of food, or TEF of the individual, to the maximum level.Hence, increasing TEF may result in faster digestion, absorption, and food processing. Additionally, it prevents the drop in metabolism, a situation often observed during weight loss.
But the metabolic boost due to peanuts could be temporary and may last a few hours.
Peanut butter also contains some minerals like zinc and iron that may help boost the body’s metabolism.
Zinc and iron may help to increase the thyroid gland’s ability to produce hormones responsible for boosting the metabolism.
Lowers Calorie Intake
Peanuts are one of the significant sources of calories. But controlled consumption of peanuts may help lower the calorie intake.Hence, people losing weight must consider consuming peanuts in optimum or recommended proportion to control the calorie intake.
Generally, people consuming peanuts won’t be able to completely break down the nuts into digestible sizes.
These partially chewed nuts pass the digestive tract without being absorbed.
Hence, the remaining chewed peanuts would be absorbed for nutrition and calories resulting in a controlled calorie intake.
Additionally, peanuts could be a great food to manage hunger and prevent overeating. This may also help in managing weight in the long term, as per the study.
Helps Build Muscle
Peanuts could be an excellent choice for bodybuilders and gym enthusiasts. But it may offer similar advantages to people losing weight.It is essential to build muscles while losing fat to maintain body structure. Hence, peanuts may help increase muscle mass during the weight loss process.
Peanuts contain L-Arginine which could help in muscle hypertrophy during resistance training, as per the research.
Keeps You Energetic
Peanuts could act as an energy booster for the body. These tiny seeds contain proteins and fibers that could help increase the conversion of carbohydrates into energy.
Moreover, peanuts may regulate the distribution of energy for different metabolic activities. Generally, peanuts slow down digestion, resulting in a controlled release of energy.
Additionally, peanuts may fulfill the energy scarcity or demand after vigorous activity, like running, exercise, etc.
It may quickly meet the instant energy requirements by combining the benefits of essential nutrients like proteins, carbohydrates, and fibers.
Hence, you may prefer peanuts during weight loss to balance the low-energy level.
A Beneficial Food After Workout
After a workout, food is highly beneficial in building strong and dense muscles. Hence, the after-work out meal should be nutritious and have fewer calories.Peanuts or peanut products could be the best food to eat after exercise. Peanuts contain a significant amount of protein along with moderate carbohydrates and electrolytes.
Moreover, peanuts contain an almost negligible amount of unprocessed sugar, which benefits losing weight.
Muscle degradation may occur after an intense workout session. Here, consuming peanut or peanut products may help prevent muscle degradation after every workout session.
Risk Of Peanuts
Peanuts are one of the best nuts to have in your diet. But, sometimes, these healthy nuts may cause serious health problems in some individuals.
Allergic Reactions
Peanuts could be highly allergic to a few individuals. The allergic reactions may arise irrespective of the quantity.
Sometimes, the human body’s immune system finds protein in peanuts harmful, resulting in several allergic reactions.
Peanut allergies could be common, or unpredictable, in some cases. Some common allergic reactions to peanuts are hives, itching, swelling, digestive issues, etc.
Inhibits Blood Clotting
In some people, peanuts could cause some severe medical conditions. Peanuts may inhibit blood clotting due to the presence of resveratrol, as per this study.
As the body fails to clot blood during an injury, the risk of excessive bleeding gets high. Sometimes, the condition may lead to persistent nosebleeds, excessive menstruation in women, and bruising.
Increases Sodium Intake
Naturally, peanuts do not contain enough sodium to increase the level. But, sometimes, eating peanuts in excessive amounts may cause a sudden spike in sodium levels in the body.
Moreover, people eating salted peanuts may consume additional sodium in the salt.
Due to increased sodium content, the body may experience increased blood pressure and risk to heart health.
Side Effects Of Peanuts For Weight Loss
Consuming peanuts during weight loss is a better preference. But, it may show some side effects on people losing weight.
May Cause Weight Gain
Peanuts could help in losing weight. But, consuming these seeds in excess may cause weight gain.
Generally, peanuts are high in calories, but the human body fails to absorb them. Eventually, you get fewer calories than the stored calories through peanuts.
Eating peanuts in excess may cause an increase in calorie intake, which may disturb the diet plan resulting in weight gain.
May Cause Omega Fatty Acid Imbalance
Peanuts are one of the best sources of healthy fats like MUFA and PUFA. Peanuts contain omega-6 fatty acids, a polyunsaturated fat essential for energy production.
But, consuming omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in equal proportion would be considered healthy for an individual.
Hence, as peanuts primarily contain omega-6 fatty acids, they may cause omega fatty acid imbalance in the body.
May Disturb Your Diet
Diet is an essential thing to consider during the weight loss process. Hence, disturbance or abrupt change in diet may cause weight gain and nutrient deficiency.
Peanuts contain a variety of nutrients but lack a few as well. For example, peanuts contain Vitamin E in sufficient but lack Vitamin C.
Hence, eating peanuts in excess may cause an increase in Vitamin E levels and deplete Vitamin C levels, resulting in an imbalance.
May Cause Stomach Problems
Sometimes, peanuts consumption may cause stomach problems like gas formation, constipation, etc.
Eating a few peanut seeds may not cause these effects on stomach health. But people who consume peanuts in bulk at a time may experience some stomach problems.
Moreover, people with existing stomach problems should avoid eating peanuts.
May Inhibit Absorption Of Certain Minerals
Peanuts may interfere with an individual’s mineral absorption. Peanuts contain a high amount of phosphorus, which is available as phytate or phytic acid.
Hence, consuming excess peanuts may result in the accumulation of phosphorus in the body, inhibiting the absorption of other essential minerals like zinc, calcium, etc.
Persistent inhibition may lead to a mineral deficiency in the body.
Conclusion
Peanuts are magical seeds with a wide variety of nutrients. Hence, it could be a potential food for consideration in your weight loss diet.
You may go through the benefits these seeds offer to their consumers. But don’t neglect the risks and side effects of consuming peanuts for regular consumption.