Bulletin #49 – Energy Channeling For Ultimate Sports Performance

You already know that usingCapTri is a great way to lose fat and getin shape. What you may not know is howto use CapTri to improve sports perfor-mance. In the most basic sense, sportsperformance is about muscle power out-put. The ability of a muscle to producepower is limited by it’s available fuelsupply. Specifically, muscle power pro-duction is closely related to carbohy-drate availability. There is a close cor-relation between muscle glycogendepletion and muscle exhaustion. Theproblem is, your body can only storeso much glycogen.

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When it’s used up,you “hit the wall,” as endurance ath-letes understand all too well.For all but the most relaxed ofexercises (such as walking), carbohy-drate is the muscle’s preferred fuel sub-strate (energy source). Muscles can infact use carbohydrate, fat, and aminoacids as fuel, but these different fuelsources are not equally effective. Car-bohydrate can be stored as glycogenright inside the muscle and is immedi-ately available for use as fuel. For briefperiods of time (one or two minutes)carbohydrates can be utilized to pro-vide energy without the benefit of oxy-gen. This is known as “anaerobic me-tabolism,” and can provide short burstsof energy for very intense exercise ac-tivity, such as weight lifting. Fats playan important role in energy productionduring prolonged exercise. However,there are two problems with fat as anexercise fuel.

First, fat requires oxy-gen to be converted into energy – thereis no anaerobic metabolism of fat. Thismeans that the rate of energy productionfrom fat is limited by the rate of oxygendelivery to muscles. Second, your musclescan store relatively little fat inside them,so before fatty acids can be burned bymuscles they have to be imported fromsomewhere else. You may have noticedthat most fat in humans is stored aroundthe waist and hips, not inside muscles (toobad). This means that fatty acid utiliza-tion is also limited by delivery of fattyacids to muscles. The slowest step intransporting fatty acids from your waistto your muscles is the initial release offatty acids from fat cells in adipose stores.This is a relatively slow process and onlyoccurs at a significant rate when carbo-hydrate energy stores are already depleted.Before much fat is released from adiposetissue, blood sugar levels must drop, caus-ing a decrease in insulin and an increasein glucagon and catecholamines. The cat-echolamine norepinephrine (a cousin ofepinephrine, or adrenaline) is releasedfrom sympathetic nerve endings aroundfat cells and is the most potent stimulusfor fatty acid release.

Obviously, fatty acid utilization isa complicated process and is relativelyslow. Fatty acids can supply energyfast enough to keep up with the de-mands of walking or a slow bike ride,but any exercise more intense reliesmainly on carbs as the primary fuelsource. Your muscles can also usetheir own amino acids as fuel (Godforbid) but this is a real last resort.After glycogen stores are essentiallydepleted and fatty acid metabolism isin high gear, amino acid metabolismkicks in to supply a little extra energy.During a long run, amino acid oxida-tion can account for up to 5-10% ofenergy substrate, which equates toabout 50 grams of protein. This is un-desirable (to make the understatementof the year).Weight lifting is an anaerobic ex-ercise which relies almost exclusivelyon carbohydrate as an energy source.(This is one reason the high fat – lowcarb diet doesn’t make much sense tome.) Simply put, fatty acid metabo-lism is just too slow to meet the en-ergy demands of resistance training.Similarly, intense endurance exerciseis also limited by carbohydrate avail-ability. Time to exhaustion in endur-ance exercise is closely related tomuscle glycogen depletion. When anendurance athlete runs out of glycogenhe doesn’t have to stop, but he will slowdown dramatically. The primary role offat as an exercise fuel is to allow athletesto complete prolonged workouts. It doesthis by reducing the rate of glycogen uti-lization by muscle and thereby delayingthe onset of exhaustion (1).

In other words, an increased supply and oxidationof fatty acids will slow the rate of glyco-gen depletion and improve endurance.The question is, how do we de-liver greater amounts of fatty acids tomuscle during exercise? Fatty acids storedin body fat tissue don’t work very wellfor this purpose. As explained above, thesefats are not released from body stores toa significant degree until carbohydrate re-serves are substantially depleted. Obvi-ously, this won’t help since what we’retrying to do is slow the depletion of bodycarbohydrate stores in the first place.Another approach is to consume a highfat diet. Believe it or not, this has beentried and is called “fat loading” (2). Asyou might imagine, it doesn’t work verywell, unless your idea of fat loading is justto get fat. Apparently conventional dietaryfat is digested and absorbed too slowly toreally be of much help. The answer is tosupplement the diet with medium chainfatty acids. These special fats are digestedand absorbed much faster than regular fat,in fact as fast as glucose (1,3). The rapidabsorption and metabolism of MCFAsprovides an energy substrate that can ef-fectively spare glycogen and delay theonset of fatigue during prolonged intenseexercise.Glycerol is a small three carboncompound which can bind fatty acids, onefatty acid to each of it’s carbon atoms.When long fatty acids (16-18 carbon at-oms in length) are bound, this is called along chain triglyceride (LCT). Everydayvegetable oils are long chain triglycerides.

If medium chain fatty acids (8 to 10 car-bon atoms in length) are bound, this iscalled a medium chain triglyceride (MCT).Conventional fats (LCTs) are very in-soluble in water. This makes them hardto digest and transport. Inside the intes-tine, long chain triglycerides are cleavedfrom their glycerol backbone by an en-zyme called pancreatic lipase. The longchain fatty acids (LCFAs) are then boundby bile salts (produced by the liver andstored in the gallbladder) for transportthrough the intestine. When you eat longchain fats they are not released directlyinto the bloodstream. Once absorbed in-side an intestinal cell, the LCFAs are re-bound to glycerol to re-form LCTs, whichare then bound by proteins to make tinyparticles called chylomicrons. The pro-teins act like detergent to make the fatmore water soluble. The chylomicrons arereleased into the lymphatic system, an-other system of vessels in the body sepa-rate from the circulatory system. Fromthere the lymphatic system delivers thechylomicrons to the bloodstream via thethoracic duct, which is located on the rightside of your neck not far from your spine.The long chain fats are then circulatedthroughout your body by the bloodstream.Most of these fat molecules are absorbedby fat cells and stored there. A few aredelivered to muscle for use as fuel.

Thisis a long complicated metabolic processthat takes a long time. Importantly, pleasenotice that the metabolic pathway followedby LCTs ends up by delivering them tofat cells for storage. Thus the old saying“fat makes you fat.”Medium chain fatty acids(MCFAs) skip this whole process. Sincethey are smaller fat molecules they aremore water soluble and are thereforeeasier for the body to process. MCTs arereleased directly into the bloodstream byintestinal cells, without the need to be in-corporated into chylomicrons and carriedin the lymphatic system. Nutrient-richblood leaving the intestine is carried di-rectly to the liver by the portal vein forprocessing. The liver absorbs almost allof the MCTs from the portal blood andrapidly metabolizes them into ketone bod-ies. Ketone bodies are very small (two tofour carbon atoms) molecules which rep-resent partially broken down fatty acids.The ketone bodies are released from theliver into the bloodstream and are carriedto muscles where they are immediatelyused for energy. This additional energysubstrate (MCFA-derived ketone bodies)actually spares glucose oxidation.

This de-lays glycogen depletion and the onset ofmuscular fatigue.The process of MCT digestion,absorption, conversion into ketones, andtransport to muscle takes place very rap-idly. In fact, energy from MCFAs is avail-able as fast as from glucose itself (1,3).This makes MCFAs the ideal energysource for athletes trying to push the en-velop of endurance. Notice two otherthings that make CapTri the ideal fuel forathletes. First, CapTri is not delivered tofat cells for storage. As amazing as itsounds, medium chain triglycerides arenot stored as fat. Instead they are prefer-entially burned as fuel. Does this meanyou have “carte blanche” to eat as muchas you want, and you won’t get fat aslong as you poor some CapTri on top ofyour food? Of course not. Too many calo-ries will make you gain fat. The point isthat conventional fats are preferentiallystored as fat (that’s the natural result ofthe metabolic pathway they follow)whereas CapTri is preferentially burnedas energy. This means that if you eat aclean diet which includes CapTri you willfind it very difficult to gain fat. It’s harderfor your body to store CapTri as fat thanit is to convert carbohydrate into fat. Be-tween conventional fat, CapTri, and car-bohydrate, CapTri has the least tendencyto be stored as body fat.

For any givenlevel of caloric intake, you will have lessbody fat the more CapTri you are using.The other fact that makes CapTrithe ideal energy supplement for athletesis that MCFAs don’trequire the carnitine shuttle for transport inside mitochondria. Mitochondria are thepower plants inside cells where food mol-ecules are burned to produce cellular en-ergy. Regular fat molecules have to becarried inside the mitochondria by thecarnitine shuttle. The problem is, the car-nitine shuttle is not very active until car-bohydrate stores are significantly depleted.Carbohydrate metabolism generates a me-tabolite called malonyl-CoA which inhib-its the activity of the carnitine shuttle.Therefore, utilization of conventional fatsis severely limited at two places: therelease of fatty acids from fat cellsand the entry of fatty acids into mi-tochondria are both inhibited by car-bohydrate. This is why regular fatsdon’t work very well to spare gly-cogen and improve endurance.Regular fats can’t be used as a sig-nificant energy source until the carbsare already used up, and then it’s toolate. CapTri bypasses both of theselimitations.

While a great deal is knownabout MCFA metabolism, most ofour thinking on MCFAs and exer-cise performance has been theoreti-cal with little experimental data inhumans to back it up. Until now. Astudy was performed using six nor-mal subjects who exercised at 40%VO2 max for 60 minutes or 80%VO2 max for 30 minutes on two dif-ferent occasions (1,4). (VO2 maxdescribes exercise intensity in termsof percent of maximal oxygen con-sumption.) Either a LCFA or aMCFA was infused during the study.Using radioactive tracer techniques,the authors were able to calculate thepercent of LCFA or MCFA oxidized(burned) during the exercise. Total freefatty acid concentration was kept the samebetween the two trials. When the exer-cise intensity was increased from 40% to80%, the oxidation of LCFA remained un-changed, while MCFA utilization increasedsignificantly. It was concluded that entryof LCFAs into the mitochondria is limited(presumably by the carnitine shuttle) sothat oxidation of LCFAs cannot keep upwith the increased energy demands of highintensity exercise. On the other hand,MCFAs are readily oxidized more rapidlyas energy demand increases. This is ex-actly what I have been saying for years.Another study looked at the ef-fects of MCFAs on carbohydrate metabo-lism and cycling performance (1,5). Sixendurance trained cyclists rode at 60%peak VO2 for 2 hours and then performeda 40 km time trial on a laboratory cyclingergometer at 70-90% max on three sepa-rate occasions. Subjects drank an exer-cise drink consisting of glucose alone,glucose + MCFA, or MCFA alone.

Theauthors found that the carbohydrate +MCFA drink significantly improved cy-cling performance compared to either glu-cose or MCFA alone. As expected, MCFAingestion reduced glucose oxidation dur-ing the 2 hour pre-ride at 60% VO2 max,suggesting that the improvement in per-formance resulted from sparing of muscleglycogen by MCFA. Again, just what weexpected.These studies demonstrate threethings about MCFAs and sports perfor-mance. First, MCFAs apparently work toimprove performance by “sparing”muscle glycogen, thereby delaying theonset of fatigue. Second, the effect ofMCFAs appears to be greatest during highintensity exercise. During low intensityexercise conventional fats appear to func-tion adequately as an energy source. Third,the effects of MCFAs are likely to be morepronounced near the end of long endur-ance events (or at the end of longworkouts for bodybuilders). Thismakes good sense, because at thebeginning of the race depletion ofglycogen reserves is not a threat any-way.What are some specific recom-mendations for how to use CapTrito improve athletic performance?First off, don’t wait until the day ofan athletic competition and thenchug a bottle of CapTri right beforeyour event. Big mistake. You’ll pukeand have diarrhea. At the same time.Not good. You need to start usingCapTri several weeks out at a mini-mum, and a few months out wouldbe better. Introduce CapTri intoyour system slowly, say one-halftablespoon per meal. Mix it withyour food and don’t take it by itselfon an empty stomach. After a fewdays, increase your usage by one-half tablespoon per meal. Continuethis until you build up to two to threetablespoons with each meal.

Take afew days off from training before acompetitive event and eat some ex-tra carbohydrates (about 100 gramsextra per meal). This will saturate yourglycogen stores. The day of your eventeat a complex carb for breakfast (oatmealis probably ideal) along with one to twoscoops of Hi-Protein Powder and threeto four tablespoons of CapTri. This isprobably the perfect pre-event meal. If youdon’t like competing with a full stomach,another approach which works quite wellis to combine Pro-Carb Formula andCapTri to make a drink. Use one scoopPro-Carb to one tablespoon CapTri. I’m not kidding, this combination is really quiteremarkable. This makes a fantastic pre-workout drink for bodybuilders as wellas a pre-event drink for endurance ath-letes. Finally, perhaps the most popularapproach is the Parrillo BAR. It combinesCapTri with a medium chain glucose poly-mer along with a high-efficiency proteinsource.If you’re serious about sportsperformance, you owe it to yourself toexperiment with these nutritional tech-niques. This is cutting edge stuff, whichis just beginning to appear in the scien-tific literature. We’ve been developingthese techniques over the last few years,and I think you’re going to hear a lot aboutit in the future. Endurance performanceis limited largely by glycogen substrateavailability. MCFAs allow us to channelan energy substrate directly to workingmuscle to spare glycogen and delay fa-tigue. This means improved performance- Parrillo Performance.

References

1. Berning JR. The role of medium chaintriglycerides in exercise. InternationalJournal of Sport Nutrition 6: 121-133,1996.

2. Sherman WM and Leenders N. Fatloading: the next magic bullet? Interna-tional Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: s1-s12,1995.

3. Bach AC and Babayan VK. Mediumchain triglycerides: an update. Am. J. Clin.Nutr. 336: 950-962, 1982.

4. Sidossis LS, Gastaldelli A, and WolfeRR. Fatty acid uptake by the mitochon-dria limits fat oxidation in strenuous exer-cise. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 27 (5,suppl): s102, 1995.

5. VanZyl C, Lambert EV, Noakes TD, andDennis SC. Effects of medium chain trig-lyceride ingestion on carbohydrate me-tabolism and cycling performance.Biochem. Exerc. 1994.

Bulletin #48 – Exploring The High Fat Diet, Part 2

As I mentioned in Part I of thisseries last month, any energy deficient dietwill result in fat loss. So the high fat dietwill work for weight loss, providing youeat fewer calories than you burn (it hasto). The biggest problem comes duringweight gain. There are several big theo-retical problems with using the high fatapproach for weight gain. First is the factthat insulin is the most important anabolichormone in the body, and on these cyclicdiets we only get the benefit of insulinaround two days every week. Second isthat during energy excess (that is, duringweight gain) excess dietary fat is prefer-entially stored as body fat. There is nobiochemical pathway in the human bodyfor converting fat into carbohydrate, soexcess dietary fat cannot be stored as gly-cogen. Fatty acids cannot be incorporatedinto protein either. Possibly the carbonsderived from fatty acid metabolism couldbe used to build the carbon skeleton ofnonessential amino acids, but since fattyacids do not contain nitrogen, a nitrogenfrom the pre-existing amino acid poolwould have to be donated to form a newamino acid molecule.

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Therefore, net pro-tein synthesis cannot occur from fat.Thus, dietary fat really has only two quan-titatively significant metabolic fates: to beused as energy or be stored as body fat.(Of course, dietary fats are also used toform structural components of cell mem-branes, steroid hormones, eicosanoids,and many other extremely important bio-logically active molecules, but this ac-counts for only a tiny fraction of ingestedfat, especially during a high fat diet.) Sincedietary fat cannot be converted to proteinor glycogen, excess dietary fat can onlybe stored as fat. By definition, duringweight gain we must be in a calorie sur-plus. This means that not all of the in-gested fat can be burned as fuel, sincewe are by definition consuming an excessof fuel. To gain weight you must con-sume more calories than you expend(simple thermodynamics) and if thoseexcess calories are supplied in the formof dietary fat, then it seems inescapablethat they must be stored as fat.So where have we come so far?The high fat-low carb approach has a goodtheoretical basis for working to maximizefat loss while on an energy deficient diet,but would be expected to result in fat gainduring an energy sur-plus. This leads to ageneral principle inbodybuilding nutrition:Diet composition ismore critical duringweight gain thanweight loss. Duringweight loss, you willbe in an energy deficit.Over a 24 hour periodessentially all of the fatand carbs you eat willbe burned as fuel.

Theprotein that you eatwill be used to main-tain protein tissues andto replenish worn outenzymes and otherprotein cellular com-ponents (that is, for protein turnover). Anyextra dietary protein left over will also beused as fuel. Finally, body fat will also beused as fuel to supply whatever amountof expended energy was not supplied bythe diet. So when you’re in an energy(calorie) deficit, it does matter that youget enough protein, but after that the pre-eminent consideration is just how muchenergy you consume. As a first approxi-mation, it appears as if it doesn’t matterthat much if you supply the rest of theenergy as carbs or fat or some mixture ofthe two, because it’s all going to be burnedanyway. (Actually, it does matter, but I’llget to that later.) So during weight loss allof the food you eat will be burned for fuel,and none of it will be retained by the body(except some protein). During weightgain, on the other hand, diet compositionis everything.

As explained above, if youconsume excess energy in the form of(conventional) dietary fat, it is extremelyprone to be stored as body fat (1-13).Although I’ve had good success with lowcarb diets to lose fat, I’ve never had goodresults from low carb diets in terms ofgaining muscle. I think you need insulin,which seems to have asynergistic interactionwith growth hormoneand testosterone, to geta good anabolic effect.Now back tothe issue of diet com-position during weightloss. Like I said above,after meeting your pro-tein requirement thenext most importantthing is how manycalories you consume.You will lose weight re-gardless of how thosecalories are supplied solong as you maintain anenergy deficit. But notall weight loss is cre-ated equal. Really we’re not interested inweight loss per se but in fat loss, and wewant to preserve as much muscle duringthe diet as possible. Serious bodybuilderscarefully follow their body composition(using a tool such as The Parrillo BodyStatKit) during their diets to make sure they’relosing fat and not muscle. Adjustmentsare made along the way to keep thingsmoving in the right direction. While dietcomposition has only a minor effect onoverall weight loss, it has a more substan-tial effect on determining how much ofthat weight is fat versus muscle.

Whatwe’re trying to do here is prevent muscleloss. In my experience with bodybuild-ers, carbs work better than fat to spareprotein (the technical term for preventingthe use of protein as fuel) during energy restricted diets. In other words, both ap-proaches (the high fat diet and the highercarb diet) work in terms of losing fat, butthe higher carb diet results in less muscleloss during the diet. Overall, you end upleaner (lower percent body fat) becauseyou have more lean body mass remainingafter you’ve lost the fat. Why is this? Thebiochemistry is fairly straight-forward.The brain’s preferred fuel is glucose, andyour body will go to extraordinary mea-sures to provide glucose for the brain. (Af-ter several days of glucose deprivation,the brain can adapt and switch over touse ketones as fuel, but this is not it’s pre-ferred choice.) Following a very low carbdiet, liver glycogen stores are depleted inabout a day or two. (Note: muscle glyco-gen can only be used as fuel by the muscle,and cannot be released back into thebloodstream for use by the brain. Musclecells lack the glucose phosphatase enzymeneeded to release glucose stored as gly-cogen back into the blood. Therefore, onlyliver glycogen is available to help main-tain blood glucose levels.) Therefore, af-ter a day or so of severe carb depletionblood glucose levels begin to fall. Unfor-tunately, fatty acids cannot be convertedto glucose by humans (although bears can,and this is why they can hibernate). Thebody has another way of maintaining bloodglucose levels, however, and this is tobreak down skeletal muscle protein (andvisceral, or organ, proteins too, for thatmatter).

The muscle proteins are brokendown into their constituent amino acids,the amino group is then removed formingan alpha-keto-acid, and these “carbonskeletons” of amino acids are transportedto the liver which can use them to makeglucose. To sum up, if you use a low fat-moderate carb diet to lose weight yourbody doesn’t have to break down muscleto convert amino acids into glucose, be-cause you’re getting enough glucose inthe diet. If, however, you use an extremelylow carb diet you will necessarily breakdown some muscle. This catabolic pro-cess is reduced during ketosis, but it takesabout two days or so of carb restrictionto get into ketosis. So there will be twodays during every seven day cycle whenyou’re breaking down muscle.Another problem with the verylow carb approach is that energy levelsfall dramatically. Recall that anaerobicexercise, such as weight lifting, is fueledalmost exclusively by carbs.

Fat cannotbe used as an anaerobic energy source, itcan only be oxidized aerobically. There-fore strength and energy levels fall dra-matically without carbs. This results inmore muscle catabolism, as the musclesturn to branched chain amino acids asfuel.There are also several technicalaspects of energy metabolism that sug-gest severe carb restriction might not bethe best way to go. Low carbohydratediets have been found to reduce thyroidhormone level, which is one of the chiefcontrollers of metabolic rate. After a pe-riod of carbohydrate restriction (probablyon the order of several weeks to a coupleof months) you will likely find your weightloss plateaus. This is probably due to de-creased thyroid level and decreased meta-bolic rate. The only real cure for this (be-sides taking thyroid medication) is to in-crease calories and add some carbs backto your diet. Unfortunately, since yourmetabolic rate is slow and your thyroidhormone level is low, when you do thisyour body is primed for fat storage andyou’ll likely put on a few pounds of fat.Also, there’s the issue of thermogenesis.After you eat a meal some portion of thedietary energy is released as body heat.This process is called diet-induced ther-mogenesis (DIT) and the amount of heatenergy released is called the thermic ef-fect of feeding (TEF).

Protein and carbo-hydrate both have a significant ther-mogenic effect, but (conventional) dietaryfat has virtually no thermogenic effect.Carbohydrate feeding stimulates thesympathetic nervous system which in-creases metabolic rate. What this meansis that for a given level of energy intake(caloric consumption) more of the foodenergy will be given off as heat if youeat a high carb diet as compared to ahigh fat diet. With the high fat diet lessof the food energy is lost as heat, leav-ing more available for use as fuel (or evenworse, for storage as body fat). If moredietary energy is available for use as fuel,then you’ll burn less body fat as fuel.Energetic and metabolic considerationsexplain why most people get better re-sults using a higher carb diet.So are there any useful lessonswe can learn from this? You bet thereare, some very important ones that canpropel you to the next level of physiquedevelopment. First off, notice that it’snot the carbohydrates themselves thatmake fat loss more difficult, but ratherthe insulin release they induce. Insulin in-hibits lipolysis, not carbs per se. There-fore, by proper food selection and mealstructuring we can do a lot to reduce in-sulin levels and still be able to eat somecarbs. First off, avoid all simple sugars,including not only refined sugar andsweets but also foods that contain naturalsugars such as fruit, juice, dairy products,honey, and syrup. Limit your carbohydrateselections to natural, unrefined, complexcarbohydrates such as potatoes, rice, andvegetables. Avoid refined carbohydratessuch as bread and pasta. Always consumeyour carbs with protein, and make sureto eat plenty fibrous carbohydrates, such as brocolli, cauliflower, asparagus, greenbeans and other salad vegetables, alongwith your starches.

These measures dra-matically slow the rate of release of glu-cose into your bloodstream, which helpskeep insulin levels low. Eat many smallfrequent meals instead of a few big ones,for the same reason. Also, as you getleaner gradually consume less starches andmore vegetables. Start by eliminatingstarch from your last meal of the day.During the last week or two you may vir-tually eliminate starches, but you can stilleat vegetables.So does the high fat-low carbapproach have anything going for it? Youbet it does. The strategy of reducing carbsto lower insulin and stimulate fat burningreally works. I’ve used this approachmyself and it works very well, especiallywith endomorphic type people who havea hard time losing fat. Like I said in thebeginning, my point is not to insult theauthors of the high fat diets. But there aretheoretical reasons having to do with en-ergy metabolism, thermogenesis, endocri-nology, and protein catabolism (see above)which explain why reducing carbs toomuch is not a good idea. The ideal ap-proach would be if we could combine thebest aspects of both diets to generatesomething even better. Technology hasmade this possible, with the developmentof CapTri®.

CapTri® is a specially engi-neered fat, and by incorporating it in thediet in place of starchy carbohydrates wecan lower insulin levels and achieve thefat burning effect of the high fat diets.It’s unique molecular structure overcomesthe problems of conventional dietary fats,making it the ideal energy source for body-builders. For example, CapTri® has vir-tually no tendency to be stored as bodyfat (14,15). It is metabolized in the liverwhere it is converted to ketones whichthen are used as fuel by muscles (14,15).It has a very high thermogenic effect andis converted into energy much morereadily than regular fat. Since it is rapidlyused for energy it has very little tendencyto be stored as body fat. CapTri® is con-verted into ketones, which block proteincatabolism. In fact, CapTri, unlike otherfats, can be digested and converted intoketones even when there are ample carbsalready in the system. In short, CapTri®allows us to reap the benefits of the highfat approach without the problems thatgo along with conventional dietary fat.To use CapTri® during fat loss, keep yourprotein intake high at about one to 1.5grams per pound of body weight per day,then reduce carbohydrate intake and pro-vide an equivalent number of calories fromCapTri®. For example, if you normallyconsume 300 grams of carbs per day(1200 calories worth), reduce that to 150grams per day and add 5 tablespoons ofCapTri® per day (providing 570 calories).A good way to gauge how far to reducecarbs is to gradually decrease them untilyou find that you lose your pump aboutone-half to two-thirds of the way throughyour workout.

This means that glycogenstores are depleted, and this is where youwant to be for maximum fat loss. TheCapTri® diet allows you to reduce carbswithout cutting calories, which wouldslow your metabolism and cause muscleloss. Many people find they don’t need toreduce caloric intake below maintenancewhile using this regimen since the ther-mogenic effect of CapTri® provides a“built in” energy deficit (more of the di-etary energy contained in CapTri® is lostas body heat than for regular foods). Thisapproach allows you to reduce carbs with-out having to use regular dietary fat as anenergy source. I have a problem going aslow in carbs as the other diets recom-mend. I think you should eat some carbsso you can continue to perform intensetraining while you diet. Plus, if you’ve evertried the near-zero-carb diet you know thatit makes you feel like death. By reducingcarbs and always combining your starcheswith protein, vegetables, and CapTri® ateach meal, you will dramatically reduceinsulin levels and maximize fat loss. Un-like conventional fats, CapTri® alsoworks well during weight gain because itdoesn’t contribute to fat stores (14,15).The Parrillo Performance NutritionManual contains much more detailed in-formation about how to design your dietfor maximum muscle gain and fat loss. Ifyou want more information on CapTri®call and request our CapTri® TechnicalReports.I expect over the next few yearsdrugs will become relatively less impor-tant in bodybuilding and precision nutri-tion and supplementation will becomemore important. The next generation ofCapTri® will undoubtedly help propeltomorrow’s competitors to the next level.

References

1. Horton TJ, Drougas H, Brachey A,Reed GW, Peters JC, and Hill JO. Fat andcarbohydrate overfeeding in humans: dif-ferent effects on energy storage. Am. J.Clin. Nutr. 62: 19-29, 1995.

2. Flatt JP. Importance of nutrient balancein body weight regulation. Diabetes/Me-tabolism Reviews 4: 571-581, 1988.

3. Flatt JP. Use and storage of carbohy-drate and fat. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 61: 952s-959s, 1995.

4. Hill JO, Peters JC, Reed GW, SchlundtDG, Sharp T, and Greene HL. Nutrientbalance in humans: effects of diet com-position. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 54: 10-17,1991.

Bulletin #47 – Exploring The High Fat Diet

Over the last two or three years several “new”dietary strategies have been advanced whichare specifically designed to help bodybuild-ers get extremely lean for contests. Thesediets have in common a fairly high proteinintake, around 25-30% of calories. Anothercommon feature is that they advocate reduc-ing carbohydrate content in favor of increas-ing dietary fat consumption. Some of theseplans call for limiting carbs to 30-50 gramsper day, or even less, and providing around70% of calories from fat. This low carb regi-men is carried out over a five day (or so)course to deliberately induce ketosis and afat-burning metabolism, to promote the useof stored body fat as energy. This is followedby two or three days of carbing up to pro-vide an anabolic growth phase. Another pro-gram is more moderate, suggesting a diet of30% protein, 40% carbs, and 30% fat, with-out cycling. There is a lot of science andtheory behind these diets, although the highfat recommendation is quite controversial.Without getting too bogged down in the bio-chemical details, the fundamental idea be-hind these approaches is to reduce carbo-hydrate intake in order to reduce insulin lev-els. Insulin is a potent inhibitor of lipolysis,or fat breakdown.

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By reducing insulin levels(and, less importantly, by increasing gluca-gon) we can take the brakes off fat metabo-lism and encourage the use of stored bodyfat for energy.If you’re familiar with my work at all, you willknow that I advocate, in general, a diet highin protein, high in complex carbohydratesand very low in fat. I agree that hard-trainingathletes need more protein than sedentarypeople, at least one gram to 1½ grams perpound of body weight per day. You mightexpect me to flame the authors of these pro-grams (to borrow a little Internet jargon), butI’m not going to. These people all are veryknowledgeable about nutrition and have puta lot of thought and research into their pro-grams, and so have I. They all can point tonumerous examples of great success they’vehad with their programs, and so can I. Theyhave all worked with bodybuilders and havegenerated champions, and so have I. Sowho’s right?Nutrition is a fascinating field. It’s one of thefew areas of science where highly trainedexperts with vast clinical experience can com-pletely disagree about even fundamentalconcepts. This disagreement about funda-mentals suggests that nutrition science isstill in its infancy.

Why is nutrition still in itsinfancy? Because nutrition (at least optimumnutrition) is very complex. Let me explain.On one hand, nutrition seems ridiculouslysimple. If you just eat a fairly balanced diet,you will live and probably do okay. You don’teven need to know what a carbohydrate is.If you just get some food to eat, you prob-ably won’t have any problems. At anotherlevel, however, nutrition can get very com-plex. At this level, we’re not concernedmerely with sustaining life, but with promot-ing a state of optimal health, increased en-ergy, enhanced muscularity, and extremeleanness. At this level, nutrition becomesone of the most complex sciences there isbecause it incorporates every biochemicaland metabolic pathway in the body. We haveto know exactly how every nutrient is me-tabolized and how this affects cellular physi-ology. We have to understand how food af-fects hormones which in turn control fat andmuscle metabolism. At this level food is notmerely fuel thrown into the furnace, butrather the raw materials we use to sculpt ourbodies. To attain a truly top physique, suchas that of a champion bodybuilder, you willfind that nutrition is the most critical vari-able. It is the area where the most mistakesare made, because it is the most complicatedaspect of bodybuilding. At this level, every-one is training hard and heavy and usingproper technique. You won’t even get closeto a bodybuilding stage if you don’t trainhard.

All competitive bodybuilders knowhow to train. Whether you do an extra set ofincline flyes or not won’t make the differ-ence in if you win or lose the contest, butwhether or not you eat an extra bowl of ricethe day before the show very well could.Races are won or lost by a fraction of a sec-ond; bodybuilding shows can be won or lostby a bowl of rice.The point of this is not to get into argumentswith other experts on bodybuilding nutrition.The point is not to call people names or ex-change insults. The point of this is to figureout what is the best diet for bodybuilders(and anyone else, for that matter) to gainmuscle and lose fat and be healthy. I’m al-ways reading and studying to learn newthings, and I am receptive to new ideas andnew approaches. If the high fat, low carbapproach worked better, then I’d switchhorses.

So back to the basic question: Who’sright?The fact that some people have had successwith the high fat diet and that others (actu-ally the majority of bodybuilders) have hadsuccess with the higher carb diet proves thatboth approaches can work. So the answer tothe question is that both camps are right, atleast partially. How can two opposite ap-proaches to nutrition both give good re-sults? Does one approach give better re-sults? Is one approach healthier? Here’swhere the discussion starts to get compli-cated.Back in the early days, before there was aParrillo Performance, I tried all sorts of diets– everything you can imagine. High carbs,high fat, even a liquid protein fast withoutcarbs or fat (that didn’t work). I varied ma-cronutrient ratios (percent of calories fromprotein, carbs, and fat), food choices, mealfrequency, meal structure, protein only meals,carbs only meals, amino acid combinations,you name it. All the while I was chartingpeople’s body weight, body composition,and strength levels. I tried all sorts of vari-ous food combinations to see what wouldwork to help bodybuilders lose the lastounces of fat. During this time I read everymedical book I could find about nutrition,protein metabolism, and fat loss.

Throughmany years of experimentation and plain oldtrial and error, I arrived at the Parrillo diet,now published as the Parrillo NutritionManual, as being the diet which simply gave the best results for most bodybuilders.So how can two very different approachesto bodybuilding nutrition (high fat versuslow fat) both give good results? One thing Ifound during my years of experimentationwas that different body types respond some-what differently to different nutritional struc-tures. There are three very general bodytypes, classified by general appearance.Ectomorphs are naturally skinny people,mesomorphs are naturally lean and muscu-lar, and endomorphs are naturally fat. (Youknow which you are.) Obviously,mesomorphs have the easiest time becom-ing bodybuilders. These are the people weall envy. They were lean and muscular be-fore they ever started training. They gainmuscle easily. They can eat like crap and stilllook good. All they have to do is cut thejunk out of their diet a month before the showand they’re in contest shape. If you’re anectomorph or an endomorph you can stillbecome a good bodybuilder, but it will beharder because you’re working against yournatural genetic tendency to be either skinnyor fat.Ectomorphs get lean easily but have a hardtime putting on muscle.

They can eat a lotand don’t gain much weight. I found thatthese individuals do better on a high carbdiet with moderate to high protein, maybesomewhere around 25-30% protein, 65%carbs, and 5-10% fat. (The actual percent-ages aren’t important, but they usually workout close to those above. These are givenjust as an example.) Basically, they need toget one to 1.5 grams of protein per pound ofbody weight per day, and then keep increas-ing carbs until they gain weight. The prob-lem with using conventional fats for weightgain is that when your body is in a caloriesurplus (gaining weight) virtually all excessfat calories you consume from food will sim-ply be stored as body fat (1-13). Ectomorphswill find that adding some fat to their dietswill help them gain weight, but they’ll gainmore fat along with the muscle than if theyhad followed a low fat diet. It is extensivelydocumented in the medical literature thatexcess feeding of carbohydrates results inless body fat gain than excess feeding ofdietary fat (1-13).Endomorphs gain muscle more easily, butare naturally fat and have a hard time gettinglean. They seem to be very sensitive to thecarbohydrate content of the diet.

Again, forweight gain the body must be in an energysurplus (excess calories) and the bulk ofthese excess calories should come from car-bohydrates, because this results in less bodyfat accumulation than if the excess dietaryenergy is supplied as fat (1-13). However,during weight loss I found that these peopledo better if they reduce their carbohydrateintake. While ectomorphs need to maintaina high carb diet even while losing weight tohelp prevent muscle loss, endomorphs justcan’t seem to lose all their fat without reduc-ing carbs. They seem to be very sensitive toinsulin, and high insulin levels block theburning of stored body fat for energy. (Tobe more precise, they usually have mild in-sulin resistance, which results in increasedinsulin levels and a hard time burning fat.)Just as an example, some representative num-bers for an endomorph might look like this:For weight gain, 30-40% protein, 50-60%carbs,         5-10% fat. For weight loss, 50-60%protein, 30-40% carbs, 5-10% fat. Again, it’snot the actual percentages that are impor-tant, I’m just trying to illustrate the idea thatyou can shift around the structure of yourdiet to achieve different metabolic effects.Changing the ratio of protein to carbs to fatin your diet can have a big effect on the in-sulin-glucagon axis and nutrient partition-ing.On the Parrillo Nutrition Program you startby calculating your daily protein require-ment. One to 1.5 grams of complete proteinper pound of body weight each day is a goodgeneral guideline for hard training athletes,especially during weight gain.

As you de-crease calories to lose fat, it helps to increasethis to as much as 1.5-2 grams per pound perday. The higher dietary protein intake helpsprevent catabolism of muscle protein duringenergy restricted diets. Next you allot 5-10%of daily calories to come from fat. The re-mainder of your calories come from complexcarbohydrates, which I divide into starches(potatoes, rice, beans, etc.) and fibrous carbs(vegetables and salad greens). You adjustcarbohydrate intake appropriately so thatyou’re either gaining muscular weight or los-ing body fat, as desired. So when you struc-ture your diet this way the percentages takecare of themselves. The times when I citevarious nutrient percentages as examples aremerely to illustrate how the balance of yourdiet can change as you’re working to achievedifferent goals.So I have found that reducing carbs doesindeed help to promote fat loss, especiallyin people who have a hard time getting lean.I don’t have a problem with that. The thing Idon’t like about the high fat diets is that di-etary fat is VERY prone to be stored as bodyfat.

I have literally dozens of research articlesfrom the medical literature demonstrating thisand explaining the biochemical reasons why.Several studies have even demonstrated thatbody fat percentage is more highly deter-mined by dietary fat intake than by calorieintake (1,2,3,4,6,8,9,10). This is a concept I’vebeen talking about for years. So my disagree-ment is not about reducing carbs – thatworks. My problem is with supplying somany calories as dietary fat. Not only doesdietary fat contribute more to fat stores thanprotein or carbohydrate (1-13), but dietaryfat (especially saturated fat) increases yourcholesterol level and increases your risk forheart disease.So how do we do the low carb diet at Parrillo?I’ve developed a very special energy supple-ment called CapTri® which allows you toutilize the power of the low carb diet withoutresorting to using regular fat as a foodsource. CapTri® is a specially engineeredfat with a unique molecular structure whichcauses it to follow a different metabolic routethan regular fats (14,15). It behaves more likea carbohydrate in the body, except that itdoesn’t increase insulin levels. This meansyou can use CapTri® in place of carbs todecrease insulin levels and shift your me-tabolism into a fat-burning mode. This is verysimilar to the strategy of the high fat dietsexcept without relying on conventional fatas an energy source. CapTri® has virtuallyno tendency to be stored as body fat, whichis in marked contrast to regular fats (14,15).

Regular fat is metabolized very slowly and isvery easily stored as body fat. CapTri® isburned (converted to usable metabolic en-ergy) very rapidly – in fact, as rapidly asglucose. This energy is used to fuel thebody, which spares protein and glycogen.Since CapTri® is rapidly and completelyused as fuel, this means it won’t be storedas body fat. (Of course, CapTri® does notdefy the laws of thermodynamics, and if youeat too many calories too fast you will gain fat, even if you’re using CapTri®. The pointis that CapTri® results in much less fat gainthan conventional foods, because relativelymore of the calories in CapTri® are immedi-ately converted to energy and lost as bodyheat.) Furthermore, fats like CapTri® havebeen shown to increase growth hormone lev-els, which will also stimulate fat loss andmuscle gain (16). So we use a high fat dietalso, except we use CapTri® instead of con-ventional fats because the heat generatedby CapTri® has a much greater effect of in-creasing metabolic rate and much less ten-dency to be stored as body fat (14,15). It’sthe low carb diet taken to the next level.Another key concept of the Parrillo diet ismeal structuring. By combining protein andfibrous vegetables and CapTri® with yourstarch at each meal you can greatly slow therate of release of glucose into the blood-stream.

This in turn decreases insulin levels,taking the brakes off fat metabolism. You willfind that by proper food combining you canstimulate a powerful fat burning effect with-out eliminating carbs from your diet.Let’s talk for a minute about the theory be-hind the high fat diet and try to clear up someof the confusing issues. You’re probablywondering how can the high fat diet and thelow fat diet both work to get bodybuilderslean? Because any and all energy deficientdiets will result in weight loss. It’s a directconsequence of thermodynamics. If youconsume less calories than you burn, you’lllose weight. Period. So a high fat diet and ahigh carb diet will both produce weight lossso long as an energy (calorie) deficit is main-tained. So to lose body fat we need to achievean energy deficit. There are many ways todo this. The best way is through a combina-tion of aerobic exercise and a modest reduc-tion of caloric intake. It is now well knownthat severe caloric restriction results in de-creased metabolic rate, muscle loss, and in-duction (turning on) of fat-storing metabolicpathways. This is the “starvation response”the body generates during periods of fam-ine to guard against starvation. By decreas-ing energy expenditure (metabolic rate) thebody’s fat supply will last longer.

And byrevving up the fat-storing pathways, oncefood becomes available again fat depots arepreferentially repleted to defend against thenext bout of famine. Therefore bodybuildersknow they should avoid drastic reductionsin calories, since this causes muscle loss andslows fat burning.Increasing aerobic exercise activity on theother hand has the benefit of burning fatwithout slowing metabolic rate. In fact, aero-bic exercise causes metabolic adaptationsthat make the body more efficient at burningfat. In general, it is advised that weight lossbe limited to about one pound per week. Ifyou lose weight faster than this you will bemore likely to lose some muscle along withthe fat. Since one pound of body fat con-tains 3,500 calories, to lose one pound of fatper week you need to achieve a calorie defi-cit of 500 calories per day (3,500 per week).You could do this by cutting 500 caloriesworth of food from your diet, or by doing500 calories worth of aerobics a day, or bysome combination of both. I’ve found thecombination approach works best for mostpeople. Try not to cut your caloric intake bymore than 10% below maintenance. (Yourmaintenance intake is the number of caloriesyou consume everyday to maintain constantbody weight.) A good rule of thumb is toreduce energy intake by 10% below mainte-nance and then do enough aerobics to meetyour 500 calorie deficit for the day.

For ex-ample, if you normally eat 2,500 calories aday, cut that down by 250 per day (10%) anddo 250 calories worth of aerobics a day (that’sabout 30 minutes on a stationary bike). Thatequals a deficit of 500 calories a day, enoughto lose one pound of fat per week. This strat-egy is not an absolute rule carved in stone,but is a good general guideline that workswell for most people. Other people do bettersimply by increasing aerobic exercise with-out reducing calories. With a little experienceyou’ll find what works best for you.If your weight loss plateaus it is better ingeneral to do more aerobics rather than fur-ther reducing calories, because that will likelyslow your metabolic rate and thus your rateof fat loss. From body composition studies(use the Parrillo BodyStat Kit) calculate howmany pounds of fat you have to lose, andthat’s roughly how many weeks your dietwill last. If you need to lose more than 10pounds of fat (the diet will last for more than10 weeks) plan on taking a couple of weeksoff your fat loss diet after every 10 weeksand gain a pound per week. This will helpyou put on some muscle and boost yourmetabolism and get fat loss going again. Ingeneral, it doesn’t work too well to maintaina continuous energy deficit for more than 10weeks because your body adjusts to thisnew level of caloric intake and your metabo-lism slows down.

This reduced level of in-take will eventually become your new main-tenance if you stay on it too long.All right, so now we’ve decided to lose somefat and that we’re going to do more aerobicsand very modestly reduce calories. Now youhave some choices to make, and things canget complicated. We could simply reducecalories across the board – a 10% reductionin protein, carbs, and fat will obviously equala 10% reduction in total calories. Or alterna-tively we could alter the ratios of protein,carbs, and fat in the diet. As you reduce ca-loric intake, you should supply relativelymore of your calories as protein to preventor reduce skeletal muscle catabolism. So yourreduction in energy intake should come fromcarbs or fat, but not protein. As we’re diet-ing to lose fat we still need at least one gramof protein per pound of body weight eachday, and 1.5 grams may be better. Onceyou’ve decided on your protein intake thequestion then becomes should you supplythe remainder of your dietary energy require-ment as carbohydrate, fat, or some combina-tion of both. Any of these approaches willresult in weight loss, provided you maintainyour calorie deficit.

Which approach willwork best?The VAST majority of medical research indi-cates that a low fat diet achieves better fatloss results than a high fat diet (1-13). Sev-eral studies even show that reduction of di-etary fat content is as important, if not moreimportant, than reducing caloric intake. No-tably, and in fairness to the high fat diet, Ihave not seen any formal medical studiesusing diets comprised of approximately 70%fat and essentially no carbs. I imagine doc-tors are reluctant to carry out clinical trialsusing a diet so high in fat out of concern forit’s attendant health risks. Most of the medi-cal clinical trials comparing diets still includea significant carbohydrate load even in their“high fat” protocol, so they’re not reallycomparable to the extremely high fat – lowcarb diets which are currently being ad-vanced for bodybuilders.So what’s going on here? By reducing carbs to near zero levels (5-10% of calories per day)insulin production decreases dramatically.This eliminates its inhibitory effect on lipoly-sis. Human body fat is stored in the form oftriglycerides in fat cells (adipocytes). Releaseof fatty acids from fat cells is controlled byenzymes called lipases, which break downthe triglyceride into free fatty acids and glyc-erol. Once released from fat cells, the fattyacids are bound to a serum protein calledalbumin and transported in the blood to theliver and muscles where they are used forenergy. The lipases are activated by the cat-echolamines epinephrine and norepineph-rine (adrenaline and noradrenaline) which arereleased by the adrenal glands and the sym-pathetic nervous system.

The most impor-tant activator of lipolysis is release of nore-pinephrine by the sympathetic nervous sys-tem. Lipolysis turns out to be the rate limit-ing step in fat catabolism. (The rate limitingstep in a metabolic pathway is the sloweststep, which acts to limit the rate of the over-all pathway. It also is frequently the key pointof metabolic control for turning the pathwayon or off.) The catecholamines, in turn, arereleased when blood sugar gets too low andduring exercise. Another lipase is activatedby glucagon, which also promotes fat burn-ing. Glucagon is a hormone produced by thepancreas which has essentially the oppo-site actions of insulin. Insulin promotes glu-cose transport into cells, promotes the useof glucose as energy, promotes storage ofexcess glucose as glycogen, promotes trans-port of some amino acids into cells, promotesprotein synthesis, promotes fat synthesisand storage, and prevents fat breakdown.Insulin is released from the pancreas whenblood glucose levels are high, such as aftera meal, and acts as a storage hormone pro-moting storage of nutrients as glycogen,protein, and fat. Glucagon is released whenblood sugar levels are low, with the primarypurpose of increasing blood glucose levelsto provide fuel for the brain. Glucagon stimu-lates breakdown of glycogen and release ofglucose into the bloodstream, fat breakdown(lipolysis) and release of fatty acids into theblood (this use of fat as energy helps spareglucose for the brain), and protein break-down with release of amino acids into thebloodstream which can be converted intoglucose by the liver.

So lipolysis and the use of stored body fatfor energy is controlled by lipases which arein turn stimulated by catecholamines andglucagon. Glucagon turns out to be a minorplayer since virtually all of the glucagon re-leased by the pancreas is retained by theliver, and essentially none escapes into thegeneral circulation to reach peripheral fatdepots. (The small amount of glucagonwhich reaches adipose cells is too low inconcentration to have an effect.) So gluca-gon is primarily concerned with glycogenand fat metabolism in the liver. These samelipases that govern fat loss are inhibited byinsulin, which means if insulin levels are highyou won’t be able to use body fat for en-ergy. The high fat diets take this strategy tothe extreme by virtually eliminating carbo-hydrates from the diet in order to minimizeinsulin levels. The body can only storeenough glucose (as glycogen) to last aboutone day, so by eliminating carbs from thediet you force the body into a fat burningmode.Our discussion is far from over. Next monthI’ll dig deeper into these diets and show youwhy I believe bodybuilders who want thebest results possible should be eating a low-fat, moderate- to high-carb diet.

References

1. Horton TJ, Drougas H, Brachey A, ReedGW, Peters JC, and Hill JO. Fat and carbohy-drate overfeeding in humans: different ef-fects on energy storage. Am. J. Clin. Nutr.62: 19-29, 1995.

2. Flatt JP. Importance of nutrient balance inbody weight regulation. Diabetes/Metabo-lism Reviews 4: 571-581, 1988.

3. Flatt JP. Use and storage of carbohydrateand fat. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 61: 952s-959s, 1995.

4. Hill JO, Peters JC, Reed GW, Schlundt DG,Sharp T, and Greene HL. Nutrient balance inhumans: effects of diet composition. Am. J.Clin. Nutr. 54: 10-17, 1991.

5. Hill JO, Drougas H, and Peters JC. Obesitytreatment: can diet composition play a role?Ann. Intern. Med. 119: 694-697, 1993.

6. Bray GA. Obesity – a disease of nutrient orenergy balance? Nutrition Reviews 45: 33-43, 1987.

7. Thomas CD, Peters JC, Reed GW,Abumrad NN, Sun M, and Hill JO. Nutrientbalance and energy expenditure during adlibitum feeding of high-fat and high-carbo-hydrate diets in humans. Am. J. Clin. Nutr.55: 934-942, 1992.

8. Astrup A, Buemann B, Western, ToubroS, Raben A, and Christensen NJ. Obesity asan adaptation to a high-fat diet: evidencefrom a cross-sectional study. Am. J. Clin.Nutr. 59: 350-355, 1994.

9. Schutz Y, Flatt JP, and Jequier E. Failure ofdietary fat intake to promote fat oxidation: afactor favoring the development of obesity.Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 50: 307-314, 1989.

10. Miller WC, Niederpruem MG, Wallace JP,and Lindeman AK. Dietary fat, sugar, andfiber predict percent body fat content. J. Am.Diet. Assoc. 94: 612-615, 1994.

11. Tucker LA and Kano MJ. Dietary fat andbody fat: a multivariate study of 205 adultfemales. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 56: 616-622, 1992

12. Acheson KJ, Flatt JP, and Jequier E. Gly-cogen synthesis versus lipogenesis after a500 gram carbohydrate meal in man. Metabo-lism 31: 1234-1240, 1982.

13. Flatt JP. Dietary fat, carbohydrate bal-ance, and weight maintenance: effects ofexercise. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 45: 296-306, 1987.

14. Baba N, Bracco EF, and Hashim SA. En-hanced thermogenesis and diminished depo-sition of fat in response to overfeeding withdiet containing medium chain triglyceride.Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 35: 678-682, 1982.

15. Bach AC and Babayan VK. Mediumchain triglycerides: an update. Am. J. Clin.Nutr. 36: 950-962, 1982.

16. Valls E, Herrera F, Diaz M, Barreiro P, andValls A. Modifications in plasmatic insulinand growth hormone induced by mediumchain triglycerides. Span. Anal. Ped. 11: 675-682, 1978.

Bulletin #46 – Nutrition & Training 101

I get more questions about fat loss thanany other single topic because everyonewants a lean, athletic looking body.Whether your goal in bodybuilding is tocompete or just to look and feel your best,control of body fat is a central issue. Overthe years the Parrillo Performance Nutri-tion Program has earned a reputation forbeing the best way to gain muscle andlose fat, simply because it works. Theconcepts of our nutrition program are usedby the vast majority of competitive body-builders around the world. This month Iwant to explain some basic conceptsabout how to structure your diet andtraining program to achieve your physiquegoals.Concept #1. Food is the founda-tion of nutrition. A healthy diet of natural,low-fat foods is the best approach to bodyfat control. You’ll get better results fromeating the right foods than you could everget from some “meal replacement pow-der.” Several supplement makers suggestthat you should use their product to formthe core of your nutrition program, andthen add regular food as needed to supplythe rest of the calories.

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They’ve reversedthe roles of foods and supplements. Foodis always more important. The numberone rule for getting lean is to eat a cleandiet of healthy food.Concept #2. Build your metabo-lism. This key Parrillo concept means thatthrough proper training and nutrition youcan steadily increase muscle mass, therebyincreasing your metabolic rate and fatburning capacity. Metabolic rate is pro-portional to lean body mass (1,2), so themore muscle you’re carrying the morefood you have to eat. The conventionalstrategy to lose weight is to restrict calo-ries. Current medical literature reports thatthis approach fails about 90% of the time(1,2). This is because during energy re-striction as much as half of the weightlost is muscle. This lowers your meta-bolic rate and sets into play the body’sstarvation response, which actually pro-motes fat retention. Later I’ll explain moreabout how to eat and train to build yourmetabolism.Concept #3.What to eat and what notto eat. Good proteinsources are skinlesschicken breast, skinlessturkey breast, egg whites,and most fish. Use proteinpowder as needed to meetyour daily protein require-ment, but don’t fall intothe trap of using “meal re-placement powders” inplace of real food. Goodcarbohydrate sources areoatmeal, rice, beans, po-tatoes, sweet potatoes,corn, peas, salad greens,and vegetables. Stay awayfrom salt, sugar, and fat.Avoid fruit, dairy prod-ucts, bread, and pasta.These contain simple sug-ars and refined carbohy-drates that are easily con-verted to fat. Prepare yourfood yourself and take itwith you in a cooler.Concept #4.How much protein, carbs,and fat. One gram of pro-tein per pound of bodyweight per day is a goodgeneral rule. Limit dietaryfat to 10% of calories. Theremainder of calories are derived fromcomplex carbohydrates.Concept #5. How to constructyour meals. Each meal must be balancedwith one protein source, one or twosources of starchy carbohydrate, and oneor two fibrous vegetables.

For example,for dinner you could have a grilled chickenbreast, a baked potato, and some steamedbroccoli. Adjust the serving sizes appro-priately to generate the grams of protein,carbs, and fat you need at each meal. Di-vide your total daily re-quirements roughlyevenly over six smallmeals.Concept #6.How to use supple-ments to build yourmetabolism and losefat. By far the most ef-fective supplement inthe world for fat lossis CapTri. Of course,to get the results youwant you have to useit correctly. CapTri hasa special molecularstructure and follows aunique metabolic path-way in the body.CapTri is preferentiallyburned for energy(burned in preferenceover regular food) andhas virtually no ten-dency to be stored asbody fat. To useCapTri to help you losefat, use it in place of anequivalent number ofcalories from starch.For example, at eachmeal eat 30 grams lessof starchy carbohy-drate such as oatmeal,rice, or potato (about120 calories) and add one tablespoon ofCapTri instead (114 calories). CapTri hasa higher thermogenic effect than carbs (itincreases metabolic rate more than carbs)and is less prone to be converted to fatthan carbs (3). This change also lowersthe insulin response of the meal, whichencourages use of body fat for energy Advanced Lipotropic Formula suppliesmetabolic cofactors used by the liver andmuscle to metabolize fat. This ensures thatall of the biochemical pathways involvedin fat metabolism are operating at peakefficiency.Putting it all together: The firstorder of business is to faithfully follow aclean diet. Set a specific goal, map out aplan, and stick to it. Dedication, consis-tency, and hard work are the ingredientsof a champion bodybuilder’s physique.Put more effort into eating the right foodsand less thought into worrying aboutsupplements. A lot of bodybuilders callme for advice on high tech supplementsand it often turns out they’re not eveneating right. They wonder why they’renot getting the results they should.

Notinfrequently a young bodybuilder will callme, depressed because he can’t afford alot of supplements. If you’re a bodybuilderon a budget, don’t worry. You can gettremendous results from good old fash-ioned hard training and a solid bodybuild-ing diet. In fact, I believe a one time in-vestment in a Parrillo Nutrition Manual willget you better results than all the supple-ments in the world.If you’re not making good progress in at-taining your bodybuilding goals, eitheryou’re not training right or you’re not eat-ing right. It’s that simple. Don’t talk tome about genetic limits unless you alreadylook like Dorian Yates. Don’t be afraid tomake changes in your program or to callus with questions. That’s why we’re here.To fine tune your nutrition program forfat loss, consider increasing your proteinintake and decreasing your carbohydrateintake. This increases thermogenesis andaffects the insulin-glucagon axis so as tofavor use of stored body fat for energy.Using CapTri in place of an equivalentamount of starch will have a dramatic ef-fect. You may want to eliminate starchentirely from the last meal of the day. Limitconventional fat to 5-10% of calories. Anoverwhelming amount of scientific evi-dence shows that conventional dietary fatcontributes much more to body fat storesthan do carbohydrates or protein(1,4,5,6). Some researchers even thinkthat dietary fat content is just as impor-tant as calorie content (if not more im-portant) in causing obesity (7,8). Excesscarbohydrate is stored as glycogenwhereas fat consumed in excess of en-ergy need is simply stored as adipose.Limit any reduction in energy intake to amaximum of 500 calories per day less thanyour maintenance requirement.  In otherwords, don’t ever cut calories by morethan 500 below what you need to main-tain constant body weight. Any more en-ergy restriction than this tends to result indecreased metabolic rate and muscle loss.If you hit a weight loss plateau, increasecalories by about 300 per day for a weekor two. This will stimulate your metabo-lism and get you going again. I haveworked with a lot of people who haveused repeated bouts of starvation to loseweight. After prolonged periods of energyrestriction their metabolic rates are so lowthey just can’t lose any fat.

In this case itactually works better to increase calories.This works by increasing lean body massand metabolic rate, and shifts the bodyfrom a fat-hoarding mode to a fat-burn-ing mode. It sounds paradoxical, butsometimes the trick to stimulating fat lossis to increase calories (of course, from avery clean diet). A couple of good rulesare never to reduce calories by more than500 below maintenance and not to loseweight for more than ten consecutiveweeks. After ten weeks or so of dieting itis often helpful to increase calories for aweek to add some muscle mass and getyour metabolism going again. You maywant to try this if you hit a plateau in yourfat loss.What about training for fat loss? That’s abig topic in itself, but it’s worth brieflymentioning a few key points. You’ll hearsome people say to train heavy to gainmuscle but do a lot of reps to lose fat.Basically, that’s wrong. You need to keeptraining heavy while losing fat. Musclesare very plastic, which means they adaptto whatever level of stress is placed onthem. Muscles hypertrophy (grow) in re-sponse to a heavy training stimulus. Toget your muscles to grow you have toconstantly push them a little beyond theirprevious limits. When you take a heavyset to failure, you actually do some dam-age to the muscle at the cellular and mo-lecular level. This serves as a stimulus forthe inflammation response, which setsabout to repair the damage. Each time thishappens the muscle builds itself up a littlebigger and stronger than it was before,so the next time it is subjected to thatstress it won’t get damaged. If you keepusing the same weight, pretty soon themuscle will get as big and strong as itneeds to be to withstand that level ofstress, and muscle growth will cease.Then it is time to increase the weight, toforce the muscle to grow even bigger.

Ifyou eliminate your heavy sets and startdoing a lot of reps to burn fat, yourmuscles will shrink. You should strive tokeep training as heavy as possible even asyou diet down for a contest to providethe stimulus needed for muscle hypertro-phy. Furthermore, weight training forhigh reps just isn’t a very effective wayto burn fat. Weight lifting is fueled mainlyby burning carbohydrate from muscleglycogen. Aerobic exercise is much moreeffective for fat loss because it burnsmany more calories than you ever couldby lifting weights and a higher propor-tion of those calories are derived from body fat. So while losing fat keep trainingheavy but do more aerobics.Here are some very rough guidelines forsuggested programs. Note these may re-quire modification for each individual, butare presented just to give you an idea ofhow to make changes to your programas your goals change.1. Program to gain lean mass: Train heavyand get plenty of rest. Recovery is key.Most people do best with three to fiveweight training sessions per week, al-though some people can do more. Afterwarm ups, take each set to failure. Dosome work in the 8-10 rep range, andsome work in the 3-6 rep range. Continu-ally try to increase the load as you’re able.Consume one gram of protein per poundbody weight per day. A representativebreakdown might be around 30% protein,60% carbs, 10% fat (as energy). If yourgoal is to gain body weight, you’re goingto have to increase calories. Generally,these extra calories should come fromstarchy carbohydrates. If you put on fateasily, use CapTri to supply the extra calo-ries you need to gain weight. This willreduce fat accumulation as you gainweight (3). Limit aerobics to 30 minutesthree days a week, preferably on non-weight training days. This will help youavoid over-training. Increase calories byaround 300 per day until you’re gainingweight. Try to gain between one poundper week to one pound per month. Usethe Body Stat Kit to follow your percentbody fat. If you’re gaining a significantamount of fat, cut back on calories andgain more slowly or else use more CapTriand less carbs. (You could do more aero-bics, but your body will adapt to this aswell. It’s probably best to save your maxi-mum effort at aerobics until your fat lossprogram.)

Try not to let body fat exceed10% for men and 15% for women.2. Program for fat loss: Continue to trainheavy. Consider increasing training vol-ume until you’re just at the edge of over-training. You really have to push it to thelimit to get into contest shape. Decreasecalories by about 300 from what you wereusing to gain weight. This will put yousomewhere close to your maintenancerequirement. This is the time to add Ad-vanced Lipotropic Formula to your supple-ment program. Increase protein intake anddecrease carbs. Some people go as highas two grams of protein per pound ofbody weight. A representative breakdownmight be around 40% protein, 50% carbs,and 10% fat (as energy). This is a greattime to use CapTri in place of starch. Anextreme cutting diet would be 40% pro-tein, 30% CapTri, 20% carbs, and 10%fat. This diet isn’t very fun, but you’ll beshredded. Drink a lot of water to preventketosis. Pay attention to absolute carbo-hydrate intake. At no time should carbo-hydrate intake drop below 100 grams perday, because this leads to rapid muscleloss. A lower limit of 150 grams per dayis probably safer, and you’ll have moreenergy to train. Increase aerobic exerciseto 30 minutes seven days a week. As yourcontest approaches increase it further to45-60 minutes a day. Adjust caloric in-take as needed to lose about one poundper week. Limit weight loss to a maxi-mum of one-and-a-half pounds a week,and one pound per week is better. If youlose weight more quickly, you’re likely tolose muscle. This means you have to planahead to know when you need to startyour diet.

Use the Body Stat Kit to followyour body composition as you lose weight.If you’re losing a significant amount ofmuscle, make a change. If you don’tknow what to do, call me. This can be acomplicated period. If you’re losingmuscle you’ve probably reduced caloriestoo much. The first thing to try is usuallyto increase carbs. A lot of people get con-fused about how to balance the amountof aerobics to do with how many caloriesto consume. A good starting place is towork up to 60 minutes of aerobics a day,and then adjust calories as needed to loseabout one pound per week. The optimalamount of aerobics is highly individual-ized, and you’ll have to experiment to findwhat works best for you.3. Program to gain muscle and lose fat atthe same time: Most novice and interme-diate bodybuilders need to both gainmuscle and lose fat. Done properly, thisapproach can result in a rapid and dra-matic change in body composition andappearance. This is where most peopleshould start out. If you’re already ex-tremely lean, then follow the program forgaining lean mass. If you already haveenough lean mass and want to prepare fora contest, follow the fat loss program. Onthis program your goal is to keep overallbody weight relatively constant while in-creasing muscle mass and decreasingbody fat. Since overall body weight is toremain constant, your caloric intakeshould be approximately equal to yourmaintenance energy requirement. You willbe building muscle tissue at the expenseof body fat. In other words, the energycost of building new muscle tissue willbe derived from fat stores. Simply adjustcalories so that your body weight remainsthe same. By keeping a daily record ofyour diet, it’s easy to determine your main-tenance energy requirement. Consumeone gram of protein per pound of bodyweight each day. Limit dietary fat to 10%of calories. The rest of your calories comefrom complex carbohydrates. Followyour body composition with the Body StatKit to make sure you’re making progress.If a month goes by without any improve-ment, make a change. Train heavy andget plenty of rest. Avoid over-training.Perform aerobics for 30 minutes three tofive days per week. As your lean body mass increases you will have to graduallyincrease calories. An increase in lean bodymass will increase your metabolic rate andyour maintenance energy requirement.

This is where many, many bodybuildersfail. They make good progress for the firstsix months or a year, and then hit a pla-teau and seem to stay stuck there forever.The most common problem is that theyfail to increase their caloric intake as theygain lean muscle tissue. If you never in-crease calories, your muscles will growas big as they can on that level of energyintake and then stop. If your body burns2400 calories per day to maintain itselfand fuel your exercise, and you eat 2400calories per day, that doesn’t leave any-thing left over to build and maintain newtissue. This approach works well as longas you have enough body fat left to sup-ply energy to fuel growth, but as you losefat your progress will grind to a halt un-less you increase calories.Here’s the idea: Start off by consumingyour daily maintenance energy require-ment. If you’re eating and training rightyou’ll automatically gain muscle and losefat. Follow your body composition. Stayon this program until you reach about 8-10% body fat for men, and 12-15% forwomen. This may take two months, or itmay take a year depending on how fatyou are when you start out. When youreach your target body fat percentage, it’stime to increase calories by about 300 perday. You will gain weight. Most of it willbe muscle if you’re following the dietfaithfully. (Most of it will be fat if you’renot.) At this new level of energy intake,your body will reach a new steady state(constant level) body weight.

You will gainmuscle for awhile, until your metabolicrate rises to equal your new level of en-ergy intake. Then it’s time to increasecalories again. If you think about it, basi-cally what you’re doing here is stayingon the maintenance energy program untilyour body composition drops to your tar-get body fat percentage, and then you’reswitching to the program to gain leanmass. Many bodybuilders hit a terminalplateau because they fail to recognize it’stime to increase calories. Many bodybuild-Nutrition and Training 101ers fail to reach their goals because whenthey do increase calories, they put on fat.This means they’re not being strict on theirdiets. So then they cut calories and justdiet back to the same place they startedfrom.These examples illustrate my concept ofbuilding your metabolism. I hope I havegiven you some insight into how the pro-gram works and what to do to achieveyour particular goals. You CAN have thephysique of a bodybuilder – you just haveto want it bad enough to do what it takes.It’s not really that complicated. Trainheavy, eat right, and do your aerobics. Ifyou’re not making progress you have aproblem in one of these areas. The mostcommon problems are getting sloppy onyour diet or getting lazy in the gym. Ifyou’re ready to take your physique to thenext level, I can show you how. Get outyour Parrillo Nutrition Manual and re-ex-amine your diet.

Are you really eating theway you need to to look like a bodybuilder?Have you let some foods creep back intoyour diet that you shouldn’t be eating? Areyou attacking the weights in the gym? Youshould be increasing your weights in eachlift at least every month, if not more fre-quently. Have you fallen into a rut and justlift the same poundages every workout?You HAVE to lift more weight. You can’twait for your muscles to grow and thenlift heavier weight. You have to lift moreweight now or else your muscles won’tget any stronger. I don’t want any peopleon the Parrillo Program to be stuck on aplateau. Next time you walk into the gym,add some more weight to the bar. Everymonth your goal should be to get a newpersonal best in at least one of the basiclifts. You’ll never do it if you don’t try.I’ve recently developed a new tool to helpyou structure your diet: The Parrillo Nu-trition Computer Program. It includes avariety of menu-driven features to helpyou plan and keep track of your diet. Ithelps you figure out your calories, andgrams of protein, fat, and carbs. You tellit what foods you like to eat and then itplans out your meals for you, and evengenerates a shopping list. No more tediouscalculations. Basically, it does everythingexcept cook your food.

References

1. Bjorntorp P, and Brodoff BN. Obesity.J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1992.

2. Obesity: Pathophysiology, Psychology,and Treatment. Blackburn GL andKanders BS. Chapman & Hall, New York,1994.

3. Bach AC and Babayan VK. Mediumchain triglycerides: an update. Am. J. Clin.Nutr. 36: 950-962, 1982.

4. Flatt JP. Dietary fat, carbohydrate bal-ance, and weight maintenance: effects ofexercise. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 45: 296-306,1987.

5. Horton TJ, Drougas H, Brachey A,Reed GW, Peters JC, and Hill JO. Fat andcarbohydrate overfeeding in humans: dif-ferent effects on energy storage. Am. J.Clin. Nutr. 62: 19-29, 1995.

6. Flatt JP. Use and storage of carbohy-drate and fat. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 61: 952s-959s, 1995.

7. Swinburn B and Ravussin E. Energybalance or fat balance? Am. J. Clin. Nutr.57: 766S-771S, 1993.

8. Bray GA. Obesity – a disease of nutri-ent or energy balance? Nutrition Reviews45: 33-43, 1987.

Bulletin #45 – Fructose: The Ideal Carbohydrate Source For Gaining Fat

I still get a lot of questions aboutfructose, the sugar that occurs naturallyin fruit. Recently I saw an article adver-tising a supplement bar based on fructose,explaining why this low glycemic indexcarb is great for bodybuilders. I decidedit was time to revisit this is-sue and try to set therecord straight. I hateto see people bemisled and workhard in the gymjust to have theirresults ruined byeating the wrongthing.The prob-lem is simple: fruc-tose is converted tofat in the liver. That’sreally all there is to it.Some people point tothe fact the fructose has a lowglycemic index (which it does) and that itgenerates a small insulin response, sug-gesting that this makes it a good carbo-hydrate source for athletes. The reasonfructose has a low glycemic index is be-cause a large proportion of it is releasedfrom the liver as fat instead of carbohy-drate.Can you eat some fruit now and then andstill have a good physique? Sure you can.But the athetes I work with want THEBEST RESULTS POSSIBLE. Profes-sional bodybuilders don’t want good phy-siques – they want perfect physiques. Ofcourse, fruit is generally a healthy food -high in fiber, vitamins, and minerals, andlow in fat. But try to think of fruit asnature’s candy, because that’s exactly whatit is. If your goal is to build a lean andmuscular physique, then you don’t wantto eat candy. Sugar and fat are natural,but that doesn’t mean they’ll make youlean and muscular.I originally learned that fruitmakes you fat not by reviewing the bio-chemical pathways of metabolism, but byactually doing nutritional experiments withreal bodybuilders. Rather than being sometheory out of a book, this is an experi-mental fact. For a long time I didn’t un-derstand it – I just knew fromour work in the gym thatcertain foods madebodybuilders get inbetter shape whileother foods madethem get fat.

Parrillo Performance
800-344-3404 

Theexperiment goeslike this: As abodybuilder getsclose to a contest,his body fat levelgets very low -maybe 3-5% for amale and 8-9% for afemale. At this point hisskin is paper thin (in the hu-man most fat is stored just under the skin).You can see the striations of his musclesclearly through his skin. As you can imag-ine, any little change at this point reallyshows up. This is why I like to use com-petitive bodybuilders for the most demand-ing nutritional experiments – they are a verysensitive indicator of what works andwhat doesn’t. With the athlete in contestshape, we measure his body weight andpercent body fat every day. We weigh hisfood and calculate how many calories heis consuming, and break it down into calo-ries from protein, carbohydrate, and fat.If his weight doesn’t change, this meanscaloric intake exactly balances caloric ex-penditure, so we have a direct measure-ment of his total daily energy expenditure.Everything is measured and controlled,and nothing is left to chance.Okay, here’s the deal: Let’s saywe remove 300 calories worth of com-plex carbohydrates from his diet in formof rice, and replace it with 300 caloriesworth of fruit. His total caloric intake re-mains the same, as does his percent ofcalories from protein, carbohydrate, andfat.

His training program remains exactlythe same. The only change is the type ofcarbohydrate supplying 300 of the calo-ries: rice has been replaced with bananas.You expect his body weight and percentbody fat to remain the same, right? Toevery one’s surprise, the bodybuilderstarts to gain fat. We let this go on for acouple of weeks and the athlete contin-ues to gain fat. Now we pull the bananasout of the diet and put the rice back in -i.e., go back to the original diet. Guesswhat? He loses the fat. Amazing, but true.We’ve done countless experiments likethis with just about every food imagin-able. That’s how we came up with ourdiet – by finding what really works. TheParrillo Performance Nutrition Manual tellsyou which foods work to build a lean,muscular physique, and which foodsdon’t. The competitive bodybuilder is ourlaboratory. The same diet developed tohone champion bodybuilders worksequally well for anyone seeking to losefat and gain muscle. So far, no one whohas given our program a sincere efforthas said that it did not work for them.Granted, some specific parameters haveto be adjusted to optimize the program foryour individual metabolism. We tell youhow to do that too.

The optimum numberof calories and the optimum ratio of pro-tein to carbohydrate varies among indi-viduals. For example, some people, espe-cially ones who have trouble losing fat,do better with more protein and less car-bohydrate. People who have suffered re-peated bouts of yo-yo dieting have lost alot of muscle mass and consequently havea slow metabolic rate. They may actuallyneed to increase calories and put on somemuscle before they have any machineryto burn fat.Well, back to the fruit story. Whydoes it make any difference what kind of food you eat? For a given number of calo-ries it seems like it shouldn’t matter whatfoods they come from. This is one of themost common mistakes people makewhen trying to lose fat. They think that ifthey reduce calories they will automati-cally lose weight. This is true, but onlyfor a little while. And if you lose weightby drastically reducing calories, about 50%of the weight lost will be muscle. Whatpeople fail to realize is that the types offoods you eat is just as important as howmany calories you consume. If cuttingcalories was the answer, then those lowcalorie weight loss drinks would work,but they don’t.The key point is that differentfoods have different chemical composi-tions and therefore have different effectsinside your body. Of course, all food isfuel, but what type of fuel it is matters alot.

Try putting kerosene in your car some-time and see how it runs. For any ma-chine to run optimally, including the hu-man body, it requires the right kind of fuel.The problem with fruit is that virtually allof the calories it supplies come in the formof simple sugars. The most abundantsugar in fruit is fructose (commonlyknown as fruit sugar), although somefruits (oranges and grapes for example)also contain a lot of glucose. The prob-lem with fructose is that it bypasses theenzyme phosphofructokinase-I (PFK-I),the rate limiting step of glycolysis, thepathway responsible for the conversionof carbohydrate into energy (1). In otherwords fructose bypasses the control pointthat decides if a dietary sugar is going tobe stored as glycogen or fat. Complexcarbohydrates such as rice, oatmeal, andpotatoes, are preferentially stored as gly-cogen until glycogen stores are full. Fruc-tose, on the other hand, gets directly con-verted to fat in the liver, then gets whiskedoff in the bloodstream to be stored in fatcells (1).As you know from our previousarticles about carbohydrate metabolismand thermogenesis, the dietary energy(calories) supplied by carbs is used forseveral purposes. Some of it is simply lostas heat during its digestion and metabo-lism in a process we know as diet-inducedthermogenesis. You can loosely think ofthis as “friction” in the metabolic path-way, and this energy loss contributes tothe generation of body heat.

Most of thedietary energy is used to maintain the basalmetabolic rate (BMR) – the energy costof keeping your body alive. Some of theenergy is used to perform work, like ex-ercise and just tending to the activities ofdaily life. After that, any energy left isstored as glycogen in muscles and in theliver. If you consume too many caloriesfrom carbohydrate, after glycogen storesare full the rest will be con-verted to fat (triglycerides) inthe liver, and transported bythe blood to fat cells (adiposetissue) for storage.So after glycogen stores arefull, excess calories from anytype of carbohydrate can beconverted to fat. The enzymethat regulates whether dietaryenergy supplied by carbohy-drate is stored as glycogen orfat is PFK-I. It shuttles carbsinto glycogen stores untilthey’re full, then it switchesthe flow of carbohydratesfrom glycogen synthesis tofat synthesis. Glycogen is thestorage form of carbohy-drate in animals, and theamount of glycogen you canstore is quite limited. The up-per limit is generally believedto be 250-400 grams, de-pending on the amount ofskeletal muscle mass youhave. (Very massive bodybuilders may beable to store as much as 600 grams.)

Thisamounts to only 1000-1600 calories – noteven enough energy to fuel your body forone day. The deal with fructose is that ittotally skips the enzyme PFK-I, which isthe regulatory step responsible for mak-ing sure glycogen stores are full beforefat synthesis is switched on. Instead ofbeing stored as glycogen, fructose getsdirectly converted to fat by the liver. NowI think you can see why I have a problemwith recommending fruit for bodybuild-ers.To get a detailed understandingof fructose metabolism we should startat the beginning. Fructose is absorbedfrom the small intestine and transportedto the liver by the portal vein. You have torealize that fructose itself is not releasedfrom the liver into the bloodstream to reachthe rest of the body. Any carbohydratesource you ingest is first converted to glu-cose by the liver, and glucose (“bloodsugar”) is the carbohydrate source usedby muscles and the form of carbohydratewhich is converted into glycogen. The firstenzyme to act on fructose is fructokinase,which adds a phosphate group to thesugar to form fructose-1-phosphate(F1P). Glucose is similarly phosphory-lated at the 6 position by the enzyme hex-okinase, forming G6P. All cells have hex-okinase, and thus have the ability to phos-phorylate glucose. This means that all cellscan metabolize glucose for energy. On theother hand, fructokinase is virtually con-fined to the liver (1). So while glucose isa general substrate for all body tissues,fructose represents a carbohydrate load targeted for the liver (1).

The next thingthat happens is F1P is split by the enzymealdolase to form glyceraldehyde (GA) anddihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP).This means that the products of fructosemetabolism enter the glycolytic pathwayat the triose phosphate level (i.e., as threecarbon sugars). Glucose, on the otherhand, is phosphorylated to yield G6P,which may proceed directly to glycogensynthesis (1). To be broken down forenergy glucose must first pass throughthe rate-limiting PFK-I step. Fructose me-tabolites enter below this step, and thusbypass an important point of regulation.Fructose therefore is more prone to beconverted to fat, while glucose is moreprone to be converted to glycogen.The biochemistry is much morecomplex than is appropriate for this ar-ticle, but I have pointed out the salient fea-tures of the pathway to explain why glu-cose-based carbohydrate sources are bet-ter than fructose, especially for peopletrying to minimize body fat stores. Scien-tific studies have proven that starch (glu-cose polymer) is much more efficient atreplenishing skeletal muscle glycogenstores than fructose (2).

Now you un-derstand why — muscle cells don’t havethe enzyme needed to phosphorylate fruc-tose, so its metabolism is essentially lim-ited to the liver.When we were designing theParrillo Performance Bar, we surveyedevery available sports supplement bar wecould find. We found that 25 out of the26 bars had fructose in either the first orsecond ingredient. (If you use somebodyelse’s bar, go read the label.) Why? Be-cause corn syrup and fruit juice (goodsources of fructose) are real cheap, andthey’re also very sweet. We pioneered theuse of a new carbohydrate source in theParrillo Bar called rice dextrin. It’s a short-chain glucose polymer made from rice.This gives you the quick energy you wantfrom a sports bar, but without the fruc-tose. Each Bar also contains CapTri(which is legendary by now) and an ul-tra-high efficiency protein source.As we discussed in an earlier article aboutcarbohydrate metabolism, complex car-bohydrates (such as starch andmaltodextrin) are more effective in replen-ishing glycogen stores than simple sug-ars (3). This makes sense because com-plex carbs are released into the blood-stream slowly whereas simple sugars arereleased very rapidly, potentially over-whelming the glycogen synthesis path-ways and “spilling over” into fat stores.

Furthermore, the increased insulin releaseresulting from simple sugars causes moreof the sugar to be converted to fat.This is why Parrillo Performance ProCarbis based on maltodextrin instead of sugar,like most other carbohydrate supplements.Maltodextrin is a medium-chain glucosepolymer. It has been found thatmaltodextrin is 15% more efficient at re-storing muscle glycogen levels than con-ventional carbohydrate foods like rice andpasta (4). This makes ProCarb ideal forglycogen supercompensation (carb load-ing). Maltodextrin beverages like Pro-Carbhave also been demonstrated to increaseblood glucose levels during exercise andto increase exercise time to exhaustion(4,5).At this point, I think I can antici-pate a question from the biochemists inthe crowd. You’ve probably heard thatfructose is low on the glycemic index,which means it raises blood sugar veryslowly and elicits only a small insulin re-sponse. From your reading of our serieson endocrinology, you know that a slow,steady insulin response is good. Since in-sulin is a potent stimulus for fat storage,we want to keep insulin levels fairly low,so by this reasoning it seems like fruc-tose would be good.

The problem is thatthe REASON fructose has a low glyce-mic index and results in a small insulinrelease is that it is converted to fat in theliver. It doesn’t raise blood sugar verymuch because it is released from the liveras fat instead of sugar. Fructose has aMUCH greater tendency to be convertedto fat than other carbohydrate sources,so why use it? Now you understand thebiochemistry behind my controversialstance on fruit.Now I’d like to go into a littlemore detail about carbohydrate metabo-lism and glycogen storage. After exerciseis completed dietary carbohydrate is di-rected toward restoring muscle and liverglycogen and returning blood glucose tonormal levels. Dietary starches and sug-ars are digested to simple sugars (glucoseand fructose) which are then available forglycogen formation (2). Until recently itwas believed that glycogen was made justfrom glucose extracted from the bloodby the liver and muscle, but the actualdynamics of glycogen restitution turn outto be much more complicated. In fact,glucose serves primarily to replenishmuscle glycogen stores, while the liver ismore versatile in its choice of substrates(building blocks) for glycogen synthesis.The liver is able to make glycogen fromfructose, lactate, glycerol, alanine, andother three-carbon metabolites (2). Amaz-ingly, most glucose absorbed from the gutactually travels through the liver withoutbeing absorbed and preferentially is usedto replenish muscle glycogen stores (2).

This is cutting edge stuff, folks, that youprobably won’t hear anywhere else. Idon’t know of anyone besides ParrilloPerformance who researches nutritionalbiochemistry and metabolism at this levelof molecular detail to instruct bodybuild-ers on exact techniques to control the flowof energy and nutrients through the meta-bolic pathways. Who else teaches you how to control the metabolic pathwaysto optimize bodybuilding results?Anyway, what happens is this: After ex-ercise liver and muscle glycogen (carbo-hydrate) stores are depleted. The liver isa very versatile metabolic engine and isable to recover its glycogen stores frommany different sources, including lactate,fructose, glucose, and amino acid metabo-lites. Muscle tissue, on the other hand,has a specialized function (contraction)and doesn’t have all of the various en-zymes the liver does which allow the liverto inter-convert so many different meta-bolic intermediates. Muscle tissue relieson glucose to recover its glycogen store,so the liver is kind enough to let the glu-cose pass on through so it can be deliv-ered to muscle.

The liver makes due withother carbon compounds which muscleis unable to use. What does this mean forus bodybuilders? Think about it – the an-swer is right in front of you.What this means is if you feedyour body glucose – the form of carbo-hydrate in starch, Pro-Carb, and theParrillo Bar – the carbohydrate will be di-rected to your muscles and stored thereas glycogen. Dietary carbohydrate in theform of glucose will be directed to yourmuscles until muscle glycogen stores arefull. This will make your muscle full, hard,and pumped. Also, this will give you moreenergy and strength during your work-outs, since muscles rely on their internalglycogen stores as fuel for anaerobic ex-ercise. After muscle glycogen stores arefull additional glucose will be used to re-store liver glycogen. Only after bothmuscle and liver glycogen stores are fullyrepleted will further excess glucose be con-verted to fat. (Studies have shown thatoverfeeding as much as a 500 gram car-bohydrate load leads to practically no fatsynthesis, because the carbs are storedas glycogen.) The story with fructose isvery different, indeed. Muscle does nothave the enzymatic machinery needed toconvert fructose into glycogen, so fruc-tose represents a dietary carbohydrate loadtargeted for the liver (1,2). In the liver,two things can happen with fructose.First, fructose can be absorbed by the livercells, converted to glucose, and thenstored as glycogen. Second, the fructosecan be converted to fat.

You rememberwhat I said earlier about the enzyme PFK-I. This is the “rate limiting” enzyme thatoperates as a switch to decide if a sugargets stored as glycogen or converted tofat. Fructose completely bypasses thisenzyme and is readily converted to fat bythe liver. This is why ordinary table sugarincreases blood triglyceride levels andmakes you fat. Table sugar is a disaccha-ride known as sucrose, and is made fromone molecule of glucose connected to onemolecule of fructose. Recent thought oncarbohydrate metabolism suggests that itis the fructose portion of sucrose that isresponsible for making sweets so fatten-ing.So a large portion of the fruc-tose simply gets converted directly to fatand released into the bloodstream. Bam.You get a dose of fat. But the damagedoesn’t stop there. The rest of the fruc-tose gets converted into liver glycogen.That sounds okay, until you stop to thinkabout it. You see, once liver glycogenstores are full the liver says, “We’ve gotall the glycogen we can hold, so any morecarbs coming in here we’ll just convertto fat.” Fructose preferentially repletesliver glycogen instead of muscle glyco-gen (2) and shifts the liver into fat-stor-ing mode.

This is exactly what we don’twant. We need some liver glycogen, tobe sure, because this is what keeps bloodsugar levels steady. But when liver glyco-gen stores are full, this is when dietarycarbs start to “spill over” into fat stores.The third problem is that fructose cannotbe used to replenish muscle glycogen, soon a high fructose diet liver glycogenstores are filled and we start convertingcarbs into fat without ever filling muscleglycogen stores. This scenario is a car-bohydrate nightmare. Fructose is theworst carb source for bodybuilders youcan imagine. If you wanted to design asupplement to ruin a bodybuilder’s phy-sique, it would be a fructose-based en-ergy bar. Unfortunately, the vast majorityof the bars out there rely on fructose astheir major carb source, because it’scheap.In summary, fructose does threethings: a large portion of it is converteddirectly to fat by the liver, it preferentiallyfills liver glycogen stores so that evengood carbs are more prone to spill overinto fat, and it cannot be used by muscleto recover glycogen. Calorie for calorie,the only nutrient that will make you fatterthan fructose is fat itself. Besides that, Idon’t have a problem with it.Glucose then has some specialmetabolic properties that you can use toyour advantage.

Exercise induces muscleto be more sensitive to the effects of in-sulin, so blood glucose is shuttled prefer-entially to glycogen-depleted muscle (2).Interestingly, and fortunately for the body-builder, high blood glucose and insulin lev-els do relatively little to stimulate hepatic(liver) glycogenesis (glycogen produc-tion). Instead, most glucose passes onthrough the liver and is extracted by skel-etal muscle. This means that if you sup-ply your body with carbohydrate in the form of glucose post-exercise that thecalories will be preferentially stored asmuscle glycogen. An excellent recoverytrick is to eat a Parrillo Bar or a scoop ofPro-Carb right after your workout. Theseare essentially “free” calories which youknow will end up in muscle and not beconverted to fat. If you eat a fructose-based supplement bar, however, the calo-ries just stay in your liver and get con-verted either to liver glycogen or fat. Itwon’t help recover muscle glycogen.In closing I’d like to talk aboutthe kinetics (time course) of glycogen stor-age. Glycogen recovery following exer-cise is highly dependent on the carbohy-drate content of the diet, up until 500-600grams of carbohydrate are provided.Above this intake, glycogen synthesizingpathways appear to be saturated (2). In-terestingly, not only is the absolute car-bohydrate content of the diet important,but the type of dietary carbohydrate con-sumed is key also.

A study by Costill (re-viewed in reference 2) compared the rela-tive efficacies of simple sugars versuscomplex carbohydrates in restoringmuscle glycogen following exercise. Bothwere equally effective during the first 24hours of glycogen synthesis, but by 48hours post-exercise the complex carbsresulted in significantly better recover ofmuscle glycogen stores. Another studylooked at the effects of different carbo-hydrate types on liver glycogen, and dem-onstrated that fructose is more efficientthan glucose at replenishing liver glyco-gen. The question is, do you want yourcarbs to be stored in muscle or in yourliver?Basically, this means if you relyon simple sugars or fructose, within 24hours your muscles will have stored asmuch glycogen as they can, and any fur-ther carbohydrate you consume will beconverted to fat. On the other hand if youuse starches (complex carbs made fromglucose polymers) not only can youachieve higher levels of muscle glycogenstorage, but also less of the carbs will beconverted to fat. In other words, if youstore more of your dietary carbs as muscleglycogen, less will be available for con-version to fat. Pretty neat, huh?You know that weight lifting is an anaerobicexercise that relies on muscle glycogenas the primary fuel source. You also knowthat muscles fully loaded with glycogenare bigger, harder, and stronger.

What canyou do to target dietary carbohydrate tomuscle? Use complex carbohydrates madefrom glucose polymers as your carbsource. This is the type of carbohydratefound in starchy foods (potatoes, rice,beans, oatmeal, etc.) and in the ParrilloBar and in Pro-Carb. Eat a high carbohy-drate diet; usually 60-70% of your calo-ries should come from complex carbs. Eata high carbohydrate meal immediately af-ter training, when muscles are glycogendepleted and are primed to store carbo-hydrate. A convenient way to do this is toput a Parrillo Bar in your gym bag or elsea shaker bottle with a scoop of Pro-Carbin it. This is also an ideal time to consumesome protein to provide amino acids torebuild your muscles. If you’re trying topack on a few more pounds of muscle itmay be as simple as eating a scoop ofPro-Carb plus a scoop of Hi-Protein Pow-der right after your workout. Do this fora month and I can virtually guaranteeyou’ll see a difference. After a workout,these calories will go straight to musclewith virtually no risk of being convertedto fat. Finally, avoid fructose. Most of thesupplement bars out there (probably 90%of them at least) use fructose, high fruc-tose corn syrup, or fruit juice as one oftheir main ingredients. Beware. Theseproducts are not effective in recovery ofmuscle glycogen and instead are targetedto the liver. If you’re looking for a goodway to replenish your fat stores after ex-ercise, fructose would be an excellentchoice.Parrillo supplements are made theway they are for a reason.

We use ricedextrin in the Parrillo Bar and maltodextrinin Pro-Carb. Both are glucose polymers.Sure, high fructose corn syrup or fruitjuice concentrate would be cheaper, butwe’ve designed our supplements to be thebest, not the cheapest. Our supplementsare designed for the professional body-builder whose career depends on his (orher) physique. You might be surprised thata seemingly small difference like using glu-cose instead of fructose would be impor-tant, but it can make the difference be-tween winning and losing. Now you knowhow to control the traffic of carbohydratesthrough the metabolic pathways of yourbody and direct carbs to muscle whileminimizing their conversion to fat. Youalso know when somebody starts tellingyou how wonderful their fructose bar is,you’d better put on your hip waders.

References

1. Shafrir E. Fructose/sucrose metabo-lism, its physiological and pathologicalimplications. Sugars and Sweeteners,Kretchmer N and Hollenbeck CB, Eds.CRC Press, 1991, pp. 63-98.

2. Paige DM. Clinical Nutrition. C.V.Mosby Company, St. Louis, 1988, pp.703-704.

3. Costill DL, Sherman WM, Fink WJ,Witten MW, and Miller JM. The role ofdietary carbohydrates in muscle glycogenresynthesis after strenuous running. Am.J. Clin. Nutr. 34: 1831-1836, 1981.

4. Lamb DR, Snyder AC, and Baur TS.Muscle glycogen loading with a liquidcarbohydrate supplement. Int. J. SportNutr. 1: 52-60, 1991.

5. Snyder AC, Lamb DR, Baur T, ConnorsD, and Brodowicz G. Maltodextrin feed-ing immediately before prolonged cyclingat 62% VO2max increases time to exhaus-tion. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 15: 126,1983

6. Buskirk, ER and Puhl, S. Nutritionalbeverages: exercise and sport. Nutritionin Exercise and Sport, Hickson JF andWolinsky I, Eds. CRC Press, 1989.

Bulletin #44 – Gain Muscle & Lose Fat: Breakthrough News For CapTri® Users

If there were a nutritional supplement thatcould dramatically—and naturally—elevateyour levels of growth, would you want totake it?You bet you would! So hold onto your hat,we’ve got some exciting news that maychange the way you think about your dietand the kinds of supplements you use.Researchers in Spain have released a studyproving that dietary manipulation with spe-cial lipids, like CapTri, can cause more than a900 percent increase in growth hormone lev-els—a peak that is reached two hours afteringestion and is maintained for over threehours (1).Just think: If you’re eating every two or threehours like you should be on the Parrillo Nu-trition Program and supplementing withCapTri®, you can keep your growth hor-mone levels naturally elevated each day.So that’s why CapTri®, a powerful mediumchain triglyceride oil formulated by ParrilloPerformance, works so well when used inconjunction with proper nutrition. Butyou’re probably saying, “Hold on, isn’tCapTri a supplement for adding calories toyour diet or replacing a portion of carbohy-drates when dieting?”Yes, you’re right, but there’s even a biggerpicture to look at when using CapTri as partof your nutrition program.There is evidence that by combining the rightfoods and supplements you can actuallymanipulate the body’s hormones.

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This iscalled “Dietary Endocrinology” and it’s anarea we’ve been working in for years. Butnow there’s research to prove that thismethod of regulating the hormones doeswork and is being used in he field of medi-cine as well.So let’s find out more about how CapTri®can help increase your body’s ability to regu-late it’s own hormones. So let’s start withgrowth hormone.In case you’re not familiar with the physi-ological benefits of increasing GH levels, let’sreview them. Growth hormone acts to chan-nel the protein portion of your meals tomuscle tissue for growth and repair of tis-sues. It does this by increasing nitrogen re-tention, meaning that more of the protein youeat is turned into metabolically active muscletissue instead of being broken down andexcreted as waste products in the urine. Ineffect, GH switches on the cellular machin-ery that makes muscle proteins.At the same time, it shuts down the use ofglucose for energy, helping to spare muscleglycogen stores. GH literally shifts the bodyfrom a carbohydrate-burning mode into thefat-burning mode. By sparing muscle glyco-gen, GH helps yield more energy for muscle-building workouts.What’s more, GH promotes fat burning.

Thispowerful hormone stimulates “lipolysis,”which is the breakdown of body fat stores.Fat is released from storage tissues into thebloodstream and is then taken up by the cellsand burned for energy.Also, the researchers found that the speciallipids did not increase blood glucose levels,so there’s no danger of a hypoglycemic re-action. Translated to real-world nutrition,here’s what that means to you: By combin-ing CapTri with slow-release, high-fiber car-bohydrates as recommended in the ParrilloNutrition Program, you should be able to anincrease in insulin with very little increase inblood glucose. In theory, this lets you havethe muscle-building action of GH and insu-lin, without suffering the fat-building activ-ity that usually accompanies insulin.The practice of using food and nutritionalsupplements like CapTri to manipulate bodyhormones, called “dietary endocrinology,”was developed by Dr. Barry Sears. Dietaryendocrinology asserts that food, when prop-erly used, can be as powerful as drugs incontrolling the body. In fact, Dr. Sears is con-ducting research using foods as replacementfor drugs in treatment of life-threatening ill-nesses such as diabetes and cardiovasculardisease (2).Along parallel lines, Parrillo Performance isresearching the use of foods to substitutefor drugs in bodybuilding and other sports.

The results on both fronts have been im-pressive, particularly the results achievedwhen CapTri is added to one’s diet. Frankly,I believe that during the next century, thescience of dietary endocrinology with revo-lutionize the fields of medicine and athletics.In truth, though, this is happening today. Isee it with the people following the our pro-gram. How then can you fast-forward your-self into the next century of nutrition, to-day?First, understand that the flow of dietaryenergy to either fat stores or muscle is con-trolled by hormones. So is the rate of fatburning. Thanks to research, we alreadyknow that the hormones of greatest impor-tance to bodybuilders and athletes can belargely controlled by diet or exercise. Properdiet and exercise can alter the levels of keyhormones in your bloodstream, and thesehormones act as the triggers for musclegrowth and fat loss.The three most important hormones con-trolled muscle growth and fat loss are insu-lin, glucagon and GH. All are responsive todiet, and of particular importance is GH be-cause of its unique ability to stimulate musclegrowth and fat loss at the same time.You’ve just seen how GH works its magic.But what about insulin and glucagon?Where do they fit into the picture?  At the cellular level, insulin binds to the glu-cose transporter present on cell membranesso that glucose can be ferried into cells to beburned as fuel or stored as glycogen.

Insu-lin also does two other things: It drives aminoacids into cells and stimulates protein syn-thesis—both powerful and anabolic actions(3).Insulin, however, is a double-edged swordbecause it acts to increase fat synthesis andfat storage (3). Fortunately, this fat-storingactivity of insulin is kept in check by gluca-gon. The primary action of glucagon is totrigger the breakdown of fat and glycogenfor energy. The key is to keep insulin andglucagon in proper balance to get themuscle-building effect of insulin andthe fat-burning effect of glucagon.As it turns out, the ratio of insulin toglucagon is a consequence of the ra-tio of carbohydrate to protein in thediet (2,4). Furthermore, additional re-search has shown that the insulin toglucagon ratio is a major determinantof the set point—the amount of fatyour body is programmed to carry (5).Too much insulin will make you fat,while more glucagon will make youlean, all on the same number of calo-ries (5). In simple terms, this meansthat not only the number of calories,but the type of calories, will determinewhether you get fat or lean.Precise dietary control of insulin andglucagon through manipulation of the car-bohydrate and protein ratios, plus the useof CapTri, is no doubt why people have suchgreat success on the Parrillo PerformanceNutrition Program. Often I see people eatingmore calories on our diet than they diet be-fore, yet they’re still losing fat at a rapid rate.

Our program is structured to cause a hor-monal response in your body that turns onthe muscle-building and fat-burning meta-bolic pathways. Dietary energy is thus chan-neled toward muscle-building, while caus-ing the body to use stored fat for energy.Besides protein and carbohydrate, yourother major source of calories is fat. Dr. Sears,in his work in dietary endocrinology recom-mends a ratio of 30 percent protein, 40 per-cent carbohydrate and 30 percent fat (asenergy) for optimal muscle growth and fatloss. These are essentially the same num-bers we use in our Nutrition Manual, whichcontains detailed instructions on how toadjust this ratio to meet your individualneeds.An important difference, however, is that wehave found a tremendous increase in fat losswhen CapTri® is used in place of regularoils and fats. CapTri simply works differentlythan conventional fats. It is burned very rap-idly, more like a carbohydrate than a fat. Con-ventional fats go through a complicatedmetabolic pathway, requiring incorporationinto protein substances called chylomicronswhich transport through the lymphatic sys-tem. Furthermore, before conventional fat canbe burned as fuel, it must be carried into themitochondria (cellular furnaces) by a specialtransport system called the carnitine shuttle.This is the reason why conventional fat isso readily stored as body fat: the carnitineshuttle is not activated as long as carbohy-drates are available for use as energy. Youbasically have to use up all your blood sugarbefore fat-burning will proceed at a signifi-cant rate.CapTri, on the other hand, has a speciallydesigned molecular structure that lets it by-pass these steps that limit the burning rateof regular fats. CapTri is absorbed directlyinto the bloodstream as rapidly as glucose,without going through the lymphatic sys-tem (6). Even more impressive, CapTri directlyenters the mitochondria and is immediatelyburned as fuel, not needing to ride throughon the carnitine shuttle (6). Finally, CapTrihas virtually no tendency to be stored asbody fat, in marked contrast to other fatsand oils (6).Add those beneficial actions to the abilityof CapTri to elevate GH levels, and you’vegot a very potent supplement. CapTri andthe Parrillo Performance Nutrition Programare like a metabolic switch, that, when flippedon, lets you turn on muscle growth and fat-burning at the same time. Let’s face it, if foodsand nutritional supplements like CapTri canexert such a powerful effect on the body,then who needs drugs? Dietary endocrinol-ogy is the future of sports nutrition, and thefuture is here at Parrillo Performance.

References

1. Valls E, Herrera F, Diaz M, Barreiro P,and Valls A. Modification in plasmaticinsulin and growth hormone induced bymedium chain triglycerides. Span. Ana.Ped. 11: 675-682, 1978.

2. Sears, B. Essential fatty acids and di-etary endocrinology: A hypothesis forcardiovascular treatment. Journal of Ad-vancement in Medicine. 6: 211-224, 1993.

3. Guyton AC. Textbook of MedicalPhysiology. W.B. Saunders, 1991.

4. Westphal SA, Gannon MC, Nuttall FQ.Metabolic response to glucose ingestedwith various amounts of protein. Am. J. ofClin. Nutr. 52: 267-272, 1990.

5. de Castro JM, Paulin SK and DeLugas GM.Insulin and glucagon as determinants ofbody weight set point and microregulationin rats. J. Comp. Physiol. Physcol. 92: 571-579, 1978.

6. Bach AC and Babayan VK. Medium chaintriglycerides: an update. Am. J. Clin Nutr. 36:950-962, 1982.

Bulletin #43 – High Performance Essential Fatty Acids

Parrillo Performance is proud to in-troduce another new supplement for body-builders – a concentrated source of essen-tial fatty acids. I have recommended fattyacid supplementation  for bodybuilders foryears, long before it became so popular.The details of fatty acid metabolism arequite complicated – far more complex thanprotein or carbohydrate metabolism – butthe basic concept is simple. Everybodyknows that vitamins and minerals Are nu-trients required by the body in small quan-tities. (thus the name “Micronutrients”)which provide for vital metabolic functions.Certain fats are similarly required by thebody in relatively small quantities. Since thebody cannot manufacture these fats by it-self, it is essential that they be obtained fromthe diet, and are therefore called essentialfatty acids (EFAs). The main function ofEFAs in the body is to provide buildingblocks for a class of hormones calledeicosanoids. The broad category ofeicosanoids is further subdivided into pros-taglandins, prostacyclins, leukotrienes, andthromboxanes.

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The eicosanoids are a com-plex group of hormones (over 100 differ-ent prostaglandins have been identified sofar) which are involved in controlling manymetabolic processes such as blood pres-sure, inflammation, fat metabolism, andblood clotting, to name a few. Eicosanoidsare made by all cells of the body and theircentral function is to communicate mes-sages to nearby cells to help coordinate andregulate the body’s metabolic activity. EFAsare also important structural componentsof cell membranes and thus are importantfor healthy skin. But before we get too deepinto the details, let’s talk about the basics.Since everybody makes such a big dealabout making sure to get enough vitaminsand minerals, why don’t we hear moreabout EFAs? Aren’t they just as important?Essential fatty acids are very important butthey don’t get much attention because EFAdeficiencies are relatively rare in America.Why? Because the average American getsabout 40% of his calories from fat, whichis more than enough to supply adequateamounts of EFAs.

About the only peopleyou hear of suffering from EFA deficiencyare burn or trauma patients, patients whohave had some sort of  intestinal bypasssurgery or intestinal resection, people witha fat malabsorption syndrome (that is, theycan’t absorb dietary fat very well), mal-nourished children, patients receiving pro-longed fat-free intravenous feeding, andduring high-protein, low-fat dietary supple-mentation to treat kwashiorkor (proteindeficiency) (1,2). Wait a second – whatwas that about high-protein, low-fat supple-mentation? Does that sound like your diet?Normally people don’t have to worryabout EFA deficiency in this country be-cause the typical diet contains so much fat.Furthermore, EFAs can be stored in bodyfat so a dietary deficiency won’t show upfor a long time. Extremely lean athletes,however, who follow a low-fat diet for aprolonged time are definitely at increasedrisk for fatty acid deficiency. Have I everactually seen any bodybuilders with theclinical symptoms of essential fatty aciddeficiency? You bet. Did their symptomsresolve after fatty acid supplementation?Yes – rapidly and dramatically. I rememberone female bodybuilder in particular whohad a problem with her skin getting dryand breaking out, and it got worse at con-test time.

After one week of Evening Prim-rose Oil (EPO) supplementation her skinwas completely clear. It was very dramatic,and you can imagine how happy she was.So what are the symptoms of EFA de-ficiency? In adults the first symptom is der-matitis – red, dry, scaly skin, especially onthe face (1-3). This condition will not berelieved by lotions or moisturizers – you’llsimply have red, scaly skin with lotion onit. The EFAs are required for the forma-tion of some components of normal,healthy skin, so moisturizers really won’thelp. Other problems include increased lossof water (from the skin), infertility, kidneydisease, liver disease (including decreasedATP production), decreased capillary re-sistance, increased fragility of red bloodcells (which can result in anemia), in-creased susceptibility to infections, anddecreased contractile strength of the heart(1,2). In infants EFA deficiency is evenmore serious and can include decreasedgrowth, dermatitis, and degenerativechanges in the kidney, liver, and lung (1,2).Recent evidence suggests that EFAs arealso required for normal development ofthe nervous system. Usually the problemdoesn’t get that far.

If you have any skinproblems or a poor complexion you maywant to consider trying EFA supplementa-tion.Lately there has been some specula-tion that EFA supplementation may improvemuscle and strength gains during weighttraining, or decrease muscle loss duringcatabolic conditions. In my opinion the juryis still out on this issue; there’s just notenough information to know for sure yet.However, it would not surprise me at all ifit turns out to be true. I personally haven’t seen any dramatic changes in muscle massor strength following EFA supplementation.I think the main nutritional issues here arecalories and protein intake.So what are the EFAs and what aresome good food sources for EFAs? Mostdietary fat, as well as most fat stored inthe body, is in the form of triglycerides,also known as triacylglycerols. These largemolecules are comprised of three fatty ac-ids linked to a glycerol backbone. Fattyacids themselves are long hydrocarbonchains (the fatty part of the molecule) witha carboxylic acid group attached at one end(the acid part). Fatty acids are classifiedaccording to their length and their degreeof saturation.

Short chain fatty acids are2-4 carbon atoms in length, medium chainfatty acids (like CapTri) are 6-12 carbonatoms in length, and long chain fats are14-24 carbons long. The degree of satura-tion describes how many double bonds themolecule has. If the fatty acid moleculecontains no double bonds, it is said to be“saturated.” This term describes the ideathat the carbon atoms are saturated withhydrogen atoms; if a fatty acid moleculecontains carbon-carbon double bonds itmust give up some of the hydrogens, andis no longer “saturated.” Anyway, fats canbe either saturated, monounsaturated, orpolyunsaturated. Saturated fats are foundin animal fat and some vegetable sources,and are the kind most prone to be con-verted to cholesterol and clog up your ar-teries. There is no requirement for satu-rated fats in the diet and it’s best to limitthese as much as possible. As you can tellfrom the name, monounsaturated fats con-tain one double bond. These fats are notessential in the diet, but do not contributeto heart disease. The best source ofmonounsaturated fat is olive oil. Have youever wondered why the Mediterranean dietdoes not cause heart disease even thoughit contains as much fat as the Americandiet? The fat in the Mediterranean diet issupplied as olive oil, which does not pro-mote heart disease. The American diet ismuch higher in saturated fat (from meat,butter, and eggs).

Keep in mind that whileolive oil doesn’t cause atherosclerosis, itwill still make you just as fat as eating ani-mal fat.There are two essential fatty acids, andboth are polyunsaturated. This means theycontain multiple double bonds. One is calledlinoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid) andthe other is linolenic acid (an omega-3 fattyacid). The terms omega-6 and omega-3describe the location of the first doublebond from the methyl end of the molecule.Many vegetable oils contain linoleic acid(omega-6), including safflower oil, cornoil, soybean oil, and flax (linseed) oil,among others. The omega-3 fatty acids areabundant in fish oils; flax is the only veg-etable source containing a significantamount of omega-3. You can find theseoils (except fish oil) in the grocery store,but if you’re going to take them as a sourceof essential fatty acids you should be sureto use “cold pressed” oils. This means theoil was extracted without the applicationof heat, which can damage (oxidize, to bespecific) the oil. The oils you see at thegrocery store are extracted by pressingwith heat which increases the extractionefficiency, but damages the EFAs.

Also, ifyou’re using one of these oils as a sourceof EFAs don’t cook with it – this also canoxidize the oil and destroy its biologicalactivity. Just use the oil straight, or youcan make salad dressing out of it. You canfind cold pressed oils at good health foodstores. Most bodybuilders eat fish regu-larly, and fish are a great source of omega-3’s. If you don’t like fish, omega-3 cap-sules are available at health food stores.When you buy EFA supplements don’tshop for bargains, shop for the best. EFAsare delicate molecules and are easily dam-aged during preparation. There is a differ-ence in quality and purity between brands.There’s nothing wrong with using thecold-pressed oils mentioned above as asource of EFAs, but it’s not the ultimateway to go. I’ll explain why. First, thesevegetable oils are not pure EFAs, but merelycontain EFAs along with a bunch of otherfat (and calories) you don’t necessarilywant. a table of fatty acid composition ofvarious oils is included for your informa-tion (from Linder, reference 3). the bestsource of omega 6 is safflower oil, whichis 74% linoleic acid. The others are around50% or less. the second problem is thatEFAs are not the final biologically activecompound (such as eicosanoids) but aremerely the building blocks the body usesto make these hormones.  

To formeicosanoids from linoleic acid, the firstthing that happens is the linoleic acid isconverted to gamma-linolenic acid (GLA).This conversion is carried out by an en-zyme called delta-6-desaturase. No prob-lem, except for the fact that your bodymakes less and less of delta-6-desaturaseas you age. The activity of this enzymedeclines markedly, making this conversioninefficient. This is why I recommendEvening Primrose Oil (EPO) as a bettersource of EFAs. The evening primrose is asmall flowering plant that grows in En-gland. Evening Primrose Oil contains GLAand therefore bypasses the delta-6-desaturase step. This turns out to be a wayto provide EFAs in a minimal amount offat calories, so it doesn’t upset your per-contest diet strategy. So EPO is a morepotent source of EFAs than even saffloweroil for two reasons: it’s more concentratedin total omega-6, which means there’s less“garbage” fat, plus it bypasses the limitingdelta-6-desaturase step by supplying GLAdirectly. Each 500 mg EPO capsule pro-vides 45 mg GLA and 365 mg linoleic acid,so it’s almost pure EFAs.How do I take EPO? Take from twoto six capsules a day with meals. What doI look for? You may notice an improve-ment in the appearance of your skin, espe-cially if you were deficient in linoleic acidor if your level of delta-6-desaturase is low.It’s kind of like taking vitamins.

A vitamindeficiency produces a characteristic dis-ease state which is reversed when the de-ficiency is corrected. However, if you al-ready have adequate vitamin levels thentaking extra doesn’t really make any dif-ference. (The exception may be the anti-oxidants, vitamin C, beta-carotene, and vi-tamin E, where there is some evidence thattaking more than the minimum amount re-quired to prevent a deficiency state mayactually confer additional benefits.) If you are borderline deficient in EFAs and havesome minor skin problems, then takingEPO will probably help. If you consistentlyfollow a low fat diet (10% of calories fromfat or less), if you are very lean, or if youhave minor skin problems EPO is definitelyworth a try. At the very least it will ensureyou don’t develop an omega-6 deficiencywhile following a very low fat diet. Thepeople who claim that EFAs may be the“missing link” you’re looking for to packon more muscle are probably exaggeratingin most cases. My philosophy is that therole of supplements is to increase cellularnutrient levels beyond what can be obtainedfrom a healthy diet of regular foods. Foodwill always be the cornerstone of soundnutrition – don’t lose sight of the impor-tance of your diet.

The only supplements Iknow of that can really affect your bodycomposition beyond what can be obtainedfrom regular foods are CapTri and Creat-ine.Are there any toxic effects from tak-ing too much EPO? No, EPO is completelynontoxic. There are some potential sideeffects, which include headaches and(paradoxically) your skin breaking out(pimples). These are a result of the effectsof the class 2 prostaglandins which aremade from arachidonic acid, a metaboliteof GLA. These effects are completelyblocked by aspirin, which stops the con-version of arachidonic acid into prostag-landins. If you should notice these prob-lems, simply take two aspirin and decreasethe number of capsules you take.That’s about all the practical “how to”information you need to incorporate EFAsinto your diet. The Parrillo EPO supple-ment was developed specifically to pro-vide a concentrated source of EFAs so youdon’t have to eat a tablespoon of oil everyday. By supplying GLA directly we alsobypass the rate limiting step in the metabo-lism of omega-6 fatty acids, meaning youneed to take even less to get the same ef-fect. The rest of this month’s article willcenter around a discussion of prostaglan-dins and other hormones produced fromEFAs.Prostaglandins are a family of hor-mones whose levels are determined by diet(3). Prostaglandins have potent functionsin regulating blood pressure, inflammation,and platelet aggregation (blood clotting).

The levels of various prostaglandins aredeterAined by the balance of essential fattyacids in the diet and by the balance of in-sulin to glucagon (which is in turn deter-mined by the ratio of carbohydrate to pro-tein in the diet). The sensitivity of prostag-landin levels to essential fatty acid con-sumption is a result of substrate level regu-lation, while the enzymes involved in pros-taglandin production may be activated orrepressed insulin and glucagon.Prostaglandins, prostacyclines, throm-boxanes, and leukotrienes form a class ofhormones collectively known aseicosanoids, derived from unsaturated C20fatty acids (C20 describes a fatty acid mol-ecule 20 carbon atoms in length). Prostag-landins are made in all tissues of the bodyand experience very high turnover, whichmeans they are rapidly made and subse-quently destroyed. Prostaglandins havepotent effects in regulating blood pressure,inflammation, smooth muscle contraction,and erythrocyte (red blood cell)deformability. Prostaglandins arecyclopentanoic acids which differ from oneanother in the structure of the substitutedcyclopentane ring (1,3). Prostaglandins fallinto three general categories based on thenumber of double bonds they contain,which in turn is a consequence of the de-gree of desaturation of their parent fattyacids. Class 1 prostaglandins (PG1) con-tain three double bonds and are derivedfrom C20:3 (an omega-6 fatty acid). Class2 prostaglandins (PG2) contain four doublebonds and arise from C20:4 (also anomega-6 fatty acid). Class 3 prostaglan-dins (PG3) are made from C20:5 (anomega-3 fatty acid) and contain five doublebonds.There are many different prostaglan-dins which exert a variety of effects. Themost predominant and best characterizedof the class 1 prostaglandins is PGE1. It isa very potent vasodialator and it increasescAMP levels. Thus it has the effect of low-ering blood pressure and increasing freefatty acids (EFA). This means it promotesrelease of fatty acids from body fat stores,thus increasing use of stored body fat asenergy. It also possesses anti-inflammatoryproperties. Class 2 prostaglandins are de-rived from arachidonic acid (C20:4) andare the most abundant class of prostaglan-dins. Some PG2’s act as vasodialators whilesome are vasoconstrictors. A vasodialatorincreases the size of blood vessels thusreducing blood pressure, while a vasocon-strictor makes blood vessels smaller andincreases blood pressure.

Many class 2prostaglandins promote inflammation.Class 3 prostaglandins generally have lesspotent effects than classes 1 and 2, so willnot be emphasized in this discussion.Arachidonic acid (AA) serves as theprecursor for class 2 prostaglandins. Whilenecessary for life, this family of prostag-landins produces undesirable effects whenoverproduced. These include an increasein blood pressure and inflammation. Oncearachidonic acid is formed, it is difficult (if not impossible) to control the balanceof vasodialators and vasoconstrictorswhich will be produced from it. PGE1, onthe other hand, has the effect of loweringblood pressure and has no undesirable sideeffects. The strategy of the Parrillo diet isto provide the fatty acid precursors whichwill allow some arachidonic acid (and thusPG2’s) to be formed, but to tip the balancein favor of PGE1. As with all matters ofhomeostasis, balance is the key. By favor-ing production of PGE1 desirable resultscan be achieved in terms of lowering bloodpressure and reducing inflammation.

The ultimate precursor for both class1 and 2 prostaglandins is the omega-6 fattyacid linoleic acid. This is converted togamma-linolenic acid (GLA) by delta-6-desaturase. Since many individuals lackoptimum levels of this enzyme (delta-6-desaturase activity decreases with age), itmay be prudent to supplement the diet withGLA directly (from Evening Primrose Oil).Optimal doses probably range from 30-120mg GLA/day. GLA is then converted todihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA) byan enzyme called elongase. DGLA servesas the direct precursor of PGE1. Alterna-tively, DGLA may undergo conversion toarachidonic Acid by delta-5-desaturase.Conversion of DGLA to PGE1 and arachi-donic acid to PG2 is catalyzed by the en-zyme cyclooxygenase, the target of aspi-rin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflamma-tory drugs. These drugs work by acetylat-ing (and inactivating) cyclooxygenase, lim-iting the production of class 2 prostaglan-dins. This is how aspirin and Motrin workto relieve headaches and muscle soreness.The delta-5-desaturase activity isstimulated by insulin and repressed by glu-cagon and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, anomega-3 fatty acid in fish oil). The properbalance of insulin to glucagon (controlledin response to the ratio of carbs to proteinin the diet) will thus serve to inhibit arachi-donic acid synthesis. Furthermore, con-sumption of EPA also limits AA produc-tion.

The effects of omega-3 fatty acids(fish oil) in reducing blood pressure, in-creasing erythrocyte deformability, andreducing platelet aggregation are probablymediated by their suppressive effect onarachidonic acid synthesis.As mentioned, PGE1 is a potentvasodialator and thus reduces blood pres-sure. PGE1 also activates adenylate cyclaseand thus acts to mobilize fat stores. Ade-nylate cyclase makes the intermdediatecyclic AMP, or cAMP, which stimulatesuse of fat for energy. This is the same waythe hormone adrenaline (epinephrine) anddrugs like ephedrine, caffeine, andclenbuterol mediate their fat-burning effect.PGE1 decreases blood viscosity by increas-ing erythrocytes (red blood cells)deformability. PGE1 reduces platelet ag-gregation (blood clotting). These all con-fer a protective effect against coronaryartery disease. In addition, PGE1 stimu-lates growth hormone release, which in turnpromotes use of fat for energy and parti-tions nutrients into the lean compartment(4-7). Among the class 2 prostaglandins,some are vasodialators and some are vaso-constrictors. Many promote inflammationand have an immunosuppressive effect.Since it is impractical to direct the synthe-sis of “good” class 2 prostaglandins andrepress the “bad” ones, the strategy of theParrillo diet (high protein, moderate carbs)involves simply limiting arachidonic acidsynthesis.

By increasing the balance of class1 to class 2 prostaglandins, beneficial ef-fects can be achieved while avoiding theundesirable effects of excess class 2 pros-taglandins.Glucagon promotes use of fat for en-ergy and generation of PGE1, while inhib-iting synthesis of series 2 prostaglandins.The balance of essential fatty acids in thediet (ratio omega-3 to omega-6) influencesthe balance of prostaglandins produced.Omega-3 fatty acids provide EPA whichalso inhibits delta-5-desaturase. By consum-ing a high protein, moderate carbohydratediet you can control the ratio of insulin toglucagon so as to favor the production ofPGE1 while limiting excess formation ofclass 2 prostaglandins.I warned you, the metabolism of EFAsis very complicated. I’ve just covered someof the basics. All you need to remember isthat EFAs are required for your body tomake some very important hormonesEvening Primrose Oil and the Importance of Essential Fatty Acidswhich are involved in controlling bloodpressure, blood clotting, inflammation, andfat metabolism, among other things. Peoplefollowing a low fat diet may be at risk fordeveloping essential fatty acid deficiencies.Parrillo EPO is a high-tech EFAsupplement designed to provide EFAs with-out excess non-essential fats. It provides away for bodybuilders and other athletes tooptimize their EFA metabolism while stillmaintaining a low fat diet. Parrillo EPO -another tool to help you optimize your nu-trition.

References

1. Paige DM. Clinical Nutrition. C.V.Mosby Company, St. Louis, 1988.

2. Shils ME, Olson JA, and Shike M.Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease.Lea & Febiger, Philadelphia, 1994.

3. Linder MC. Nutritional Biochemis-try and Metabolism with Clinical Applica-tions. Elsevier Science Publishing Com-pany, New York, 1991.

4. Hertelendy F, Todd H, Ehrhart K,and Blute R. Studies on growth hormonesecretion IV. In vivo effects of prostaglan-din E1. Prostaglandins 2: 79-91, 1972.

5. Hertelendy F and Keay L. Studieson growth hormone secretion VI. Effectsof dibutyrl cyclic AMP, prostaglandin E1,and indomethacin on growth and hormonesecretion by rat pituitary tumor cells inculture. Prostaglandins 6: 217-225, 1974.

6. McKeown BA, John TM, andGeorge, JC. The effect of prostaglandinE1 on plasma growth hormone, free fattyacids and glucose levels in the pigeon. Pros-taglandins 8: 303-314, 1974.

7. Dray F, Kouznetzova B, Harris B,and Brazeau P. Role of prostaglandins ongrowth hormone secretion. Adv. Prostag-landin and Thromboxane Res. 8: 1321,1980.

Bulletin #42 – Creatine: Why Has This Become A Must Supplement For Bodybuilders

We are excited to announce a newproduct to our supplement line—ParrilloPerformance Creatine Monohydrate™.During the last year several reports haveappeared in the scientific literature docu-menting the effectiveness of creatine inincreasing muscle mass, strength, andendurance (1-6). We’ve been doing ourown trials here as well and have seen im-pressive results.What is creatine, and how does itwork? You’ll recall last year I did a seriesof articles about cellular energy metabo-lism and explained the biochemistry in-volved in some detail. Briefly, the imme-diate source of energy for all cellular ac-tivity, including muscle contraction, is amolecule called ATP. This stands for ad-enosine triphosphate, which is the nucleo-side adenosine with three phosphategroups attached.

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The phosphate groupscontain negative electrical charges, andsince negative charges repel each otherthe molecule is inherently unstable. Inother words, the negative charges pushagainst each other and try to tear the mol-ecule apart. When one of the phosphategroups breaks free, energy is released.During the process of muscle contrac-tion this energy is transferred to the actinand myosin filaments which make up themuscle fiber. This results in a change inthe three dimensional configuration (i.e.,the shape) of the filaments, causing themto slide past each other. When this hap-pens the muscle contracts. When ATPloses one of its phosphate groups it formsadenosine diphosphate, or ADP, plus afree phosphate group. Thus muscle con-traction is powered by the breakdown ofATP to ADP.Food provides two basic purposes forthe body. It provides the building blocksthat body tissues are made from, and itsupplies energy to fuel the body. Thechemical energy contained in food is usedto form ATP. As you know, food is oxi-dized, or burned, in the body to releaseenergy. This energy is used to form ATP,which then goes on to power cellular ac-tivity. The body’s stores of ATP are verylimited. In fact, each muscle cell containsonly enough ATP to power contractionsfor a few seconds. Therefore, ATP mustbe continuously regenerated. That’s wherecreatine fits in. Creatine itself binds a phos-phate group, forming creatine phosphate,or CP.

When ATP is broken down to ADP,creatine phosphate steps in and donatesits phosphate group to ADP, regeneratingan ATP molecule (1). This allows highenergy muscle contractions to continue.After about 45 seconds to 2 minutes (de-pending on the intensity of effort) the cre-atine phosphate is also used up, and powerproduction by the muscle rapidly declines.This is what happens when you fail at theend of a set – you’ve used up all yourATP and CP, which means you’re out offuel. This is also why high intensity weightlifting sets usually last about a minute be-fore you fail. After the CP is used up, ATPcannot be regenerated fast enough tomaintain a high level of intensity. Lowerintensity exercise (aerobic exercise likebike riding) can be continued almost in-definitely because you can generate CPand ATP fast enough to keep up with theenergy demands of the activity.You’ll notice our creatine is in theform of creatine monohydrate. Why don’twe just use creatine phosphate or ATP it-self as a supplement instead? Simply put,because it doesn’t work.

Triphosphatemolecules such as CP and ATP are notabsorbed through the intestine. To reachthe bloodstream nutrient molecules mustfirst cross the membranes of the cells lin-ing the gut and then the cells forming thecapillaries. Cell membranes are made oflipids, which are hydrophobic. This meansthey repel molecules with a strong elec-tric charge like ATP and CP. If you feedsomeone ATP or CP it must be brokendown before it can be absorbed. Creatinemonohydrate is readily absorbed, how-ever, and does in fact reach the musclecell when administered orally (2). This iswhy it can be used as an effective supple-ment. Once inside the muscle cell it isconverted to creatine phosphate. Whatabout the sublingual route? This is bogus,since the molecule still has to cross cellmembranes to reach the circulation. Whatabout liquid creatine? Doubly bogus, sincecreatine tends to break down when storedas a solution.Creatine occurs naturally in meat,especially red meat. This is probably themain reason red meat has a reputation forincreasing strength. No other foods are agood source of creatine, and this is whyvegetarians are often creatine deficient.The problem is to get a significant amountof creatine you would have to eat a lot ofred meat, which would bring with it a tonof fat.

Creatine supplementation allowsyou to get much higher levels of creatinein your muscle than you could ever getfrom conventional food, and without sup-plying any fat.Though much of the creatine used by our muscles is obtained through diet, ithas also been found that the body cancreate its own creatine in a two-reactionextramuscular sequence. Starting in thekidney, arginine and glycine undergotransamidination, creating guanidinoaceticacid and ornithine. The guanidinoaceticacid is then methylated by S-adenosylmethionine in the liver, creatingcreatine, which is then shipped off forusage in the muscle. So the creatine poolin the muscle is really a composite of theamount synthesized by the body, whichis about one gram/day, and the rest re-ceived through dietary sources, most no-tably from meat (1,2,3).So how does creatine increase musclesize and strength? It increases strengthby increasing the intracellular levels ofcreatine and creatine phosphate, whichallows more rapid ATP production. Thismeans more energy is available to the cell,allowing it to work harder. This samemechanism explains why creatine in-creases endurance performance too. Ifyou increase the creatine pool inside themuscle this increases the cell’s energyreserve, allowing longer, as well as morepowerful, contractions. Creatine is verypopular among endurance athletes, and iswidely used in track and field.Creatine increases muscle size be-cause it attracts water. Creatine is ab-sorbed into the muscle cell and pulls a lotof water along with it, causing the muscleto swell. This results in larger, firmermuscles and a better pump. Please realizethat creatine itself does not directly in-crease muscle protein. As with all supple-ments, it is vital that you use creatine inconjunction with a solid bodybuilding diet.You need protein to build muscle tissueand carbohydrates to provide energy. Cre-atine itself is not burned to produce en-ergy, rather it acts as an energy buffer totransfer the energy derived from carbo-hydrate and fat oxidation to ATP. Creatineis not incorporated into protein. It will,however, indirectly increase the proteinmass of muscles over time by allowingyou to perform higher intensity workouts.

That is, of course, if you are eating enoughlean protein and quality calories to sup-port muscle gains. .What can you expect from creatine?Typically in hard-training bodybuilders,we observe an increase of 4-14 poundsof lean mass during the first month ofusing creatine. This is remarkable. Thisdoes not mean you have to consume 4-14 pounds of creatine. Remember, mostof the weight gain and size increase comesfrom water. Creatine is stored in musclecells, where it attracts water. The moremuscle mass you have to start with, themore creatine you can assimilate and themore weight you will gain from using cre-atine. Small bodybuilders usually gain 4-6pounds and the really big guys gain 10-14pounds. We have verified that this weightgain shows up as an increase in lean bodymass when you do body composition test-ing. Remember that lean mass is a mea-sure of everything in your body that’s notfat, including the skeleton and muscle,including water. It’s hard to imagine any-body happier than a bodybuilder whogains 10 pounds of lean mass in one month.Regarding performance, we’ve seenathletes experience a 5-15% increase instrength on their maximum lifts, and anincrease of about 2 reps per set with theirworking weight. This increase in trainingintensity allows you to put a greater loadon the muscle, which will indeed increaseyour gains in muscle protein mass overtime. The amount of strength gain eachindividual can make may differ consider-ably, because the strength of your ten-dons also determines how much weightthe muscle can lift. While it seems clearthat creatine will allow faster and greatergains in size and strength over the long-term, firm numbers cannot be attached atthe onset.

A lot is dependant on whetheryou are eating enough protein and calo-ries to support gains. Remember, creat-ine itself has little impact on gaining musclewhen taken alone. The building blocks(amino acids) and extra calories must alsobe present in the muscle for serious gainsto be made. Most people will see a sig-nificant increase in size and strength whenusing creatine, but a lot of this dependson the amount of protein and quality calo-ries you are eating. If you don’t eat enoughto support muscle gain, you won’t seeany, it’s that simple. But with a solid, high-calorie, high-protein diet and intense train-ing, your muscle gains can be incredible.Regarding endurance exercise, we’ve seenathletes experience a 5-10% increase inspeed and a 10-20% increase in time tofatigue.What’s the down side? As explained,most of the immediate weight gain result-ing from creatine supplementation happensduring the first month when you’re load-ing the muscle cells with creatine. Youwill experience an immediate gain instrength at the outset because of the in-creased leverage advantage from the in-creased water gain as well as the creatinephosphate stores. At some point the cre-atine pool becomes saturated and themuscle can’t hold any more. So you canexpect a very rapid and dramatic gain inlean mass (muscle + water) for the firstmonth, but after that creatine supplemen-tation is mainly maintenance. Remember,proper nutrition from food, increasedcalories and nutrients from supplementsand intense training are the keys to pack-ing on more muscle month after month,year after year. By using creatine you canimprove the intensity and duration of yourtraining for better overall workouts. Andwhen you add to this proper nutrition, which includes plenty of high quality pro-tein and increased calories, you’ll be righton track to gain one pound of lean masseach week.How do I use creatine? As with nearlyall supplements, actual usage will varyfrom person to person and will likelychange as your body and training changes.

To start out we recommend for the firstone to two weeks you use 20-30 grams aday divided into even servings taken witheach meal, or with a Hi-Protein™/Pro-Carb™ drink. This is the loading phase.One scoop or heaping teaspoon is fivegrams, so one of these with each mealis about right. Use the lower end ofthese ranges if you’re 150-200 pounds,and the upper end if you’re over 200pounds. We recommend one to twoweeks, but the loading phase may takeas many as four weeks. When you findthat you’re really getting a good pump,the loading phase has filled the creat-ine stores in your muscle. After that,5-10 grams a day is enough to main-tain your creatine stores. Cycling cre-atine is of no advantage. If you stoptaking creatine you simply deplete yourexisting store, which takes 4-8 weeks.The best way to take creatine is to mixit with a scoop of Hi-Protein Powder™or Pro-Carb™ and drink it immedi-ately. It’s also fine to mix it in plainwater. Don’t be concerned that creat-ine doesn’t dissolve fully; just drink thesuspension. Even though it doesn’t dis-solve completely, it gets absorbed verywell. Don’t mix creatine in water toofar in advance of when you take it, sinceit begins to break down. A great way topack creatine is to take a shaker bottlewith a scoop of Hi-Protein™ or Pro-Carb™ plus a scoop of creatine and put itin your gym bag or cooler. Then just addwater, shake, and drink. Another conve-nient way to use creatine is to mix it intooatmeal. Creatine has no flavor, but it is alittle grainy.Are there any medical concerns withtaking creatine? Creatine is nontoxic evenwhen taken in huge doses.

The onlyknown side effect is stomach upset if youtake too much at once. Five to ten gramsshouldn’t bother you. If you take 30 gramsat once you might feel stomach crampsor nausea, but usually not. Excess creat-ine is converted into creatinine (note thesimilar spelling) and excreted in the urine.If you take too much creatine you’ll justlose the excess in your urine. If you haveany blood work done you might find thatcreatine elevates your creatinine level.Doctors use the creatinine level in theblood as an index of kidney function. Ifyour doctor notices an increase in yourcreatinine level and expresses some con-cern about your kidneys, tell him or herthat you’re using creatine. Creatine doesnot damage the kidneys in any way, but iscontraindicated if you have pre-existingsevere kidney disease (for example, renaldialysis or kidney transplant patients).People with severe kidney disease havetrouble eliminating creatinine, and creat-ine supplementation would increase crea-tinine levels further.How does creatine fit into yoursupplement program? Creatine shouldabsolutely be a core supplement for anyserious bodybuilder, powerlifter, or endur-ance athlete. Bodybuilders and powerliftersshould use it year round, and definitelybefore a contest. I guarantee your com-petition will be using it. Endurance ath-letes should use it during training and com-petition. If you’re not a serious athlete butsimply someone trying to lose fat and stayin shape, then you don’t necessarily needit. There’s no evidence that creatine, byitself, aids fat loss. But as you gain extramuscle and increase you metabolism, youultimately will burn more body fat. So in-directly, it can help in body fat loss.The core supplements for bodybuild-ers and strength athletes are EssentialVitamin Formula™, Mineral-Electro-lyte Formula™, CapTri®, CreatineMonohydrate™, Liver-Amino™, andHi-Protein Powder™. Pro-Carb™should be added for those bodybuild-ers with trouble gaining weight. GHFormula™, Muscle Amino For-mula™, and Ultimate Amino™ are ap-propriate for competitive bodybuild-ers.

Liver-Amino Formula™ shouldbe increased for strength athletes, es-pecially in the months leading to a con-test. The core supplements for endur-ance athletes are the Vitamin and Min-eral Formulas™, Liver-Amino For-mula™, CapTri®, and Creatine Mono-hydrate™. The combination of Liver-Amino Formula™ and Creatine Mono-hydrate™ is key for endurance, and Iwould go as far as to say they areessential for an endurance athlete toreach his ultimate potential. Hi-Pro-tein Powder™ should be strongly consid-ered for any endurance athlete who’s los-ing weight or training at the edge. Extremetraining can elevate the protein require-ments of endurance athletes above thoseof even bodybuilders. Endurance athletesexperiencing over-training or a decreasein performance likely need more protein.Collegiate level and professional enduranceathletes should add Max-Endurance For-mula™. The core supplements for peopleon the fat loss program are the Vitaminand Mineral Formulas™, CapTri®, andAdvanced Lipotropic Formula™. Of course, the diet is fundamental to every-one. The Parrillo Bar works well on anyof these programs as a meal replacementor as a source of extra calories for ath-letes trying to gain weight or who needmore energy. Endurance cyclists also findthe Parrillo Bar very useful. Finally, cre-atine should be considered a core supple-ment for all vegetarian athletes. Althoughthe human body makes about one gramof creatine a day by itself (creatine is en-dogenously synthesized in the kidney andliver) vegetarians have a reduced creatinepool because their diet does not provideany additional creatine (1,2,3). Vegetar-ians stand to benefit greatly from creatinesupplementation (1,2,3).With this background on what creat-ine is, how it works, and how to use it,let’s take a brief look at some of the stud-ies of creatine use in athletes.

One testlooked at the effect of creatine versus pla-cebo on performance of 5 bouts of 30maximal voluntary contractions on anisokinetic dynamometer (4). The groupreceiving 24 grams of creatine a day for5 days experienced greater torque produc-tion, which means greater power produc-tion. In another study 30 grams of creat-ine a day for 6 days was given to a groupof endurance athletes (5). During a seriesof four 1,000 meter runs the total timewas improved by 13 seconds in the cre-atine group, with an improvement of 5.5seconds during the last run. Another pla-cebo-controlled trial showed an increasein anaerobic capacity on a cycle ergom-eter after 4 days of creatine at 20 gramsper day (6). These studies demonstrate ameasurable increase in peak power pro-duction and endurance performance dur-ing intense exercise following as little as4-6 days of creatine supplementation. Theeffects of creatine seem to be most pro-nounced during very intense exercise. Notmuch of an effect has been noted in pro-longed, low intensity exercise. This is justwhat you would expect given the role ofcreatine in cellular energy production.During low intensity exercise, energy pro-duction from carbohydrate and fat oxida-tion can keep up with the rate of energyexpenditure. Creatine increases exerciseperformance by sustaining energy pro-duction, and thus work production, dur-ing high intensity exercise (2). Creatinesupplementation has been shown to re-duce the rate of ATP depletion duringmaximal exercise while simultaneouslyincreasing work output (2).Sure, creatine is a terrific supplementfor increasing lean mass and strength. Butcreatine is not some magic potion formuscle gains. Not too long ago I beganworking with a bodybuilder who wasspending a large portion of his limitedbudget on creatine. Sure, his workoutswere great, but his gains were insignifi-cant compared to the effort he was put-ting into his training.

Why? Because hiscaloric base was too low. Everything hewas eating was being used for energy tofuel his workouts, with little to nothingleft for lean mass gains. So what did wedo? First, we got his diet in order, increas-ing his protein and calorie intake with goodfood. Next, we took the money he wasspending on creatine and put that intoCapTri®, Hi-Protein™ and Pro-Carb™.These supplements increased his caloricbase even more than the food alone, pro-viding his body with the necessary en-ergy and amino acids for growth. Somuch so, he was able to gain 30 poundsof lean mass in three months time.The reason I tell this story is not todiscourage you from using creatine. Butrather, to put it into perspective as far asyour nutrition and training are concerned.If you’re not eating enough and provid-ing the necessary nutrients for growth,your body will not be able to maximizethe potential effectiveness of this supple-ment. But if your nutrition is good, ifyou’re providing your body with the calo-ries and protein it needs for energy andgrowth, and if you’re training hard, cre-atine can be of great benefit in terms ofincreasing size, strength and performance.In summary, creatine has been shownin placebo-controlled clinical trials to im-prove exercise performance, both interms of power output and endurance (1-6). We know from our work here that itincreases lean body mass as well. Creat-ine is stored in the muscle and does notcontribute to fat stores. Any weight yougain on creatine will be in the lean com-partment. We’ve seen many athletes ex-perience dramatic gains in muscle size andstrength during their first month of creat-ine use. And when you look for a goodcreatine supplement, make sure it is 100%pure, like our Parrillo Performance Cre-atine Monohydrate™ supplement. Makesure to look at the nutrient content on thelabel and not just the price when you’reconsidering which creatine supplement totake. Parrillo Performance Creatine Mono-hydrate™—one more nutritional tool tohelp you push your physique and perfor-mance envelope.

References

1. Maughan RJ. Creatine supplemen-tation and exercise performance. Interna-tional Journal of Sport Nutrition 5: 94-101,1995.

2. Greenhaff PL. Creatine and its ap-plication as an ergogenic aid. InternationalJournal of Sport Nutrition 5: S100-S110,1995.

3. Crim MC, Munro HN. Proteins andAmino Acids. Modern Nutrition in Healthand Disease 8: 9-10, 1994.

4. Greenhaff PL, Casey A, Short AH,Harris AC, Soderlund K, and Hultman E.Influence of oral creatine supplementationon muscle torque during repeated boutsof maximal voluntary exercise in man.Clin. Sci. 84: 565-571, 1993.

5. Harris RC, Viru M, Greenhaff PL,and Haltman E. The effect of oral creat-ine supplementation on running perfor-mance during maximal short term exer-cise in man. J. Physiol. 467: 74P, 1993.

6. Ernest CP, Snell PG, Mitchell TL,Rodriguez R, and Almada AL. Effect ofcreatine monohydrate on peak anaerobicpower, capacity, and fatigue index. Med.Sci. Sports. Exerc. 26: S39, 1994.

Bulletin #41 – Programned For Success: Supplementation For Optimal Results

In the previous bulletin we discussedthe importance of nutritional supplementsin an individual’s diet and reviewed thebenefits of Parrillo’s Essential Vitamin andMineral-Electrolyte Formulas as well asCapTri. In this bulletin we will review theimportance and relevance of several othernutritional supplements.We’ll start with the tandem of Hi-Pro-tein Powder and Pro-Carb. Hi-Protein isformulated from a base of casein and wheyproteins, two of the best protein sourcesknown. The highest efficiency protein ofall is whole eggs, but obviously wholeeggs wouldn’t make a very good supple-ment. So what we did was start with caseinand whey (which are milk proteins) andadd purified amino acids to adjust theamino acid profile of the formula to matchthat of whole eggs. This way we’ve gen-erated the highest efficiency protein in away that supplies no fat or cholesterol. Itmixes easily with a spoon and tastes great.Hi-Protein Powder is very rich in essentialamino acids, branched chain amino acids,and glutamine. These are the aminos yourbody needs the most to build muscle. Eachscoop provides 20 grams of ultra-high ef-ficiency protein along with six grams ofcarbohydrate.

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The carbs are included toprovide a small, steady insulin release,which helps muscle cells absorb theaminos. Pro-Carb is formulated withmaltodextrin, a slow release glucose poly-mer. Pro-Carb contains 22 grams of car-bohydrate per scoop and four grams ofprotein. So  how do you use Hi-ProteinPowder and Pro-Carb? These prod-ucts are designed as an easy andconvenient way to increase theprotein and carbohydrate con-tent of your diet. Many of ourathletes are eating 5,000 -6,000 calories a day (ormore) to maintain theirmuscle mass, and are look-ing for a way to eat more.Supplying nutrients in liq-uid form is an easy way toincrease calories and nutrient levels tosupport more growth. If you find your-self at a plateau in your training and arehaving a hard time gaining more muscle,the first thing to try is increasing yourcalories. Muscle is metabolically activetissue, meaning that it burns a lot of calo-ries, even at rest. It takes a lot of energyto maintain muscle, which must constantlybe repaired after each workout. The moremuscle mass you have, the higher yourmetabolic rate. This means your bodyneeds more calories every day just tomaintain itself, let alone get bigger. Sowith every pound of muscle you add toyour body, your daily energy requirementincreases.

This is why you need to slowlyand constantly increase calories as yougain more and more muscle. A lot ofpeople hit a plateau and don’t gain anymore muscle, simply because their exist-ing muscle mass is using up all of theirdietary energy (calories), leaving none leftto support growth. If you’re at such a pla-teau there are three places to look: notenough rest, not enough calories, or aproblem with your training program. Themost common problem is not enough calo-ries. If somebody is training hard, withheavy weights to failure, and eating asolid diet, there’s no reason theyshouldn’t be gaining muscle. Bodybuild-ing is not supposed to be about gettinggood gains for a year and then staying ata plateau for the rest of your life. If you’renot gaining muscle, you’re doing some-thing wrong. Change something. If youcan’t get it figured out, give us a call.That’s what we’re here for.Obviously, as your muscle mass in-creases your need for protein and calo-ries increases as well. Hi-Protein and Pro-Carb were specifically designed to meetthis need for quality nutrients.

One scoopof each mixed together provides 210 calo-ries, 24 grams of protein, 28 grams of com-plex carbs, and less than a gram of fat. Agreat way to flood your muscles with nu-trients is to take a scoop of each mixed inwater with each meal or between meals. Ifyou do this five times a day, this will sup-ply 1,050 extra calories, 120 grams of pro-tein and 134 grams of carbohydrate. Bytaking it between meals you maintain aconstant supply of energy and nutrientsfor your muscles. It’s very easy to put a scoop in a shaker bottle and drink it downwhen you don’t have time for a meal. Liq-uid nutrition is an easy way to supplymore calories without feeling full andbloated. If you’re stuck at a plateau, add-ing Hi-Protein and Pro-Carb to your dietmay be all you need to do.The Parrillo Bar has proven to be oneof our most popular supplements, prob-ably because they taste so good. They’reanother great way to supply quality nu-trition when you’re in a hurry. Each Barcontains 12 grams of high efficiency pro-tein, like that used in our Hi-Protein Pow-der, 38 grams of carbohydrate from ricedextrin, a slow-release carbohydrate, andcontains 240 calories. Each Bar also con-tains 5.5 grams of CapTri, so it representsbalanced nutrition for the bodybuilder.Put a few bars in your pocket or your gymbag, and you’ll never have to miss a meal.Endurance athletes love them too;they’re easy to eat while you’re on thebike.

A box of Parrillo Bars is a kind ofnutritional insurance, so you’ll never becaught without food or be forced to eatsomething you’re not supposed to.Liver-Amino Formula is a blend of de-fatted beef liver and casein, providinghigh quality protein, B vitamins includ-ing B-12, and heme iron. Iron deficiencyis the most common nutritional deficiencyin the world, and is surprisingly commoneven in America (3,4). Female athletes andendurance athletes are the greatest at risk,with as many as 22% of American femalesdeficient in iron (3-6). Regular iron, com-monly supplied as ferrous sulfate, ispoorly absorbed by the body. Some greenleafy vegetables like spinach contain asignificant amount of iron, but only 1.4%of it is absorbed (3). Iron from vegetablesources is said to have a low bio-avail-ability, meaning that only a small fractioncan be absorbed from the food. The bestiron source is called heme iron, which isiron complexed to the molecule heme. Thiscomplex is found in hemoglobin in redblood cells and is responsible for trans-porting oxygen in the body. Heme iron isfound in red meat, but red meat unfortu-nately contains a lot of saturated fat andcholesterol so I don’t recommend it onmy diet.

Liver-Amino Formula has beenspecially prepared so all of the fat andcholesterol is removed, leaving a goodsource of quality protein and heme iron.It’s fortified with pre-digested amino ac-ids to further improve it’s amino acid pro-file, and also has added B-12. This is acore supplement for many strength ath-letes. The iron helps build red blood cells,and increased oxygen transport improvesenergy and endurance. It doesn’t containmany calories, so it’s not used for weightgain. It’s real benefit is in increasedstrength and endurance. This should bea core supplement for all endurance ath-letes and hard-training bodybuilders. Ifyou’re looking for a nutritional productto give you increased performance, thisis it.Essential Vitamin Formula, Mineral-Electrolyte Formula, CapTri, Hi-ProteinPowder, Pro-Carb, Parrillo Bars, and Liver-Amino Formula are the core supplements.The vitamins, minerals, and CapTri are re-ally the entry level products. Beyond thatyour needs depend on your diet and levelof training. If you’re stuck at a plateau,try Hi-Protein and Pro-Carb. That combi-nation alone will usually add severalpounds of muscle in a month or two. Ifyou need more energy to train, try Liver-Amino.

This should be considered an es-sential supplement for serious enduranceathletes. If you’re having trouble eatingall of your scheduled meals or getting inyour required amount of calories, the Baris a great answer. If you’re trying to losefat and have hit a fat-loss plateau, cutback on 100 grams of starchy carbohy-drates a day (400 calories worth) and useone-half to one tablespoon of CapTri ateach meal. This will get your fat loss go-ing again. To get in contest shape youmay have to cut back on carbohydratesfurther, increase CapTri, and increaseaerobics to an hour a day. I have yet tomeet a person who could not get excep-tionally lean by following this protocol.The exact details of how to structure yourdiet are in the Parrillo Nutrition Manual.Finally, we have several other supple-ments designed specifically for advancedathletes. Muscle Amino Formula is a mix-ture of the branched chain amino acidsleucine, isoleucine, and valine, in the op-timal ratio for assimilation into muscle tis-sue. The branched chain amino acids(BCAAs) are among the most abundantamino acids incorporated in muscle pro-tein (7). (Note that glutamine is the mostabundant amino acid in muscle, but mostof it is free in the cytoplasm rather thanincorporated into contractile protein.)

TheBCAAs thus supply a concentratedsource of building blocks your bodyneeds to build muscle. Why is this so im-portant? Because your body cannot makethe BCAAs, they must be obtained fromthe diet or supplements. The BCAAs havebeen shown to be anti-catabolic (8), re-sulting in a net increase in muscle masssince they also have the ability to be usedfor energy in the muscles. Ultimate AminoFormula is a blend of crystalline “freeform” (single) amino acids profiled in the ratio of the ultimate protein. It’s an ex-tremely efficient amino acid source, re-quiring no digestion. It’s designed for pe-riods of intense training and strict diet-ing, to help prevent muscle loss while pre-paring for a contest. Since it’s very low incalories, this is not what you want to useto gain muscular weight. To gain musclemass, Hi-Protein Powder is a betterchoice. Ultimate Amino is for the guy whowants to compete at 240 pounds and 4.0%body fat, instead of 239 pounds and 4.1%body fat. See what I mean? It’s used whenyou’re training hard and getting lean.Advanced Lipotropic Formula is aspecial blend of nutrients used by theliver to metabolize fat, including L-car-nitine (9,10).

This product ensures thatyour body has all of the required nutri-ents and co-factors it needs so that allthe fat-burning metabolic pathways canoperate at full efficiency. Again, I have toget back to the basics, which is a goodlow-fat diet and a regular exercise pro-gram. Some companies lead people to be-lieve that if they simply take a lipotropiccompound, they’ll automatically loseweight. I want to be very clear in statingthat to lose fat you need to clean up yourdiet (see last month’s article on nutrition)and exercise regularly. Advanced Lipo-tropic Formula supplies nutrients used infat metabolism, but it won’t burn fat foryou. You still have to do that yourself byexercising. So if your goal is to optimallyburn body fat, make sure to pay close at-tention to your diet and exercise, and in-clude Advance Lipotropic Formula to en-sure your body has all the nutrients itneeds to perform the metabolic fat-burn-ing processes.Enhanced GH Formula is a mixture ofarginine and lysine, two amino acidswhich have been shown to increasegrowth hormone release. Growth hormoneacts in the body to increase muscle massand decrease body fat. This is anotheradvanced product, and you should startwith CapTri and Hi-Protein Powder beforeadding it to your program.Max Endurance Formula is designedto increase energy and endurance in en-durance athletes. It contains magnesiumand potassium aspartates, as well asinosine, phenylalanine, and ferulic acid.The aspartates help the body detoxifyammonia, a break down product of pro-tein metabolism which occurs during en-durance exercise.

The urea cycle is a meta-bolic pathway in the liver which convertsammonia to urea, which is then filteredout by the kidneys and excreted in theurine. The urea cycle requires aspartatefor activity. Inosine is a precursor (build-ing block) of ATP, the energy source ofthe cell.I’ve tried to summarize how to intelli-gently incorporate supplements into yournutrition program for best results. Remem-ber that the proper diet is the foundationof everything. If you’re not making theprogress you want, look at your diet andtraining program first. A healthy diet ofwholesome food is the foundation ofgood nutrition, and you need to be eat-ing right in order to derive the maximumbenefit from your supplements.I’ve also tried to describe a rationalapproach to designing your own indi-vidual supplement program. Start with thebasics: vitamins, minerals, CapTri, and Hi-Protein. Strength athletes should addLiver-Amino. Endurance athletes shouldadd Liver-Amino, Pro-Carb, and the Bar.Advanced endurance athletes should addMax Endurance Formula. If you want togain muscular weight use CapTri, Hi-Pro-tein, Pro-Carb, and the Bar. If you want tolose body fat use CapTri and AdvancedLipotropic Formula.

Competitive body-builders should add Muscle Amino. Pro-fessional bodybuilders should addMuscle Amino and Ultimate Amino.If you’re at a plateau in gainingmuscle, add Hi-Protein Powder and Pro-Carb to your program. If you hit a plateauwhile losing fat, cut back on carbs andsubstitute an equivalent amount of calo-ries from CapTri. If you want to improvestrength or endurance, add Liver-Amino.Call for a free supplement catalog(800-344-3404), which includes a list of allthe ingredients and the amounts in eachformula, as well as suggested usageguidelines. More information about maxi-mizing your results from supplements canbe found in the Parrillo Performance Nu-trition Manual and our Sports NutritionGuide, which includes technical and sci-entific information. Our technical servicesProgrammed For Success: Supplementation For Optimal Results, Part IIIline (513-531-1311) is staffed to answerany questions you may have in optimiz-ing your program and selecting the bestsupplements for you. We’re here to sup-port you and you strive to achieve yourtraining and nutrition goals.

References

1. Bach AC and Babayan VK. Mediumchain triglycerides: an update. Am. J. Clin.Nutr. 36: 950-962, 1982.

2. Babayan, Medium chain triglycer-ides and structured lipids.  Lipids 22: 417-420 (1987).

3. Scrimshaw. Scientific American,October, 1991, p. 46-52.

4. Sherman and Kramer. Iron Nutri-tion and Exercise, in Nutrition in Exerciseand Sport, Hickson and Wolinsky. CRCPress, 1989, p. 291-308.

5. Haymes. Proteins, Vitamins, andIron, in Ergogenic Aids in Sport, Williams.Human Kinetics Publishers, 1983, p.27-55.

6. Whitmire. Vitamins and Minerals:A perspective in Physical Performance,in Sports Nutrition for the 90s, Berningand Steen. Aspen Publishers, 1991, p. 129-151.

7. Rombeau JL and Caldwell MD. Clini-cal Nutrition: Parenteral Nutrition, SecondEdition. W.B. Saunders Company, Phila-delphia, 1993.

8. Bucci L. Nutrients as ErgogenicAids for Sports and Exercise. CRC Press,Boca Raton, 1993.

9. Shils ME, Olson JA, and Shike M.Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease.Lea and Febiger, Philadelphia, 1994.

10. Linder MC. Nutritional Biochem-istry and Metabolism with Clinical Appli-cations. Elsevier Science Publishing Com-pany, New York, 1991.

Sweets and fat intake…Strong, Fit and FAT!…Athletic idiosyncrasies: absolute and sustained strength

Vic,

Any tips for a bodybuilder with a severe sweet tooth? I have been a competitive bodybuilder for a lot of years and while I don’t really crave sweets most of the time, when I swing into my pre-competition diet, I get intense sweet cravings. The deeper into my 12 week, low-fat pre-competition diet I get, the worse my sweet tooth gets! I had thought that at some point in my career I would outgrow these weird pre-competition sugar cravings – but it seems to be getting worse not better. Is my dilemma common among competitive bodybuilders? Am I a head case? Do I need to get hypnotized? Like a compulsive drinker, gambler or smoker? Seriously, I would do it if you thought it would help. I binged two weeks prior to a competition last year and it turned into a bad scene. I broke down and ate almost an entire cheesecake at a friend’s party – my system was so pure that I suffered sugar shock, fell down and almost went into a coma. No sh-t it was scary. I want to prepare for another show in August – but I am scared I will do something stupid. Have you ever heard of anything like this before?

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