Evening Primrose Oil – A Necessary Fat

One of my clients was a competitive bodybuilder who complained to me that her hair was falling out, her skin had become extremely dry, and her joints were stiff. After observing her physical characteristics, I suspected she was suffering from an essential fatty acid (EFA) deficiency. This deficiency was aggravated by a too-restrictive diet in which she had omitted fats altogether and slashed her caloric intake.

I made sure she added at least one tablespoon of safflower oil to her diet, and I put her on Parrillo Evening Primrose Oil 1000^™ – one capsule with each meal. Two weeks later, her hair stopped falling out and her skin was smooth and glowing. Not only that, her joint stiffness disappeared altogether.

Your body needs certain special fats just like it needs vitamins and minerals. These special fats are called the EFAs. The reason they are dubbed “essential” is because your body cannot manufacture them; you must obtain them from the foods you eat. People who diet hard and long and try to go fat-free often suffer nasty side effects from EFA deficiency: itchy, peeling skin; hair loss; stiff and sore joints and short-term memory loss.

Evening primrose oil has also been show to alleviate symptoms of premenstrual tension (PMS). Examples of physical symptoms include fluid retention, weight gain, painful breasts, and food cravings. Mental symptoms include depression, weeping, irritability, and lack of concentration. Studies of women with these symptoms have shown how powerful evening primrose oil is in alleviating them. It is a very important natural remedy.

The Parrillo Performance solution is Evening Primrose Oil 1000^™, a concentrated source of Essential Fatty Acids. EFA’s keep joints lubricated, hair and skin healthy, and brain neurons firing correctly. Each 1000 mg gel cap contains 30 IU’s of vitamin E, 100 mg of Gamma Linolenic Acid, and 760 mg of Linoleic Acid. Take one to three capsules daily.

Coconut & CapTri®

CapTri® is a miracle supplement made from a miracle food

Fat Phobia: In the wide world of fitness and health, dietary fat is Public Enemy #1. Nearly every expert in medicine, fitness or bodybuilding damns dietary fat. The rationale for the “fat disdain” is simple: eat too much fat and end up fat – and with a high likelihood of acquiring some clogged arteries along the way. Fat abhorrence and avoidance is understandable. Bad things happen to those that eat too much long-chain saturated fat for too long a period of time. Long-chain saturated fat has a chemical structure that makes converting dietary fat into body fat about as easy as saying, “Pass the pie.” Among the medical, bodybuilding and fitness intelligentsia, few differentiate between the different types and kinds of lipids; they damn them all and advise avoidance of all fat and that is ill-advised and counterproductive.

The varieties and type of fats can be confusing: monounsaturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, Short-chain Triglycerides, Medium-chain Triglycerides and Long-chain Triglycerides; the various types and kinds of lipids…olive oil, vegetable oil, sesame oil, peanut oil, canola oil…who wouldn’t be confused? There are bad fats, but not all fats are bad. There is one type of fat that if consumed regularly and generously actually accelerates physical progress. This amazing dual-use supplement is a lipid, a fat in liquid form. It is used by elite bodybuilders to add muscle mass. This same supplement is also used by elite bodybuilders seeking to shed body fat. Regular consumption of this amazing dual-purpose lipid enables Parrillo athletes to build mounds of new muscle and assist them in attaining sub-5% body fat percentiles.

Good and Bad Fats: Lumping together all fats betrays a nutritional ignorance that is shortsighted and biased. Certain lipids consumed at certain times and in certain amounts, amplifies (rather than retards) results. Parrillo athletes and bodybuilders, those that engage in intense weight training and perform constant and consistent cardio, those that eat with great discipline using a Parrillo-style nutritional diet plan – those hard-training, disciplined eaters benefit immensely by consuming ample amounts of Parrillo’s famous Medium-chain Triglyceride (MCT) CapTri^® on an ongoing daily basis. MCTs are a type of fat obtained (to near exclusion) from coconuts. The consistent consumption of MCTs in food or supplement form provides the user a veritable banquet of
benefits.

All fats and oils are composed of fat molecules called fatty acids. There are two methods of classifying fatty acids. The one you are most familiar with is based on saturation. You have saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. The second method of lipid classification is based on molecular size or length of the carbon chain in the fatty acid. You have short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), medium-chain fatty acids (MCFA), and long-chain fatty acids (LCFA). Another term you will often see in reference to fatty acids is triglyceride. Three fatty acids joined together make a triglyceride, so you may have short-chain triglycerides (SCT), medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), or long-chain triglycerides (LCT). The vast majority of the fats and oils you eat, whether they are saturated or unsaturated, comes from an animal or a plant and are composed of long-chain triglycerides. Probably 98% to 100% of all the fats we eat consist of LCT.

Coconut is unique because it contains an ample amount of MCT. The size of the fatty acid is extremely important because physiological effects of medium-chain fatty acids in coconut oil are distinctly different from the long-chain fatty acids more commonly found in our diet. It’s the MCT in coconut oil that make it different from all other fats and for the most part gives it its unique character and healing properties. Almost all of the
medium-chain triglycerides used in research and medicine (and in MCT food products) comes from coconut oil.

John Parrillo and the MCT Connection: John Parrillo has been touting supplemental lipid consumption for bodybuilders, professional athletes and hardcore fitness types for over thirty years. And John isn’t the only heavyweight fitness and nutritional expert to tout the seemingly endless number of benefits associated with eating MCT-loaded products or supplements. One of the world’s leading experts on lipids is Dr. Mary Enig. A world renowned biochemist and nutritionist, Dr. Enig has written a dozen food and diet books. Her most successful book is a coconut diet book entitled, Eat Fat/Lose Fat. Dr. Enig, like John Parrillo, differentiates between lipids. She is discriminating and picky about her fats. Her research indicates that (for a lot of really sound scientific and biologic reasons) humans should make it a point to eat a lot of MCT containing products. Here is an excerpt taken from her book, Eat Fat/Lose Fat. This sounds as if John Parrillo said it….

“Long-chain fatty acids, saturated fats, must be digested by bile salts secreted by the gallbladder. The fat found in coconut, MCFAs, do not need bile salt to digest…restrictive diets usually backfire; reducing calories too far and too fast triggers the body’s biologically programmed tendency to store fat when it senses starvation…In 1998 researchers at the McGill University Obesity Research Group
discovered that MCFAs actually “use up” energy as they are metabolized. The amount of energy used by the body to oxidize MCFAs is greater than the amount of energy they provide. Coconut consumption has a “thermogenic effect” in that consuming coconut oil raises body temperature, thus boosting your energy and metabolic rate. Japanese studies, reported in the Journal of Nutritional Science, confirmed that MCFAs caused greater
thermogenesis.”

In a 1996 study published in the Journal of Lipid Research, animals that were fed a diet of “at least” 50% MCFAs had significant weight loss, even though they were not “calorie restricted.” Mary Enig relates,

“MCFAs are oxidized, burned up, used for energy, instead of being stored in the fatty tissue of the body. As a result you generate more body heat that burns more calories, kick-starting the body into burning up existing fat stores.”

CapTri^®, the Perfect MCT: John Parrillo explained the rationale behind consuming generous amounts of MCTs/MCFAs way back in 1990. His explanation rings as true today as it did back then…

After being eaten and digested, conventional fats are circulated throughout the body before being “picked up” by fat cells. This can occur in the presence of insulin and/or glucose. CapTri^® (a coconut-derived nutritional supplement) is not circulated through the body. Instead, CapTri^® is transported directly from the small intestine to the liver. CapTri^® is retained in the liver until it is completely consumed – no “residue” remains to be stored as body fat. CapTri^® is predisposed to burn rapidly and to preferentially be used for energy.

• Conventional fats are easily converted to body fat: they have the same structure

• Protein and Carbs must be “converted” before they can be stored as body fat

• Once inside cells, fat molecules are burned in structures called mitochondria

• All enzymes responsible for fat burning are contained within the mitochondria

• Conventional fats cannot be burned if carbohydrates are in the body

• CapTri^® can be burned in the presence of carbs

• CapTri^® is made from coconut oil

The question then becomes: well so what? The average trainee often will look at CapTri^® with a glazed look and ask, ‘Do I need CapTri^®? If so, how do I use it? To what end?’ The fact of the matter is that everyone serious about bodybuilding, fitness or sport needs to supplement with MCTs. The benefits are too numerous and too scientifically proven to ignore: how does the regular trainee utilize CapTri^®? First, pick one of two directions…

• Use CapTri^® to add fat-free muscle mass

• Use CapTri^® to retain and maintain muscle while shedding body fat

CapTri^® can be used as a mass-building tool: Those individuals seeking to build more muscle mass (and concurrently acquire additional power and strength) should use CapTri^® as a “caloric amplifier.” The strategy is simple: eat additional MCT calories, calories that cannot be stored as body fat, CapTri^® calories, eat a lot of them each and every day: dramatically up the daily caloric intake and pair extra calories with ferocious weight training. How best do we add quality muscle mass without becoming fat in the process?  To grow new muscle you must operate in a state of continual caloric surplus. No matter what magical training routine you use, no matter what miracle nutritional plan you adhere to – if you burn off more calories than you consume on a daily basis it becomes a physiological impossibility to grow new muscle. The requisite excess calories are nonexistent. When calorically deficient, no muscle growth is possible. CapTri^® contains 113 calories per tablespoon and consuming 3 to 10 tablespoons of CapTri^® per day, an athlete can effortlessly add 300 to 1000 supplemental calories to their daily intake; calories that are impossible to end up stored as
body fat.

CapTri^® can be used to reduce body fat without destroying muscle: The reoccurring dilemma for the competitive bodybuilder is this: how do you lean out, how do you significantly lower one’s body fat percentile – without destroying hard-earned gym muscle during the dietary process? It is one thing to get down to a 3-8% body fat percentile, but it is quite a different story to get down to 3-8% without ending up emaciated, haggard, drawn, listless or muscle-less. The expert use of MCFAs allows the savvy athlete to reduce their body fat percentile while retaining (or even adding) existing muscle mass. CapTri^® allows the competitive bodybuilder to maintain thick, full muscles during the final days leading up to a competition. MCT supplementation should be an integral part, a cornerstone, of every trainee’s nutritional game plan

• Parrillo determined that intense physical exercise, be it cardio or resistance training, accelerates the metabolism. The metabolism stays elevated for hours.

• Parrillo determined that the human body digests certain types of food easily; and just as easily converts these easy-to-digest foods into body fat.

• Parrillo determined that certain healthy foods are difficult to digest. The body “gears up” to digest difficult-to-digest foods. This further tweaks the metabolism.

Studies indicated that MCT-derived calories, consumed in copious amounts on a consistent daily basis, cause the metabolism to accelerate. Parrillo combines intense, metabolism-accelerating exercise with precision metabolism-accelerating eating and augments the training and nutrition with metabolism-accelerating MCT supplementation: the results are nothing short of sensational.

CapTri^® is not just for the bodybuilding elite: Most people will never enter a physique competition, yet they can benefit immensely by following the Parrillo Precepts: exercise intensely, eat multiple-meals and consume ample amounts of nutritious “clean” foods. Supplement with Parrillo’s potent MCT oil, CapTri^®.  Expropriate the methods used by the bodybuilding elite to further your own physical aspirations. Regardless if the goal is to lose body fat or add new muscle, CapTri^® should be used to accelerate the acquisition of either. CapTri^® tweaks the BMR. CapTri^® provides a mountain of usable, muscle-building muscle-sparing calories. Calories that cannot be stored as body fat. CapTri^® contains the kind of calories (and energy) that is either used to build new muscle or used for energy. Can you afford to be without this kind of supplemental firepower? If you are serious, if you train hard and eat with discipline, CapTri^® will open the next door and take you to the next level of physical
development.

Lipids and the Human Metabolism:

The human body burns calories to live, to survive, to exist. Like an automobile set in “park” and left curbside to idle, the human body, while at rest, burns a certain amount of calories. This idle speed represents an individual’s base caloric ‘burn rate.’ There exist certain practices and procedures, certain modes and methods, that, when enacted for protracted periods, accelerates the metabolism. John Parrillo developed a series of Basal Metabolic Rate-accelerating procedures. These systems and methods naturally and safely elevate the BMR, the metabolism. Intense exercise elevates the metabolism; the use of highly regimented eating (supplemented with MCTs) accelerates the metabolism. Parrillo’s genius was to link exercise and eating together and meld and mold seemingly disparate elements into a coherent, integrated bodybuilding system.

CapTri® used as cooking oil:

Do you miss the taste of sautéed or fried food? Would you like to be able to eat some down-home fried foods like potato hash browns, crispy fried fish or chicken fingers? Perhaps some crispy beef or sautéed shellfish? Would you love it if someone figured out how to make tasty fried foods ‘acceptable?’ What if you could fry diet foods – yet still stay completely true to the tight and disciplined precepts of the Parrillo Nutritional Program? It is possible: use CapTri^® as a cooking oil! Use CapTri^® as you would when pan sautéing with olive oil, vegetable oil, canola oil or sesame oil. Place a tablespoon or two (or three) of CapTri^® in the bottom of a non-stick skillet, sauté diced carrots, onions, bell peppers, garlic, diced potatoes, spinach or broccoli. Sauté proteins such as fish fillets, shellfish, flank or skirt steak, chicken breast or tenders. Sauté using CapTri^® just as you would with any cooking oil. CapTri^® has a “neutral” taste effect on fried food; CapTri^® does not impart a flavor in the foods fried in it.

Be sure to check out our latest website, parrilloperformance.com, where you can get recipes for cooking with CapTri^®, and watch how-to CapTri^® cooking videos. You can learn how to make quick and easy recipes like Fried Chicken Fingers and Southwest Barley Salad.