Lose weight with Mr. Peanut

An interesting study at Purdue University may make you want to add peanuts to your diet.

In the study, volunteers were given about 500 calories worth of peanuts per day to eat whenever and however they saw fit. So, if they wanted to down all the peanuts in one sitting, they could. Or, if they wanted to snack on a few peanuts here and there throughout each day, that was cool, too.

After 8 weeks, each person had gained an average of 2 pounds. Now, you may be saying to yourself, "They gained two pounds? Why would I want to eat peanuts, then?" Because, these people did absolutely nothing different with regard to exercise and diet, save for adding 500 calories worth of peanuts to their diet. Researchers anticipated that the volunteers would gain 8 pounds at the conclusion of the study, but, as stated, they only gained about 2.

This is likely because of the high-protein and high-fiber nuts filled the volunteers up, making them less apt to eat as much during other meals. What's more, when the researchers checked back with the peanut-eating volunteers after 19 weeks, they found that they boosted their resting metabolism by 11 percent.

The takeaway from all of this? Unlike the volunteers in the study, no one is forcing you to eat 500 calories worth of peanuts every day. But, you can still receive the appetite-suppressing and metabolic rate-boosting benefits of eating peanuts by snacking on about a handful per day.