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.