Lose Weight on the Peanut Butter Diet

[Mom23boys]

Men's Health Magazine

Eat 4 to 6 tablespoons of peanut butter every day. You'll lose weight and you won't be hungry.

Yeah, yeah, peanut butter is loaded with calories. But it's also packed with monounsaturated fats, which Men's Health magazine calls the original death-defying potion. In fact, the magazine goes so far as to say we should all be on the Skippy Diet to reduce the risk of heart disease AND to lose weight.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital concluded that people who consumed foods that were high in monounsaturated fats, including olive oil, avocados, and peanut butter, were more likely to lose weight and keep it off than people following a more regimented, lower-fat diet. These amazing claims were backed up by researchers at Purdue University. It's really pretty simple: Peanut butter is filling. BUT. Limit your Jif Diet to no more than 6 tablespoons of the gooey stuff a day.

What do you eat on the peanut butter diet? Men's Health offers this menu:

Breakfast: Peanut Butter and Banana Shake (1 cup of fat-free milk, 1 medium banana, and 2 Tbsp. peanut butter liquefied in a blender)

Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple

Snack: Peanut butter on a rice cake

Dinner: It's peanut-butter free! But be sensible and enjoy a skinless chicken breast, chopped nuts, an avocado, and a salad for example.

In case you need justification to go on the peanut butter diet, how about justifying a healthy heart? Peanut butter may just lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. Reuters reports that Italian researchers have concluded that women who consume less vitamin E may be at a far greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Vitamin E seems to protect against plaque build-up or arteriosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation, the Y-shaped branch in the arteries of the neck. And peanut butter is packed with vitamin E--along with canned salmon with the bones, canned tuna fish, olive oil, almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Led by Dr. Paolo Rubba from Federico II University in Naples, Italy, the research team examined 310 women aged 30 to 69, measuring their blood levels of vitamins A, C, E, and other antioxidants. They also interviewed each participant about her medical history, drug use, personal habits, and food consumption. Based on this information, the women were divided into three groups based on their vitamin E consumption. (None were taking vitamin supplements.)

Those who ate a diet that was the richest in vitamin E foods also had the lowest build-up of plaque in the carotid bifurcation. Reuters reports that those who consumed the least vitamin E were nearly three times more likely to have arterial plaque regardless of age, smoking habits, blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), and other heart disease risk factors. How vitamin E protects against heart disease and stroke is not yet known. The study findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.


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Wonder how well this works??

[dolphin]

This is a very interesting and informative article and I appreciate you posting it.

I've always liked peanut butter and now I have a good reason to eat it.

[homesteadmamma]

Well I'm not for any of these types of diets. They don't work, at least in the long run.

How long would one stay on this type of diet before they got tired of peanut butter, I mean really.

I firmly believe any weight loss program has to be balanced and you need excersise.

[Mom23boys]

I don't think I could honestly eat peanut butter everyday like that either. I would be sick of it and never want to eat it again.

I just thought it was an interesting article, but don't understand how it would really work.

[tbs727]

It would appear to me that the article is really preaching the importance of taking in enough monosaturated fats and Vitamin E. Since they can both be found in peanut butter it helps people apply it to their lives. There is no way I could eat that much peanut butter a day. I could eat peanut butter, olive oil, and tuna fish more often, though.

[tbs727]

Originally posted by tbs727
I could eat peanut butter, olive oil, and tuna fish more often, though.

But not together!!!

[i.m.cheap]

I love peanut butter, but there is no way I could eat 1/4 cup or more of it a day. I eat peanut butter on toast for breakfast or peanut butter stirred into oatmeal even when trying to lose weight. But not every day. I like a little variety.

[madkat2618]

I'm like Deb. I love peanut butter, but it's more of a treat for me to have it a couple of days a week on toast.

[canadian gardener]

LOL trust a mans health mag for that kind of diet. Men have a metabolic advantage. They burn WAY more calories than we do.

sigh, groan, resist urge to whack dieting males. even more resisting urge to whack male diet researchers who don't differentiate between male and female subjects.

They are always coming up with stuff like this that ignores differences between the sexes and then acting all superior like they have more will power.

It's usually the male in a dieting couple that loses first, and usually all he does is cut out bread potatoes and desserts and the lbs just roll off. with or without the help of the peanut butter.

The female practically has to do arcane dances by the light of the moon to get her female fat cells to let go any of their precious cargo!

We are magnificently designed to hold onto any fat we come across just in case it comes in handy in our next pregnancy. Fat, carbs (oh btw carbs and sugars transform INTO fat, even faster in a female metabolism!!!)

which is fine and dandy for the perpetuation of humanity, especially when starvations and famines blow thru the land.

But we live in a land of plenty, and most of us aren't pregnant most of our adult lives so

AREN'T we glad to be female!!!!!

With peanut butter eating men to "help" us figure out how to diet?

[PrairieRose]

Ok, I love peanut butter but if I ate that much in a day, for a few days in a row.....
let's just say it'd take a stick of dynamite to make me, um......"go" (IF you get my drift ).

[Emerald_Mommy]

I love peanut butter and I do eat a bit almost every day but not for 2-3 meals and snacks every day! This could explain why one of my grandpas has never had trouble with his weight though. He eats Peanut Butter EVERY DAY, sometimes more than once. And I can guarantee he's never heard of Men's Health magazine.