Role of Peanuts in Healthy Weight Gain in Athletic Individuals

Exploring the Role of Peanuts in Enhancing Healthy Weight Gain in Athletic Individuals

Many athletes and military personnel desire weight gain primarily as lean mass to improve performance and effectiveness in military/sport endeavors. While much is known about the energy restriction required to reduce body weight, very little is understood about energy and macronutrients needed to promote healthy gains in body weight and lean mass. Typically, athletes are encouraged to increase calorie intake by ~500 kcal/day with an emphasis on adequate protein and carbohydrate, and judicious inclusion of healthy fat-containing calorically-dense foods, including peanuts and peanut butter. This study proposes to evaluate the effect of a 10-week diet and exercise regimen designed to promote healthy weight gain. This will include increasing energy intake by 500 additional kcal/day (above weight maintenance diet) through daily provision of either peanut-based whole foods/snacks (peanut group) or a similar, high-carbohydrate, peanut-free snack (control group) along with a supervised strength training regimen. Results will serve as an important first step in helping understand the gaps in knowledge related to healthy weight gain, designing better weight gain meal plans, not only in athletes and military personnel, but also in clinical populations where promotion of weight gain is advocated.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Interested in gaining 5 pounds of body weight to enhance effectiveness in sport, fitness, or military training/competition.
• Willing to eat 500 kcal/d and weight train 3x/wk for 10 weeks
• Have weight trained in the past 12 months
• Not taking medications or dietary supplements that influence study results
• Non-smoker
• Without any major medical problems (including high blood pressure or coronary heart disease)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Nut, peanut, tree nut or legume allergy
• No weight training experience
• Orthopedic limitations that affect ability to weight train
• Currently taking dietary supplements or prescribed pharmacological agents that may affect lean tissue accretion
• Current or past anabolic steroid use
• Have a history of or current signs of disordered eating
• Pregnant
• Abnormal levels of thyroid stimulating hormone or hemoglobin, serum lipids (e.g., fasting triglycerides >150 mg/dL and/or total cholesterol >200 mg/dL)