Is peanut butter good for muscle building?

This is why peanut butter is useful in sports nutrition for strength training.

Many athletes who want to build muscle focus their diet on foods with a high protein content, such as eggs, high-protein meat, dairy products, legumes and protein shakes. However, peanut butter can also be helpful in building muscle, as the delicious nut butter scores high inprotein, healthy unsaturated fats and fiber while being low in carbohydrates. But how exactly is peanut butter supposed to help build muscle and how much is needed?

We explain why peanut butter is good for muscle building and how peanuts support your muscles.

Content:

• Why is peanut butter good for muscle building?
• High quality protein source
• Healthy fats
• Potassium for glycogen stores
• Valuable arginine
• Magnesium for bones
• Supplier of dietary fiber
• Which peanut butter is best for muscle building
• Blend of weight training and peanut butter for muscle building

Why is peanut butter good for muscle building?

If you want to build muscle, regular exercise is important, but it's not everything. Because at least as important, if not more important, is the diet. Because a sports diet that fits your goals is not to be neglected in order to achieve the dream of a well-trained body. And this is where peanuts come into play: you appreciate peanut butter so far as a snack, in desserts or in curry, but so far it has been nothing more than a tasty calorie bomb for you? Time to change that: Because peanut butter can support your muscle building with many valuable ingredients such as proteins, unsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and minerals.

Peanut butter as a high-quality protein source for muscle building

Successful muscle building and proteins belong inseparably together. Proteins are important for both building and maintaining muscle mass - but you probably already know that. To see success in front of the mirror, protein-rich foods should therefore be firmly integrated into your diet. The good news: Here you can combine the tasty with the useful, because peanut butter is high on the list of protein-rich foods: 100 grams of peanuts or peanut butter provide you with 23 grams of protein[1] and valuable amino acids. This also helps your muscles recover after a demanding workout.

Another advantage is that the high protein content of peanut butter keeps you full for a long time. And when you're full for longer, you're less likely to reach for unhealthy snacks and avoid cravings - all with delicious peanut butter! By the way, peanut butter can also help you build muscle overnight. Because your body also needs energy during sleep - e.g. for muscle regeneration - which you can supply with two tablespoons of the delicious nut butter in the evening in the form of high-quality proteins. But don't forget: too much fat also slows down muscle building, of course.

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Healthy fats thanks to unsaturated fatty acids

Many athletes and figure-conscious people are concerned with nuts and also with peanut butter or peanut creams that the high percentage of fats will lead them to more body fat rather than more muscle. In principle, it is also absolutely reasonable to pay attention to the amount of fats in the diet, however, peanut butter contains mainly unsaturated fatty acids, which is a great advantage. In fact, these healthy fats are important for various functions in the body. And what do muscles have to do with fat, you're probably asking yourself now. It's simple: to build muscle mass, your body needs a calorie surplus. Nutritious protein sources like peanut butter help you build muscle twice over, because the protein helps build muscle mass and the high nutritional value provides your muscles with the calories they need.

Peanut butter provides potassium for glycogen stores

When it comes to peanut butter for muscle building, there's no getting around potassium. After all, 100 grams of peanut butter contains 658 milligrams[2] of it. Together with sodium and chloride, potassium is one of the most important electrolytes for the body and is involved in important metabolic functions. Among other things, potassium contributes to normal muscle function, maintenance of normal blood pressure and normal functioning of the nervous system. But that's not all, because potassium is also involved in the following processes in the body [3]:

• Regulation of water balance
• Regulation of blood pressure
• Maintaining the tone of the blood vessels
• Maintaining the tone of the muscles

So potassium also plays an important role in your muscle building, which is why a daily serving of peanut butter can have a positive effect as a supplement to weight training.

Valuable arginine in peanut butter for muscle building

As building blocks of proteins, amino acids are indispensable for muscle building. Anyone who wants to build muscle with regular training and a coordinated sports diet should therefore consume protein sources with as complete an amino acid profile as possible. However, individual amino acids are also contained in certain foods. Peanut butter, for example, contains the semi-essential amino acid arginine.[4] Semi-essential means that the body partly produces the amino acid itself, but also takes it in through food. Nuts and peanuts in particular are ideal suppliers of arginine.

Arginine performs many important functions in the body[5],[6], e.g.:

• Formation of collagen and protein
• Production of growth hormones
• Promotion of blood circulation

In addition, arginine increases your performance[7], i.e. you can give your all during a workout to build muscle. This is mainly due to the increased blood flow, because more oxygen is transported to your entire body. You can also get your daily portion of arginine with the right amount of peanut butter and thus positively influence your muscle building.

Peanuts provide magnesium for strong bones

Calcium and vitamin D are known by most people as important building blocks for bones. But you shouldn't forget magnesium either, because magnesium also helps maintain normal bones. Scientists also believe that magnesium, together with calcium and vitamin D, strengthens the bones.[8] Studies have shown that a lack of magnesium leads to a reduction in the concentration of calcium in the bones.[9] Since strong muscles also require strong bones, peanut butter can be a useful addition to your training. 100 grams of peanuts contain 176 grams of magnesium. [10] So if you eat peanut butter every day as a snack or spread, you'll also be doing your bones some good.

Fiber to fight cravings

Peanut butter not only provides a lot of protein and unsaturated fatty acids, but also scores with a good amount of fiber. And fiber is important for our digestion, but it can also keep you from cravings by filling your stomach. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a snack, but if you constantly reach for it throughout the day, you'll soon feel the nasty cravings and see little success in building muscle. If you snack on peanut butter - or just eat a tablespoon of it plain - it can keep you full longer and prevent frequent trips to the fridge.

Which peanut butter is best for building muscle?

Peanut butter, peanut butter, creamy or crunchy - the delicious nut butter comes in many varieties. By the way, they all have nothing to do with butter, because the name butter is actually only permitted in the EU for products made from milk. However, there is an exception for peanut butter, because the product is so well known from traditional use. As the name suggests, creamy peanut butter has all the peanuts smoothly pureed, while the crunchy variety still contains some pieces of the nuts, giving the peanut butter a crunchy bite.

Many manufacturers add sugar and palm oil to their peanut butter, which significantly increases the calories and thus reduces the positive aspects. To make sure your peanut butter is really good for muscle building, you should choose one that doeswithout sugar, palm oil and unnecessary additives: ESN Peanut Butter also optimally supports muscle building, because here you are guaranteed to find neither additional sugar nor palm oil or other preservatives and additives.

Peanut butter and weight training: Ideal for your muscle buildup

Whether muscle building, mass phase, diet for weight loss or definition phase - due to the contained proteins, fiber, vitamins and minerals[11] peanut butter is healthy and as a snack or part of the meals an ideal component of sports nutrition. It's entirely up to you whether creamy, crunchy, with salt or without - the only important thing is that your peanut butter contains the most natural ingredients possible. By the way, you can also use peanut butter as a perfect substitute for sugar and thus reduce unnecessary carbohydrates.

With a natural and muscle-building peanut butter like ESN Pe anut Butter, you can easily integrate peanut cream into your diet. Whether as a spread, in a protein shake, pure as a snack, in cereal or in sauces - with peanut butter, the nutrition plan for muscle building is guaranteed not to be boring. However, of course, the same applies here: The quantity makes it! Since peanut butter simply contains a lot of calories, you should not overdo it even for muscle building and adjust the amount to your diet plan and your goals.