Sport Natural Peanut Butter- A good amount?

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Safeboy43

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Hi all,

I'm 16 and recently I've been trying to do some bulking up. I am weight training every other day and doing some cardio on the alternate days. I believe I've gotten my diet figured following the Canada Food Guide and doing fairly well.

My question is about Kraft Natural Peanut butter. The guide recommends 3 servings of meat and alternatives, but I have multiplied this up to 4 to meet my 2600 calorie goal. In the afternoons, I've been enjoying a bagel with a couple scoops of Natural Peanut butter and sometimes another on the side (A food guide serving of PB is 2 Tbsp). Now, I know peanut butter is pretty high in fat but I keep my intake of blocked cheese and other high fat dairy and meats lower. Normally, my fat intake is about 15-20% of my caloric intake.

My main question is: Is it okay to have up to 3 Tbsp of Natural Peanut butter daily or is this simply too much?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated,
Thank you!
 
I think it's fine. What does the ingredients say? It should have Peanuts, and perhaps salt, and nothing else. Usually 2 tblsp is plenty. Peanut butter is usually high in calories, so you should watch that.

Overall, peanuts provide healthy fat for you. I would recommend getting other sources of healthy fat as well. Try flax seed, or maybe some salmon (or other fish) several times in the week. With fish, you get both healthy fat, as well as protein.

Peanuts are really legumes, so you can try other sources too. Perhaps a 3 beans meal, mixed with brown rice.
 
Yup, just 100% peanuts. No added salt, even. I eat fish and soy frequently so that doesn't seem to be a problem. I also track my calories and it fits in. The only thing I'm worried about is that the 1.5 servings of PB were taking the place of lean meats too often, which I assume is not good. I eat about 150g of protein per day. Is that adequate for the amount of meat and alternatives I consume?

Thanks for your reply!
 
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3 tblspoons are perfectly fine as long as your fat intake for the isn't already too high and you are still low in calories. Some days I would have 3-4 tblspoons of pb in a pita bread to catch up on lost calories.
 
I think it's perfectly fine the way you are, too. As long as your fat and calories intake are within range, you're fine. As for mixing up the various proteins, so long as you are eating different types of food daily, you're fine. You said you eat meat, fish, and other legumes, so I think you're getting a good supply of various protein sources.
 
I eat sometimes more than double that, yet keep my saturated fat intake at appropriate levels, but then I eat more calories than most. Just crunch the numbers
 
15-20% fat intake is a little on the low side if you ask me. I'd stay at 25% minimum, with a pretty even split between saturated, mono-unsaturated and poly unsaturated fats (with a lower priority on saturated...its ok if its a little on the light side, but saturated fat is an anabolic nutrient so don't try to cut it out completely).
 
Safeboy43 said:
Hi all,

I'm 16 and recently I've been trying to do some bulking up. I am weight training every other day and doing some cardio on the alternate days. I believe I've gotten my diet figured following the Canada Food Guide and doing fairly well.

My question is about Kraft Natural Peanut butter. The guide recommends 3 servings of meat and alternatives, but I have multiplied this up to 4 to meet my 2600 calorie goal. In the afternoons, I've been enjoying a bagel with a couple scoops of Natural Peanut butter and sometimes another on the side (A food guide serving of PB is 2 Tbsp). Now, I know peanut butter is pretty high in fat but I keep my intake of blocked cheese and other high fat dairy and meats lower. Normally, my fat intake is about 15-20% of my caloric intake.

My main question is: Is it okay to have up to 3 Tbsp of Natural Peanut butter daily or is this simply too much?

Any responses would be greatly appreciated,
Thank you!
Click to expand...

As others have touched upon, your focus should be more on your total - i.e calories, fat,protein & carb grams - intake for the entire day...and a bit less on how much or little of one particular food source you consume . That said, common sense would suggest you get protein from a variety of sources to take advantage of the different level of nutrients each might provide.

I agree with the other poster - your fat intake might be a bit on the low side. You'll often see total fat calories intake pegged at somewhere around 35% - 25% of your daily calories for the day - and a common suggestion that " bad " saturated fats be minimized - i.e not exceed 7% of your daily calories for the day ( at least according to the AHA ). The good news is, peanut butter is high in " good " monounsaturated fats.
 
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