Multiple Meals, Thermogenesis and CapTri® EAT MORE TO LOSE FAT!

Build the Fire!

Regular people interested in upgrading or improving their physiques continually say that they don’t understand why a person should eat more food in order to lose fat. “That makes no sense whatsoever,” one lady told me recently. It seems the ladies are particularly appalled by the idea of eating five or six times a day. I had one massively overweight gal tell me just the other day, “This ‘eating all the time’ strategy is crazy! Eating all the time goes against everything I’ve ever been taught.

I have read every single best selling diet book written in the last ten years and none of them suggest, as you suggest, that in order to lose body fat you need to eat more food and eat more often.” Now I am not a mean man and I did not point out the obvious: despite having read all the best selling diet books written over the past decade, obviously none of them had done my accusatory gal a damned bit of good. Eating more to lose body fat is not an invitation to go crazy and have pie and beer all day long. Eating more to lose body fat is an extremely disciplined approach towards nutrition. Some would say it is a rigid and inflexible approach. Only certain “approved” foods are eaten and they are to be eaten at certain times. The timing of the multiple meals has to be consistent. The “dieter” (we hate that term at Parrillo almost as much as we hate the term “fitness”) needs to have an ironclad eating schedule and adhere to it religiously. The Parrillo multiple-meal eating regimen is used by competitive bodybuilders worldwide to achieve single-digit body fat percentiles while retaining their hard earned mounds of muscle. That this system works is beyond debate – the only variable in this venerable and battle-tested approach is the ability of the user to adhere to its strict structure and precise guidelines.

The world’s most successful dieters: Male bodybuilders across the planet routinely achieve single digit (less than 10%) body fat percentiles at competitions. And not just the Olympia level men and women; go to any local bodybuilding competition held in the gymnasium of the local high school and you will find a dozen guys with less than 10% body fat percentiles. Thirty years ago only national and international level bodybuilders were able to achieve the magical sub 10% body fat level: once a man is able to get into single digits, six pack abs emerge, all four heads of the quadriceps become separate and distinct, the deltoids become clearly differentiated from the upper arms, the pectorals reveal a deep split between upper and lower when flexed and ab wall serratus and intercostals appear. We all have all of these muscular delineations; however, they only appear and become apparent when a low body fat percentile is attained. The “bodybuilder look” only occurs when the individual builds muscle to compliment their reduced body fat. Bodybuilders even at a local level have discovered the secret to achieving low body fat is to eat multiple meals, 5 to 8 times per day, using an extremely limited menu of approved foods. Food meals are augmented by powerful, legal, potent nutritional supplements. The expert use of supplements rounds out and fills in any nutritional gaps or crevices. Supplements can also be used to create mini-meals. The closely held secret for getting lean used by elite bodybuilders is now widely known. The world’s most successful dieters universally agree: eat more to build muscle and eat more to lose body fat! You should use this same strategy to further your own fitness goals.

The miracle of thermogenesis: When you consume certain foods the human body produces body heat. Generally speaking, digestion is more difficult for approved bodybuilding foods. Not hard to digest in the sense of indigestion, rather wholesome, beneficial foods are difficult to digest as compared to easy-to-digest foods that cause the creation of body fat. A bowl of ice cream is extremely easy to digest while a piece of chicken breast is difficult; a piece of pecan pie is easy to digest while a half dozen steamed asparagus spears will present a daunting digestive task. Foods that are easy to digest make for easy conversion into body fat; foods difficult to digest cause the body to create body heat and this is called thermogenesis. I like to use the campfire analogy to describe the miracle of thermic food heat and how that relates to an accelerated metabolism. At Parrillo Performance we talk of “building the metabolism” and this is analogous to building a campfire. Imagine how you would go about creating a blazing campfire and how, once you got it blazing, you would sustain the fire all day long.

• Start building a fire using kindling to ignite the initial blaze
• Use only “approved logs,” dry hardwood, for fuel
• Once the blaze is of a certain size, larger logs are added
• Every few hours new dry logs are added to sustain the fire
• As long as this procedure is repeated, the fire blazes
• Never let the fire go out, keep it blazing; logs are burned completely
• A blazing fire creates a lot of heat

Now compare this campfire building and maintaining approach to the Parrillo multiple-meal eating strategy…

• Start off eating breakfast and use digestion to ignite initial thermic heat
• Use only “approved foods,” lean protein, fiber and starch carbs
• Once the metabolism is successfully accelerated, larger meals are eaten
• Every few hours another metabolism-accelerating meal is consumed
• As long as meals are eaten regularly the metabolic rate remains elevated
• Eating certain foods at appropriate times ensures compete food usage
• A blazing metabolism creates a lot of body heat which burns body fat.

If meals are missed the blazing metabolic fires sputters and burns out and once the metabolic fire subsides, once the meal rhythm is shattered, restarting the blaze becomes exceedingly difficult.  Three food types form the backbone of the classic “Parrillo Meal,” lean protein, fibrous carbohydrate and starchy carbohydrate. These three foods types actually work better when eaten together. Lean protein provides the amino acid content needed for the construction of new muscle tissue; starchy carbohydrates stimulate the production of insulin, the most anabolic of all hormones. Fibrous carbohydrates keep insulin secretions “under control” as fiber dampens excessive
insulin. While some insulin is ideal for transporting amino acids into muscle cells, too much insulin can create body fat. The combination of lean protein, fiber and starch carbs create the optimal muscle-building, fat-burning metabolic food-fuel. Eating meals using these three food types exclusively creates thermal body heat ideal for oxidizing body fat. Simultaneously the Parrillo meal provides amino acids and the optimal amount of insulin needed to transport regenerative proteins into the muscles. Combine multiple Parrillo Meals with intense training (cardio and weight training) and the bodybuilder builds new muscle while simultaneously melting off excess body fat. Eat more to lose fat!

Throwing gasoline on the metabolic fire: In many ways CapTri^® is the most amazing supplement available anywhere, particularly when used by the athlete or bodybuilder smart enough and savvy enough to already have implemented a multiple-meal eating strategy. For those individuals that are eating 5 to 8 times a day, for those that have harnessed the thermic effect of food and built a metabolic bonfire, using CapTri^® is akin to throwing a gallon of gasoline on a raging fire: the already hot metabolic fire is turned into an inferno.

“After consuming a meal, food is digested and released into the bloodstream. The food is broken into micronutrient particles that are then transported to all the cells of the body. In the cellular mitochondria, micronutrients react with oxygen to produce energy. Some of the produced energy is captured in ATP (the energy source used directly by the cellular machinery to perform work) while caloric excess – calories consumed in excess of energy requirements – will be stored as body weight, i.e., converted into body fat. About 55% of energy contained in food is liberated as heat during the process of ATP formation. The release of heat energy from the oxidation of food creates an increase in the metabolic rate and is always accompanied by an increase in oxygen consumption…Particular foods are preferentially burned for energy while other foods are preferentially stored as body fat. Consuming MCTs {CapTri^® is an MCT oil} causes profound postprandial (post meal) thermogenesis. MCTs are calorically dense and rapidly absorbed and metabolized. The rapid oxidation of Medium-Chain Fatty Acids in the liver creates an increase in the metabolic rate. In studies done by Babba, Bracco and Hashim in 1982, Seaton et al in 1986 and Hill et al in 1989, metabolic increases in both rats and humans occurred as a direct result of MCT
ingestion.”

How to eat more to lose body fat: The first order of business is to establish a bodybuilder-style multiple meal eating schedule using the classical “Parrillo Meal” as your dietary template. Always include a serving of lean protein, a serving of fibrous carbohydrates and a serving of starchy carbs when eating food meals. You may eat food meals all the time or you can do like most competitive bodybuilders and eat 3-4 food meals and augment these with 2-3 supplement meals. A supplement meal consists of a protein shake or a protein/carbohydrate powder mix, along with an engineered food, usually a sport nutrition bar, or perhaps one of the terrific Parrillo supplement foods. Here is the nutrient breakdown of a typical supplement meal…

Most competitive bodybuilders and athletes will eat 3-4 food meals supplemented with 2-3 supplement meals: Parrillo Performance Products makes a mind-blowing assortment of easy to construct foods: Parrillo Pudding^™, Parrillo Cake and Cupcakes^™, Parrillo Cookies^™, Parrillo Ice Kreem^™, Parrillo Pancakes and Muffins^™…plus four distinctly different sport nutrition bar formulations that create nearly 100 flavor possibilities.

CapTri^®, the final piece to the nutritional puzzle: Once you have your food meal strategy squared away and once you have assembled the Parrillo Products needed to construct the supplement meals, the final piece to the ‘eat more to lose fat’ puzzle is to use CapTri^® on food meals. Let’s throw some gasoline on that already blazing metabolic fire. Start off by drizzling a tablespoon of CapTri^® over each of your food meals. Many bodybuilders will use CapTri^® as cooking oil; use it as you would olive oil or vegetable oil to make egg white omelets, fry fish or chicken strips, or perhaps to make some fried potatoes with onions. The idea is to build up the amount of CapTri^® you use over a protracted period: after a few months most bodybuilders are using 1-2 tablespoons 4-5 times daily and adding anywhere from 500 to 1000 extra calories to their daily caloric intake. Since it is nearly impossible for CapTri^® calories to end up as body fat and since the sustained use of MCT oil has been shown to accelerate the human metabolism, CapTri^® is perfect fuel for fueling muscular growth and recovery – while actually contributing to fat loss. This is not some theoretical abstraction; this exact approach, combining intense exercise with disciplined multiple meal eating, has transformed the physiques of literally thousands of competitive bodybuilders. Each and every month the Parrillo Performance Press is jam-packed with testimonials and stories on those disciplined enough to enact and adhere to the classical Parrillo “metabolism-building” strategy. If you have the burning desire to radically change your physique in a rapid fashion, start the ball rolling by picking up the phone and getting your supplementation squared away. 1-800-344-3404 or order online at www.parrillo.com.