Bulletin #129 – Hormone Help

Through diet and exercise, you can control all of the major hormones in-volved in muscle growth and fat loss, namely insulin, glucagon, and growth hormone. Your diet and exercise habits set up a “hormonal environment” inside your body which determines if nutrients will be stored in the lean compartment or the fat compartment. A few fairly simple manipulations in your food intake and in your workouts will make all the difference in the world. Let’s take a look at how this all works. Dietary Manipulation of Hormones The best place to start in explaining these hormones is with insulin and gluca-gon . These hormones are among the most potent determiners of fat storage and fat loss. Luckily, the levels of these hormones are entirely determined by diet, so you can have control over them by carefully regu-lating what you eat. Insulin and glucagon are both produced by the pancreas, but have exactly opposite effects. Their chief concern is the regulation of blood sugar (glucose) levels.

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Your brain requires a constant supply of glucose for fuel, so the blood glucose level is tightly regulated to make sure the brain never runs out of gas . When you eat carbohydrates, they are digested and absorbed by the small intestine and transported directly to the liver via the portal vein. Essentially, all of the carbohydrate you eat is converted to glucose by the liver before being released into the bloodstream. After a meal your blood glucose level rises as carbohydrates are released. This rise in blood sugar trig-gers a release of insulin from the pancreas. Insulin is required to help move glucose into cells . Once inside cells, the glucose is burned for energy or stored as glycogen. Everything is fine so far. The problem arises when carbohydrates are released into the bloodstream too fast. This causes too much insulin to be released. When insulin levels get too high, some of the carbohydrate is converted to fat instead of being stored as glycogen. Also, if insulin levels get too high this actually causes too much sugar to be moved into cells. This results in “hypoglycemia,” which means low blood sugar. If your blood sugar is too low, you feel very tired. Simple sug-ars cause your blood sugar level to spike, then paradoxically to decrease to a lower level than before (because of insulin over-release).

This is why the rate of digestion of your meals is important. Stay away from foods containing simple sugars (sweets, fruit, dairy products) and refined carbo-hydrates (bread and pasta) because these are released into the bloodstream too fast, causing too much insulin to be released. This channels calories to fat stores. Combining protein and fibrous carbs with your starches, and avoiding simple and refined carbohydrates, slows the release of glucose into the blood-stream resulting in a lower, but longer, insulin release. This gives you a uni-form energy level and channels calo-ries toward muscle and away from fat. Glucagon has the opposite effect of insu-lin. An increase in blood sugar triggers a release of insulin but inhibits glucagon re-lease.

Glucagon is released several hours after a meal when blood sugar levels drop. Glucagon reduces glucose for energy and stimulates breakdown of body fat and the use of fat for energy. Glucagon also stimu-lates glycogen breakdown. The net result of glucagon is to raise the glucose levels back to normal and to signal the body to begin using fat for energy since it ís run-ning low on carbs. Your body’s ratio or insulin to gluca-gon is determined solely by the ratio of protein to carbohydrate in your diet. For weight loss, you generally want to limit your carb:protein ratio to 1.0:1.5 and use CapTri® to make up for the carb energy you’ve reduced (CapTri® is a specially engineered fat that is burned like a carb in the body). For muscle gain, you will want to increase the carb:protein ratio as well as increasing total calories .

Generally, you want to consume about 1.5 times as many calories from carbohydrate as protein. When you’re trying to gain weight, you want a little more insulin so you eat a little more carbohydrate. One last thing about insulin. In addi-tion to it enhancing transport of glucose inside cells, it is also required for trans-port of certain amino acids into cells. These include the branched chain amino acids, and this is why it is important to take your Muscle-Amino Formula™ with meals and not on an empty stomach. It has been found that neither insulin nor growth hormone alone is sufficient to stimulate growth; you have to have both of them together at the same time. This is at least partly due to the fact that these two hormones act to transport different sets of amino acids inside cells, and you need all of the amino acids present at the same time in order for growth to occur (1).

Exercise Manipulation of Hormones While insulin and glucagon are con-trolled entirely by diet, the most effective way to control growth hormone (GH) is by exercise (2,3). This is why exercise is required to gain muscle and lose fat. If you try to lose weight by cutting calories, about half of the weight you lose will be muscle. Conversely, if you gain weight simply by increasing calories (without exercising) you’ll just get fat. Exercise is required to set up the proper hormonal mi-lieu allowing selective fat loss and muscle gain. The favorable effects of exercise in increasing muscle mass while decreasing fat stores are mediated largely through growth hormone, testosterone and epinephrine. Therefore, to sculpt the ultimate physique, we have to talk about effective training strategies to optimize growth hor-mone.

Growth hormone is the most important hormone responsible for normal growth during childhood. Without growth hormone, a person will never at-tain adult stature. Growth hormone has profound effects on the growth of the skeleton as well as the muscles. Tes-tosterone and estrogen produced during puberty cause the skeleton to mature and stop growing, but growth hormone still promotes muscle growth and fat loss in adults . There are several things you can do to naturally increase your GH levels. One is to get a good night’s sleep. Growth hor-mone is released maximally during sleep, normally about three hours after you fall asleep. Trying to build muscle without getting enough rest is nearly impossible. Second, GH release is increased during and just after intense exercise (2,3). The most effective training style for increas-ing GH release is high volume training (2,3,4). I recommend a mixture of low rep, medium rep and high rep work to maximally stimulate all the muscle fibers as well as train the nervous system. This results in optimal increases in size and strength .

Third, eat a high-protein diet con-sisting of egg whites, white meat poul-try, fish, and protein supplements such as Parrillo Hi-Protein™ Powder. Protein not only stimulates GH release, but also provides the building blocks you need to build new muscle tissue. Fourth, certain combinations of amino acids have been shown to increase GH release and result in increased lean body mass (4). Enhanced GH Formula™ contains the most effec-tive combination ever developed. Take it on an empty stomach just before training and before bed. Of course, merely having a detailed intellectual understanding of how nutri-tion and exercise come together in your body to build muscle and burn fat does nothing to achieve those results. It’s up to you to put this information to use in the gym and at the dinner table.

References

1. de Castro JM, Paullin SK and DeLugas GM. Insulin and glucagon as determinants of body weight set point and microregula-tion in rats. J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 92: 571-579, 1978 .

2. Remington DW, Fisher AG, and Parent EA. How to Lower your Fat Thermo-stat. Vitality House International, Provo, 1983 .

3. Guyton, AC. Textbook of Medical Physiology. W.B. Saunders, 1991.

4. Johnson LR. Essential Medical Physi-ology. Raven Press, New York, 1992.

Bulletin #70 – The Impact of Dietary Energy of Body Composition, Part II

What is the effect of diet composition on the hormones that act to control body composition? This topic is quite involved and we will deal with some basic concepts. The major players in this drama are insu-lin, glucagon, cortisol, growth hormone, thyroid, and to some extent testosterone. The most important relationship is the in-sulin-glucagon axis. These two hormones are made by the pancreas and act to control nutrient storage and nutrient utilization . Insulin is essentially a storage hormone and is released in response to eating .

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The most potent stimulus for insulin release is car-bohydrate ingestion, followed by protein ingestion. Insulin shuttles carbohydrate molecules (glucose) inside cells for stor-age. It promotes the use of carbohydrate as fuel and stores carbohydrate as glycogen. After a meal, insulin is released and acts to help store nutrients and use glucose as fuel. Insulin promotes fat storage and converts excess carbohydrate into fat. Although under normal conditions, not much car-bohydrate is converted into fat — insulin does promote this. Insulin also prevents the release of fatty acids from adipose tissue and decreases the use of fat as fuel. Insulin behaves like a switch that turns off fat burn-ing and turns on carbohydrate burning. Glucagon is a counter-regulatory hor-mone.

It has the opposite actions of insulin. Several hours after a meal, when most of the ingested nutrients have been burned or stored, glucagon levels increase. This promotes fat utilization and decreases carbohydrate oxidation. Immediately after a meal, insulin acts to promote fat storage, but after several hours of fasting, glucagon acts to promote fat oxidation. After the calories from your last meal have been used you begin to switch over to a fat burning mode. Of course, by this time most people get hungry and eat again, so they spend relatively few hours a day burning any significant amount of fat. The complete picture is much more complicated . The pri-mary site of glucagon action is in the liver, with relatively little impact on peripheral fat stores. The main stimulus for release of fat from adipose tissue is the sympathetic nervous system.

The nerve endings release norepinephrine at the adipose cell, which in turn stimulates breakdown of stored tri-glyceride and fatty acid release. The major reason for considering the use of fat in a bodybuilding diet is that fat causes very little insulin release. By eating a low car-bohydrate diet higher in fat, insulin levels should remain lower. Also, if carbohydrates are not available the body shifts into a fat burning metabolism during the day. Other studies (in rats) have demonstrated that the protein-to-carbohydrate ratio in the diet determines to a large extent the ratio of insulin-to-glycogen in the blood (11-13). These hormones seem to be almost entirely controlled by diet. Furthermore, studies suggest that the insulin-glycogen ratio influences bodyfat levels (11-13).

For the same number of calories, more will be stored as fat if insulin levels are higher, simply because insulin promotes fat storage and prevents fat utilization. On a different diet, providing the same number of calories, we would expect bodyfat levels to be lower if insulin levels are lower. This is logical. For these rea-sons we have seen the emergence of diets higher in fat and lower in carbohydrate. The disadvantages are problems inher-ent to fat metabolism, discussed above. One desirable alternative would be to use another energy source besides carbohy-drate - which had favorable effects on the insulin profile — but which avoided the other problems faced by conventional fats. Medium chain triglycerides, such as CapTri®, offer such an alternative. Con-ventional fats are comprised of long chain fatty acids, usually 16 to 20 carbon atoms long. Medium chain triglycerides (MCT) are a specially engineered, semi-synthetic fat that is built from fatty acid molecules that are only eight to 12 carbon atoms long.

This small difference in chemical structure results in very different biological effects. MCT has a much higher thermogenic ef-fect than conventional fat - probably higher than carbohydrate (14-19). MCT does not require the carnitine shuttle for transport inside the mitochondria and its oxidation is essentially unregulated. MCTs are oxidized very rapidly, more rapidly than glucose (14-19). The liver converts the excess en-ergy to ketones, or beta-hydroxy butyrate and acetoacetic acid. These ketones are used as an immediate fuel source by the muscles. While conventional fats are preferentially stored, MCT are im-mediately oxidized as fuel. This results in almost no storage of MCT as adipose (14-19). MCT thus represents a dietary energy source, which has the advantages of fat but does not elicit much insulin response . MCT does not contribute to adipose depots. In our experience the 30 percent protein, 40 percent carbohydrate, 30 percent con-ventional fat diet works adequately - but not optimally — as long as an energy de-ficient diet is consumed.

If fewer calories are consumed than expended, weight loss will result no matter what the diet composi-tion. This diet (or practically any diet) will promote weight loss as long as an energy deficit is maintained. The high-fat diet can actually promote fairly rapid weight loss because of its favorable effects on insulin. However, you will run into problems on this diet when you approach maintenance level, calorically. Disaster occurs during calorie-excess when using the high-fat diet. Fat intake does not promote fat oxidation. If you consume excess calories supplied in the form of fat, they will be stored as fat. Period. You cannot use this diet to gain weight, unless you want to gain fat. By using MCT as the fat source — instead of long chain triglyceride — you can avoid the inherent problems. This results in a favorable insulin profile and eliminates the metabolic complications of consum-ing conventional fat. And since MCT is not retained as adipose, this makes it an ideal energy substitute during a weight gain phase . MCT use seems to minimize fat deposition during weight gain.

Another problem with the conventional 30:40:30 high-fat diet is the inclusion of sugars, particularly in the form of fruit. Fruit can blow a diet. Fruit provides most of its calories in the form of simple sug-ars: glucose and fructose. Fructose is an especially bad choice for bodybuilders be-cause it bypasses the phosphofructokinase enzyme step during glycolysis (20). This enzyme acts as a switch and determines whether sugars are stored as glycogen or burned as fuel. Fructose enters the glyco-lytic pathway and bypasses this enzyme. The fructose molecules are automatically shunted toward oxidation. During carbo-hydrate oxidation the carbon skeleton is converted to acetyl-CoA in the process of ATP generation. Fructose is rapidly con-verted into acetyl-CoA, which overwhelms the pathway that converts it into ATP. The acetyl-CoA piles up in the liver. Acetyl-CoA, it turns out, is the building block for fatty acid synthesis. Most of the fructose-derived energy is converted into fat by the liver and is subsequently released into the blood to be stored in fat cells (20). This is bad news! The argument used by fruit lovers is that eating it has almost no effect on increasing insulin release. True, but this has not been totally thought through.

The reason fruit doesn’t increase insulin levels is that it is released from the liver as fat instead of carbohydrate, and fat doesn’t stimulate insulin release . If you want to try the high-fat diet ap-proach we would suggest you use MCT in place of conventional fat and avoid simple sugars, particularly fructose. This is very similar to some of the competition diets we have been devising for bodybuilders over the years. In the Parrillo version, start by eating one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. Limit conventional fat as much as possible and provide 30 percent of total calories from CapTri®. Derive the remainder of your calories from complex carbohydrate. Avoid simple sugars, includ-ing those found in milk and fruit. Avoid refined carbohydrates such as bread and pasta as well. Divide your daily total num-ber of calories into five or six small meals, with roughly equal amounts of protein and carbohydrate at each meal. If your goal is to gain muscle mass, increase overall calories by increasing carbohydrates. If your goal is to lose bodyfat, decrease calories by de-creasing carbohydrates. For exact instruc-tions on how to construct meals, consult the Parrillo Nutrition Manual.

Bulletin #162 – The Alternating Diet

A successful approach to losing body fat while keeping your metabolism revved up involves alternating one month on a weight gain cycle and one month on a fat loss cycle. The first month you would gain a pound each week (four pounds) and 75% of it is muscle. In the second month you lose a pound a week (four pounds to-tal) and 75% of that loss is fat. At the end of the two month cycle you will have gained two pounds of muscle and lost two pounds of fat. Extend that to a year and you’re looking at 12 pounds of muscle gained and 12 pounds of fat lost. You’re constantly making progress, and your metabo-lism never gets the chance to slow down. I believe these goals are quite real-istic and very easily attainable for anyone, and particularly if you’re giving 100% effort to the training and nutrition program.

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The beauty of this idea is that you’re constantly making progress; you’re always ei-ther gaining muscle or losing fat; and the constant change prevents your metabolism from adapting so you can make continual progress without wasting time being stuck on a plateau and trying to figure out what to do.In principle, you could keep this upyear after year. If you’re 20% body fat or more, you may want to devotea few months to getting in shape first, or if you’re really skinny, you may want to spend a few months just putting on size. But if you’re some-where in the middle, maybe around 10% to 15% body fat, you might con-sider giving this program a try. To gain a pound a week increase your calories to 300-500 more a day, do 20-30 minutes of aerobics a day, and train your top sets with heavy weights in the 3-6 rep range. To lose a pound a week, decrease carbs slightly if you have to, do 45-60 minutes of aerobics a day, and train with increased vol-ume and moderate weight in the 8-12 rep range for your top sets.

There are other ways you can maxi-mize this fat-burning mode. For ex-ample:• Continue to eat five, six or more meals a day to keep your metabolism in a constant state of acceleration. This has several beneficial effects. Every time you eat, your metabolic rate increases a little due to the ther-mic effect of feeding (also known as diet-induced thermogenesis). Eating frequently keeps your internal fur-nace stoked and keeps your metabo-lism speeding along. If you go too long without eating, your metabolism begins to slow down.• Eliminate as much fat as possible from your diet, since fat has a slow-ing effect on metabolism. Dietary protein and complex carbohydrates have negligible tendency to be con-verted to fat, whereas dietary fat is very prone to be stored as body fat (1,2,3,4). This is a hot topic in scien-tific literature these days and is a matter of debate in bodybuilding circles. (It is less a matter of debate in the scientific journals, where actual research is reported.)

Very little of your body fat comes from complex carbohydrates or protein being converted into fat; almost all of it comes from fat you eat. How much fat your body stores seems to be more closely related to how much fat you eat rather than how many calories you eat.• Decrease your carbohydrate in-take, thereby lowering insulin levels and activating fat-burning mechanisms in the body. But: How do you cut down on carbs without decreasing calories? You consume more of something else. Fat is not an option,so your only other choic-es are protein or CapTri®. Either one will work, but a combination of both probably works best. Let’s be brutally honest about this. If you’re used to getting most of your calories from carbs, cutting back significantly on carbs makes you feel bad, at least for a while. People who cut their carbs dra-matically have low energy levels, are irritable and grouchy, and get headaches. CapTri® is more ef-fective at relieving some of these symptoms than protein because it’s more readily used as an energy source.

Protein is not a very effi-cient energy source. Its role is to serve as a building block for repair and maintenance of tissues, not to pro-vide metabolizable fuel. Using protein for energy is kind of like trying to burna wet log. Carbs, on the other hand, are a great energy source. So if you want to reduce carbs in your diet to manip-ulate hormone levels and promote fat metabolism it makes sense to replace those calories with another fuel source, namely MCT oil. This supplement is a good choice because it is readily burned as fuel and won’t be stored as body fat, (5, 6).I suggest you ease into this slowly. Start by eliminating starchy carbs (potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, and so forth) from your last meals of the day. Replace those lost calories from carbs with an equiva-lent number of calories from CapTri®. It actually has a higher thermogenic effect than carbohydrate, meaning that more of this dietary energy will be lost as body heat with less energy available for storage. This further promotes addi-tional fat loss. Continue in this way un-til you reduce your daily carbohydrate grams to about half of what you nor-mally consume. At this point you’ll be eating mostly protein, vegetables, and CapTri®.•

Do your aerobics when you are rela-tively carb-depleted. This will cause your body to burn more fat for energy during your workout because fewer carbs are available. The best time is first thing in the morning before break-fast. Your glycogen stores are the low-est they’ll be all day, so you’ll rely more heavily on stored fat. To prevent muscle loss, consume two scoops of a quality protein powder prior to performing your aerobics.For maximizing fat loss, another good time to perform aerobics is right after weight training, because then you’re rel-atively glycogen depleted too. You should do moderate to fairly high intensity aerobics, so that you’re breathing hard and sweating. While it’s true you burn a higher percentage of calories from fat dur-ing low intensity aerobics, you will burn more grams of body fat if you perform high intensity aerobics, because you’ll burn so many moretotal calories.

Also, if you do rea-sonably intense aerobics you will get the added benefits of increased vascular density and enhanced fat burning capacity. Increase the vol-ume of aerobics progressively as you get leaner. If your fat loss plateaus, the first thing to try is to do more aerobics. If that doesn’t work you should probably back off for a couple weeks, increase your calories, put on some muscle, and get your metabolism going again. How do you know if you’re losing fat and not muscle? By having your body measured once a week with an ac-curate assessment method such as our BodyStat System. With the in-formation you attain, you can de-termine your pounds of lean mass and pounds of fat every week and make adjustments in your training and diet accordingly to make sure you stay on track.With proper assessment, you can pinpoint exactly what the problem is and make detailed adjustments to fix it. Otherwise, if you’re just go-ing on what “feels right” or seems to make sense, and you don’t make good progress, you’re not sure what to change. Remove the guesswork from your bodybuilding program. Don’t leave anything to chance.

References

1. Flatt JP. 1987. Dietary fat, carbo-hydrate balance, and weight main-tenance: effects of exercise. Amer-ican Journal of Clinical Nutrition 45: 296-306.

2. Flatt JP. 1995. Use and storage of carbohydrate and fat. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 61: 952s-959s.

3. Swinburn B and Ravussin E. 1993. Energy balance or fat bal-ance? American Journal of Clini-cal Nutrition 57:766S-771S.

4. Acheson KJ, Flatt JP, and Je-quier E. 1982. Glycogen synthesis versus lipogenesis after a 500 gram carbohydrate meal in man. Metab-olism 31: 1234-1240.

5. Baba N, Bracco EF, and Hashim SA. 1982. Enhanced thermogenesis and diminished deposition of fat in response to overfeeding with diet containing medium chain triglyc-eride. American Journal of Clini-cal Nutrition 35: 678-682.

6. Bach AC and Babayan VK. 1982. Medium chain triglycerides: an up-date. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 35: 678-682.6. Bach AC and Babayan VK. 1982. Medium chain triglycerides: an up-date. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 36: 950-962.

Bulletin #161 – Using Creatine As a Weight-Loss Tool

Attention: if you’re ready to add a new tool to your fat-burning tool-box, try creatine. It’s a non-drug alternative that really works. It is one of the most important natural supplements available for exercis-ers because of its ability to extend endurance and coax the body intoproducing hard, firm muscle.Creatine is produced naturally in the liver, kidneys, and pancreas – at the rate of about 1 to 2 grams a day – from the amino acids ar-ginine, glycine, and methionine. Most of your body’s creatine is de-livered to the muscles, heart, and other body cells. Inside muscle cells, creatine helps produce and circulate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the molecular fuel that powers muscular contractions.

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Creatine is also found naturally in red meat. About 2 ½ pounds of raw steak yields roughly the equivalent of a single 5-gram dose of creatine.Creatine is available from Parrillo Performance as Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™. Through supple-mentation, you can build the vol-ume of creatine in your muscle cells. There, creatine increases levels of a high-energy compoundcalled creatine phosphate, which serves as a tiny fuel supply, enough for several seconds of action.Creatine phosphate also allows more rapid production of ATP. The more ATP that is available to muscle cells, the longer, harder, and more powerfully you can work out.

Thus, creatine monohydrate can indirectly help you lose body fat, since longer, more intense workouts help incinerate fat and build lean muscle. The more muscle you have, the more efficient your body is at using energy and burning fat.Many creatine supplementation studies have shown gains in lean body mass, averaging 2 to 6 pounds, usually within several weeks of use. It can work fast too – in as little as one week. A study conducted at the Pennsylvania State University Center for Sports Medicine demon-strated the immediacy of creatine’s power. The researchers recruited 14 weight-trained men and divided them into a creatine group and a pla-cebo group. Both groups performed bench presses and a jump-squat ex-ercise in three different sessions, each separated by 6 days. Prior to the first session, neither group re-ceived any supplements. During the period leading up to the second session, both groups took placebos.

Then, prior to the third session, the creatine group took 25 grams of creatine monohydrate a day, and the placebo group took a 25-gram placebo. All the participants were asked to follow their normal diets and keep food records during the study.With this well-designed experimen-tal situation, the researchers could easily observe and measure any changes due to supplementation. What happened was quite remarkable. In just a week, the creatine takers gained an average of 3 pounds of muscle. As for their strength, it went through the roof. The creatine takers upped theirreps significantly on the bench press and could perform more jump squats. Those in the placebo group didn’t fare as well in either performance or mus-cle gain.Creatine increases muscle size be-cause it attracts water. Creatine is ab-sorbed into the muscle cell and pulls a lot of water along with it, causing the muscle to swell. This results in larg-er, firmer muscles and a better pump. Please realize that creatine itself does not directly increase muscle protein. As with all supplements, it is vital that you use creatine in conjunction with asolid bodybuilding diet.

You need pro-tein to build muscle tissue and carbo-hydrates to provide energy. Creatine itself is not burned to produce energy, rather it acts as an energy buffer to transfer the energy derived from car-bohydrate and fat oxidation to ATP. Creatine is not incorporated into pro-tein. It will, however, indirectly in-crease the protein mass of muscles over time by allowing you to performhigher intensity workouts. That is, of course, if you are eating enough lean protein and quality calories to support muscle gains.What can you expect from creatine? Typically, hard-training bodybuilders can expect an increase of 4-14 pounds of lean mass during the first month of use. The more muscle mass you have, the more creatine you can assimilateleading to greater weight gains. We’ve seen athletes experience a 5-15% in-crease in strength on their maximum lifts and an increase of about 2 reps per set with their working weight dur-ing the first month. This increase in in-tensity allows you to put a greater load on the muscle, which will indeed in-crease your gains in muscle mass over time.

Endurance athletes can experi-ence a 5-10% increase in speed and a 10-20% increase in time to fatigue.Increasing the levels of creatine and creatine phosphate in your muscles gives them another fuel source be-sides glycogen from carbohydrates. The question is: how much creatine do you need? To start, we recommend for the first one to two weeks you use 20-30 grams each day, divided into even servings of 5 grams each taken with each meal or with a Hi-Protein™/Pro-Carb™ or 50/50 Plus™ drink. This is the loading phase. Use the lower end of these recommendations if you’re in the 150-200 pound range and the upper end if you’re over 200 pounds. We recommend one to two weeks, but the loading phase can last up to four weeks in some individuals. After this, 5-10 grams a day should be sufficient to maintain elevated muscle stores ofcreatine. It takes approximately 4-8 weeks to deplete creatine stores after you stop taking it.To support muscle growth, Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ works best with a nutritious diet that supplies ample calories, as outlined in the Parrillo Nutrition Program. Remem-ber, creatine itself has little impact on gaining muscle when taken alone.

The building blocks (amino acids) and extra calories must also be pres-ent in the muscle for serious gains to be made. Most people will see a significant increase in size and strength when using creatine, but a lot of this depends on the amount of protein and quality calories you are eating. If you don’t eat enough to support muscle gain, you won’t see any, it’s that simple.Weight gain resulting from cre-atinesupplementation may happen dur-ing the first month when you’re loading the muscle cells with cre-atine. You will experience an im-mediate gain in strength at the outset because of the increased leverage advantage from the in-creased water gain as well as the creatine phosphate stores. At some point the creatine pool becomes saturated and the muscle can’t hold any more. So you can expect a very rapid and dramatic gain in lean mass (muscle + water) for the first month, but after that creatine supplementation is mainly mainte-nance.Remember, proper nutrition from food, increased calories and nutri-ents from supplements and intense training are the keys to packing on more lean muscle month after month, year after year.

By using creatine you can improve the in-tensity and duration of your train-ing for better overall workouts. And when you add to this proper nutrition, which includes plenty of high quality protein and increased calories, you’ll be right on track to gain one pound of lean mass each week.Are there any medical concerns with taking creatine? Creatine is nontoxic even when taken in huge doses. The only known side effect is stomach upset if you take too much at once. Five to ten grams shouldn’t bother you. If you take 30 grams at once you might feel stomach cramps or nausea, but usually not. Excess creatine is converted into creatinine (note the similar spell-ing) and excreted in the urine. If you take too much creatine you’ll just lose the excess in your urine. If you have any blood work done you might find that creatine elevates your creatinine level. Doctors use the creatinine level in the blood as an index of kidney function. If your doctor notices an increase in your creatinine level and expresses someconcern about your kidneys, tell him or her that you’re using creatine. Cre-atine does not damage the kidneys in any way, but is contraindicated if you have pre-existing severe kidney disease (for example, renal dialysis or kidney transplant patients).

Peo-ple with severe kidney disease have trouble eliminating creatinine, and creatine supplementation would in-crease creatinine levels further. In summary, creatine has been shown in placebo controlled clinical trials to improve exercise performance, both in terms of power output and endurance (1-6). We know from our work here that it increases lean body mass as well. Creatine is stored in the muscle and does not contribute to fat stores. Any weight you gain on creatine will be in the lean compartment. We’ve seen many athletes experience dramatic gains in muscle size and strength during their first month of creatine use. And when you look for a good creatine supplement, make sure it is 100% pure, like our Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ supplement. Make sure to look at the nutrient content on the label and not just the price when you’re considering which creatine supplement to take. Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ is one more nutritional tool to help you push your physique and performance envelope.

References

1. Maughan RJ. Creatine supplemen-tation and exercise performance.International Journal of Sport Nutri-tion 5: 94-101, 1995.

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

3. Crim MC, Munro HN. Proteins and Amino Acids. Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease 8: 9-10, 1994.

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

5. Harris RC, Viru M, GreenhaffPL, and Haltman E. The effect of oral creatine supplementation on running performance during maximal short term exercise in man. J. Physiol. 467: 74P, 1993.

6. Ernest CP, Snell PG, Mitchell TL, Rodriguez R, and Almada AL. Effect of creatine monohydrate on peak an-aerobic power, capacity, and fatigue index. Med. Sci. Sports. Exerc. 26:S39, 1994.

Bulletin #160 – Parrillo Nutrition Program Boosters

Whether starting a nutrition plan like the Parrillo Nutrition Program, or re-newing a commitment to get fit, ev-eryone needs some “booster shots” from time to time to shore up motiva-tion.Toward that end, here are 46 of the smartest tips ever for sticking to the Parrillo Nutrition Program so that you burn body fat and look great in 2008:

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1. Eat all required foods on the Par-rillo Nutrition Program: lean proteins, starchy carbs, fibrous carbs, and es-sential fats. Never skip a thing!

2. Use spices and seasonings to flavor your foods.

3. Do not eat fruits, or drink fruit juices or juice-based products. They contain fructose, which is easily converted to body fat.

4. Shoot for 25 to 35 grams of fiber daily. (The Parrillo Nutrition Program builds this requirement in automati-cally – no need to count grams.)

5. If you feel hungry, eat extra protein to tide you over.

6. Eat at least two servings of fish a week to obtain a type of healthy fat called omega-3 fatty acids. These ben-eficial fats help your body in numer-ous ways, including reducing triglyc-erides (fats in your blood), boosting your aerobic power, and normalizing your mood.

7. Remove skin and fat from poultrybefore cooking.

8. Avoid cured and smoked foods. They’re high in fat, salt, and nitrates (which are carcinogens).

9. Choose liberally from fibrous veg-etables, especially for the preparation of salads.

10. Serve up salads prior to your meals to help you feel full and more satisfied faster.

11. Prepare your salads within your daily fat allotment, with fat-free sal-ad dressings, or vinegar.

12. Spice your foods with red pepper (capsicum). This popular seasoning is believed to rev up your metabo-lism by creating heat. You’ve prob-ably noticed this yourself. After you eat hot spicy foods, your body will heat up in a process known as “diet-induced thermogenesis.” When body heat rises, so does metabolism, and more calories are burned.

13. Blend chickpeas into a hummusfor vegetable dips.

14. Try Parrillo’s Hi-Protein Cake and Cupcake Mix™ for a sweet treat.

15. Try using lemon juice or various herbs on your vegetables, rather than eat them with too much added fat.

16. Do not substitute or add to the Parrillo Nutrition Program.

17. Do not drink any alcoholic bev-erages. Have sparkling no-calorie beverages with a twist of lemon or lime when you’re out.

18. Other than water, you may drink the following beverages: regular or decaffeinated tea, green tea, herbal teas, regular or decaf-feinated coffee, carbonated water, mineral water, sugar-free diet so-das, and sugar-free drink mixes.

19. Write down what you will eat each day – for better control over your food intake.

20. Drink eight to ten glasses of water a day. Water aids in weight loss by dulling your appetite and enhancing fat-burning processes in your body.

21. Drink green tea liberally; it can be helpful in burning fat.

22. Add in Parrillo supplements according to your goals. See the Parrillo Nutrition Manual for an explanation.

23. Don’t skip meals. Skipping meals only makes you hungry lat-er.

24. Slow down your eating and chew your food thoroughly. Both actions help you feel full faster and are a proven weight-control mea-sure.

25. Do you overeat or over-snack with fattening foods in front of the television? If so, make it a rule in your house to always eat in the dining room while seated at the table.

26. Never let yourself get bored, stressed out, or depressed, if at all possible. These emotions can trigger cravings for sugary or high-fat foods.

27. If you don’t have time to cut up vegetables, buy pre-cut veggies from the grocery store, or take advantage of the store’s salad bar, which usually has plenty of freshly cut items.

28. Outwait your cravings for sugary or high-fat foods. Cravings generally last no longer than 10 minutes. If you feel the urge to splurge, find some-thing else to do for 10 minutes, or un-til the craving passes.

29. Be assertive when people offer you food that’s not on the program.  Train yourself to say “No, thank you.”

30. Visualize what you will look likein a bathing suit, then believe it will happen. What you believe you can achieve.

31. Hang your bathing suit on a doorhandle, or somewhere visible – as re-minder of what you will accomplish.

32. Clear your kitchen cabinets of binge food.

33. Use non-stick saucepans for cook-ing foods so that you don’t have to add extra fat.

34. Keep plenty of cut-up crunchy raw vegetables around to snack on.

35. Never eat foods out of their origi-nal jars or containers; always eat them on a plate while you are sitting down at the dining table.

36. Tell your friends and family that you’re on the Parrillo Nutrition Program and that you need their support.

37. Grocery-shop only from the list of foods allowed on the Parrillo Nutrition Program.

38. Never go grocery shopping when you’re hungry, but always on a full stomach. That way, you won’t be tempted to buy something that would sabotage your program. Eat a Parrillo bar before going gro-cery shopping.

39. When you lose some pounds, or achieve other important mile-stones while following the Par-rillo Nutrition Program, reward yourself with a non-food treat or gift, something that makes you feel good about yourself and your ap-pearance. Some ideas: a massage, new pair of exercise shoes, new sports gear or equipment, new ex-ercise video, a weekend get-away, a shopping spree, a new outfit, makeover at a day spa, pedicure or manicure, salon haircut, tickets to a concert, jewelry, new CD or DVD, limousine ride to a concert or other event, new addition to something you collect, or an accessory or ac-cent piece for your home.

40. If, after all of your planning and commitment, you do overindulge, try not to feel guilty. Guilt only weakens your resolve to maintain healthy habits.

41. Don’t ever resort to crash di-eting. This can result in a loss of muscle, decreased strength and power, low energy, moodiness or irritability, and compromised im-munity. Lose no more than a pound or two of pure fat a week. That’s a safe rate of fat loss for everyone.

42. Incorporate both aerobic exercise and weight training into your weekly fitness program. Submaximal exer-cise, such as aerobics, uses fat as a fuel source, helping to burn off your fat stores. It also builds your aerobic power, so you can train longer and burn even more fat. Weight training burns fat as well, but in a different way — by creating metabolically ac-tive muscle tissue. Weight training also helps to preserve lean muscle.

43. Incorporate supplements such as Parrillo Hi-Protein Powder™, Par-rillo 50/50™, or Parrillo Optimized Whey Protein™ into your diet. These supplements are great for a post-workout meal. By providing nutrients when your body needs them most, proteins and carbs increase the pro-duction of two hormones (insulin and growth hormone) that are conducive to muscle growth and recovery.

44. Add Parrillo Creatine Monohy-drate™ to your program. This is an effective sports supplement that en-hances strength, promotes muscle growth and reduces body fat. The rec-ommended dose is 5 gm a day.

45. Get enough rest. Lack of sleep has been associated with fat gain. Sleep deprivation increases the stress hor-mone cortisol. At chronically elevated levels, this hormone drives fat to the abdominal area. So get 7 to 8 hours of shut-eye each night.46. Lose body fat for yourself, not be-cause your husband, mate, or parent wants you to.

Bulletin #159 – Fat-Burning Food Chemistry

If you have had trouble losing weight in the past, the reason may reside in two nutritional factors: your food balance and your food choices. “Balance” in-volves the relative proportion of carbo-hydrates, protein, and fat in your diet; and “choice” involves the type of food you eat. Scientists have only recently begun to unlock the highly complex pro-cesses by which our bodies burn fat, and one of the recently “solved mysteries” has to do with these two vital issues of  nutrition.

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Over the past several years, many popu-lar diets have suggested that increasing or decreasing a single nutrient in your diet can dramatically affect your weight loss. Some diets have focused on carbo-hydrates, others on protein, still others on fat. Unfortunately though, highlight-ing one nutrient to the exclusion of oth-ers misses the boat. Weight loss through nutrition depends upon on a carefully designed balance of all of these nutri-ents and on the specific types of food in which those nutrients are found – which is exactly how the Parrillo Nutrition Program is put together. Why is this true? Both factors positively influence the action of your hormones – chemical messengers that regulate a world of functions in your body.

They also influence your metabolism, your body’s food-to-fuel processes. Thus, the interplay of food balance and food choices can greatly accentuate your ability to burn fat. It is this approach to weight loss that has the backing of med-ical science. A simplified explanation of these issues is provided below.The Role of Food Balance and Food Choice in Fat-BurningIf you desire to burn fat – and who doesn’t – then you require a carefully designed balance of certain types of protein, carbohydrates, and fat in your diet – with enough calories to keep your metabolism running in high gear. Remember on the Parrillo Nutrition Program, we do not advocate cutting calories. Doing so only slows down your metabolism. But back to nutrient balance, let’s start with protein.Protein As A Fat-BurnerWhen provided in your diet at higher levels, protein can clearly be nick-named a “fat burner” – for two impor-tant reasons. First, your body requires ample pro-tein to develop and maintain muscle.

If you don’t get enough protein, your body can start breaking down muscle tissue for the provision of energy. Con-sequently, you’ll lose metabolically active muscle, and this will sabotage your fat-loss efforts. Second, protein boosts your metabo-lism, and it does this by stepping up the action of your thyroid gland. (One of the main duties of the thyroid is to regulate metabolism.) This benefit of a higher-protein diet was observed in a study of dieters conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, released in 2001. In this study, 24 mid-life women went on a liberal 1,700 calorie-a-day diet for 10 weeks. Half followed a diet based on the USDA Food Guide Pyramid – 55 percent carbohydrates, 15 percent pro-tein, and 30 percent fat. The other half followed a high-protein diet of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent  protein, and 30 percent fat.Both groups lost the same amount of weight – 16 pounds, but the compo-sition of that weight differed greatly. The high-protein group shed 12.3 pounds of pure pudge and only 1.7 pounds of lean muscle, while the Food Pyramid dieters lost 10.4 pounds of fat and 3 pounds of mus-cle.

Translation: High protein means better, more fat loss. With a higher-protein diet, you don’t have to sacri-fice muscle. Also important in this study: The researchers detected an increase in the thyroid function of the high-protein dieters, and this was the concrete evidence for protein’s metabolism-boosting effect. Do you realize the significance in all of this? With more protein in your diet, in the right balance, you can almost double your weight-loss and fat-burning efforts!Carbohydrate Differentiation: Carbohydrates also play a role in fat-burning, as long as you choose the right types of carbohydrates. This is where food choice becomes all-important to your weight-loss success.For a very long time, carbohydrates have been classified as either simple or complex. Simple sugars are found in candies, syrups, many fruits and fruit juices, and processed foods, and complex carbohydrates are found in whole grains, beans, and vegetables. This classification is based on the molecular structure of the carbo-hydrate, with simple carbohydrates constructed of either single or dou-ble molecules of sugar, and complex carbohydrates made of multiple numbers of sugar molecules. Simple sugars send your blood sugar soaring, and this sets off a hormonal reaction that can lead to weight gain.

Here is a closer look at exactly what happens: After you eat carbohydrate foods, your body breaks them down into glucose. Simple sugars are dis-mantled more quickly than others, and this causes a huge spike in your blood glucose. Complex carbohydrates take longer to break down, and conse-quently, blood glucose stays relatively even during the digestion process. When glucose shoots upward in re-sponse to simple sugars, so does the hormone insulin. The problem with an overload of insulin in your system is that it activates fat cell enzymes. These enzymes move fat from the bloodstream into fat cells for storage and trigger your body to create more fat cells. Simple sugars thus create conditions in your body that are con-ducive to gaining fat.What all of this tells us is very simple: Simple sugars promote fat storage; complex carbs like those recommend-ed on the Parrillo Nutrition Program do not. Choosing complex carbo-hydrates makes it possible to lose weight more easily. If you base your carbohydrate selections on this nutri-tional element, you will lose weight more quickly. The Parrillo Nutrition Program is based on the selection of complex carbohydrates.

These include certain whole grain cereals, brown rice, beans, legumes, potatoes, yams, and vegetables.The Fat Factor: For decades, we were taught that in order to lose weight, we had to slash the amount of dietary fat in our diets. Since the 1980s, Americans did reduce their fat consumption, but at the same time, they got fatter. More than 60 percent of our population is now considered overweight or obese.  Cutting the fat from our diets was clearly not the “magic answer” to weight loss.Scientists studying this alarming trend probed the reasons. What could explain this confusing phe-nomenon? After much research, they discovered that people had been replacing the fat in their diets with too many simple sugars. This was the impetus – the main common de-nominator – behind the expanding waistlines of the American public, along with the fact that Americans are becoming increasingly inactive.

So from a nutritional standpoint, simple sugars are among the prime culprits in weight gain, and dietary fat shoulders far less of the blame.   Taking all of this important infor-mation into account, the Parrillo Nutrition Program supplies roughly 10-20% percent of your daily calo-ries from fat, with special emphasis on the essential fatty acids we rec-ommend you have each day. A Final Point: The foods allowed on the Parrillo Nutrition Program provide what has been scientifically proven to be an effective combina-tion of specific types of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. This combi-nation of easily available and deli-cious foods, in the right proportions, stimulates increased body fat me-tabolism, while supplying nutrients required to support your health. The food you will eat will be more sat-isfying and nutritionally rewarding, plus will provide the metabolic and hormonal catalyst you need to shed surplus fat.

Bulletin #158 – Eating Out on the Parrillo Nutrition Program

It’s normal to want to get out of the kitchen occasionally and let some-one else do the cooking for you. But what about sticking to the Parrillo Nutrition Program? Will dining out strike a fatal blow to your resolve? Not necessarily. These days, most restaurants cater to health-conscious diners, so it’s not that difficult to find healthy cuisine while dining out.According to the National Restau-rant Association, Americans eat out 4.1 times a week. And many of those meals are eaten at fast food restau-rants, where food is typically high in fat and sodium.

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But does dining out have to spell di-eting disaster? Not necessarily. One of the many advantages of the Par-rillo Nutrition Program is its adapt-ability to any eating-out situation. These days, healthy foods are served practically everywhere. You don’t have to be a recluse while on the Parrillo Nutrition Program. You’re free to go out to restau-rants, even fast-food places, to enjoy breakfast, lunch, or dinner with your friends, family, or business associ-ates. Nor should you pass up invita-tions to parties or other social events just because you’re on a healthy eating  program. What follows are some practi-cal guidelines for making healthy choices at any type of restaurant, as well as for enjoying parties and other events.

Restaurants for Breakfast

• Order scrambled egg whites, or scrambled egg substitutes (such as EggBeaters). Request that the eggs be cooked without added oil.• For carbohydrates, your best bets are oatmeal or oat bran.

Asian Restaurants•

Select entrees made with lean proteins (such as chicken and fish) and vegetables. Some good sugges-tions for ordering are Moo Goo Gai Pan, Szechwan Shrimp or Chicken, and sushi.• Request that the sauce be served on the side, or forgo it altogether.• Asian restaurants serve generous helpings. Consider ordering one en-tree and splitting it with a friend, unless you want to take the left-overs home.

Italian Restaurants•

For an appetizer, try vegetable antipasto (if available), with dress-ing on the side.• Look for entrees such as grilled chicken and fish, as well as Ital-ian dishes that are marked as low  in fat. • Avoid entrees prepared in cream sauce or Alfredo sauce.• Ask the waiter to leave the rolls and breadsticks in the kitchen or if you must indulge, use butter flavored CapTri® instead of butter.• When ordering a dinner salad, request dressing on the side. • Opt for steamed vegetables as your side dish over pasta. Make sure the vegetables are steamed.

Mexican Restaurants•

Grilled chicken, shrimp, or lean meat entrees are good choices.• Request pico de gallo (a mixture of chopped tomatoes, green pep-pers, and onions) instead of salsa.• Mexican rice or black bean soup are nice accompaniments to a Mexican meal. So are the re-fried beans, but check first to see whether they are prepared in lard, or baked or boiled, and seasoned. If they aren’t refried in lard, enjoy them.• A dinner salad with non-fat salad dressing is a healthy meal-starter.

Steakhouse• Order grilled lean meat, chick-en, salmon, or other fish (prepared without oil).• For a side dish, select a steamed vegetable such as broccoli.• At the salad bar, stick to fresh vegetables and non-fat or low-fat salad dressing. Many salad bars serve fresh fruit too, which makes for a great dessert.

Homestyle or Cafeteria Restau-rant•

Request grilled or lemon chicken, turkey breast without the gravy, or white fish prepared without sauce or oil.• Select steamed vegetables (no sauce or butter), salad with non-fat dressing, or carrot/vegetable med-ley prepared without butter or mar-garine.•Blindfold yourself when passing by the dessert line.

Fast-Food Restaurants•

Most fast-food establishments have salads on their menus; grilled chicken  salads are your best bets. Order re-duced-fat salad dressing with your salad. • If there’s a salad bar, stick to fresh vegetables and fat-free salad  dressing.

At fast-food restaurants that serve fish, order baked fish, steamed veg-etables, and a salad.Parties• Eat a meal before you go to the party to fend off hunger pangs and cravings. • Snack on fresh vegetables and fruit (but pass up the dip).• If you’re going to dinner with a group of friends and are concerned that you’ll overeat, eat some natural high-fiber foods (like raw vegeta-bles or fruit) before you go. You’ll be less likely to pig out later.• Offer to bring a couple of your own dishes (low-fat, of course) to the gathering.• Instead of a cocktail, drink a diet soda or carbonated water with a twist of lemon or lime. On the surface, it may not seem like fun to limit yourself to cer-tain foods when eating out. But rest assured: The ability to make healthy choices at restaurants is just one more positive step toward getting in great shape. You’ll feel better, and your body will love you for it.

Bulletin #157 – Dessicated Liver: A Nutrient Treasure Trove for Exercisers

One of the best all-around supple-ments for active people is desic-cated liver, available in the Par-rillo Liver Amino Formula™. This is a concentrated form of beef liver that has been processed to remove the cholesterol but to pre-serve the nutrient content of the  liver. Desiccated liver is an important source of iron, a critical mineral for exercisers, bodybuilders, and ath-letes.

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The major job of iron in the body is to combine with protein and copper to manufacture hemoglobin, a component of red blood cells that carries oxygen in the blood from the lungs to the tissues. Without enough hemoglobin, tissues are deprived of oxygen, often resulting in fatigue, breathlessness, and a rapid heart beat.Desiccated liver is also naturally rich in B-complex vitamins; vita-mins A, B, C, and D; calcium and phosphorus, with four times the nu-tritional value in the same amount of cooked whole liver.

B vitamins in particular, are responsible for pro-viding energy to the body, mainly by converting carbohydrates into glucose, an important fuel for cells. B vitamins are also important for the metabolism of protein and fat, healthy functioning of the nervous system, maintenance of muscle tone in the gastrointestinal tract, and the health of the skin, hair, eyes, mouth,  and liver.When the body is properly forti-fied with iron from food and from a supplement such as Parrillo Liver Amino™, with its combination of iron and other nutrients, there are many benefits. Weight training, for example can deplete iron stores.

Eating foods rich in iron, such as lean meats, dark leafy vegetables, and dessicated liver helps replen-ish that iron. Supplementing with iron may also help prevent some-thing known as “sports anemia,” a temporary condition character-ized by a drop in hemoglobin in  response to exercise.Getting the iron you need from prop-er nutrition and supplementation is clearly important to your exercise program and overall health. With your iron stores full, you can poten-tially increase your aerobic capacity (combined with aerobic training), extend your energy, and improve your body’s recuperative pow-ers. This all adds up to maximum  performance and better health.

Bulletin #156 – The Many Wonders of Minerals

With so many supplements on the market, sometimes the basic ones get forgotten – like minerals, the work-horse of just about every reaction in your body. Every supplement proto-col we have in our program includes two important supplements: our Par-rillo Essential Vitamin Formula™ and our Parrillo Mineral Electrolyte Formula™. Here’s a look at some of the key minerals in the latter – and how they can benefit your body and health.Calcium: Of all minerals in your body, calcium is the most abundant. It accounts for 40 percent of your skeleton, and about 99 percent of the calcium in your body is depos-ited in bones and teeth. These struc-tures are hardened and strengthened by calcium, working in combina-tion with the mineral phosphorus.

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The remaining one percent of the body’s calcium is concentrated in the soft tissues where it plays an essential role in muscle contrac-tion, nerve transmission, blood coagulation, and the activity of  the heart.Although calcium is vital for bone health, it is being studied for other health benefits. For example, emerg-ing research hints that it may pro-mote normal insulin action. That’s important, since if insulin is out of whack, it can promote weight gain. Calcium has also been implicated in research showing a weight loss ef-fect. And for more than 20 years, scientists have known that ample calcium helps control and prevent high blood pressure – a silent killer you want to avoid.Magnesium: Magnesium is the maestro of more than 400 meta-bolic reactions in your body. Some examples: It helps orchestrate the protein-making machinery inside the cells of soft tissues; helps direct the metabolism of potassium, cal-cium, and vitamin D; is necessary for the release of energy; helps your muscles relax after contracting; and plays a central role in the secretion and action of insulin.

Bodily stores of magnesium are valuable in help-ing the body handle glucose and maintain proper blood levels for even energy levels throughout the day.A magnesium deficiency can makes the body’s cells less sensitive to in-sulin, and a severe magnesium de-ficiency can cause abnormalities in the function of the heart and is pos-sibly related to cardiovascular dis-ease, heart attack, and high blood pressure.How do you know if you’re mag-nesium-needy? In some cases, your doctor may order a test in which magnesium is administered intra-venously and urine is collected over a 24-hour period. The test is usually reserved for people at a known risk of magnesium deficien-cy, and these cases include patients with congestive heart failure, heart attack, ketoacidosis, alcohol abuse, potassium or calcium deficiency, and chronic use of certain drugs.Potassium: Potassium serves the body in many ways. It assists the nerves in sending messages, helps digestive enzymes do their work, ensures proper muscle function-ing (including that of the heart), regulates water balance, and re-leases energy from protein, car-bohydrates, and fats.

A potassium deficiency can lead to irregular heart beats, high blood pressure, muscular weakness, fatigue, kid-ney and lung problems, and insu-lin resistance. Zinc: Zinc is at the heart of many activities in your body. For ex-ample, it helps: absorb vitamins; break down carbohydrates; syn-thesize nucleic acid, which di-rects the manufacture of protein in cells; and regulate the growth and development of reproductive organs. Zinc is also a component of insulin, and it prevents defi-ciencies that can lead to problems in your body’s use of insulin. Zinc-poor diets are also associ-ated with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, elevated tri-glycerides, and impaired glucose tolerance.Selenium: You can get powerful anticancer protection by stocking up on foods rich in selenium, an important antioxidant mineral. Such foods include fish, nuts, and whole grains. A huge body of evi-dence proves that diets low in sele-nium are a significant risk factor for cancers. In studying world popula-tions, scientists have discovered that people with low-selenium diets are more prone to have cancers of the breast, colon, liver, skin, and lung.

Over the years, several studies have suggested that selenium also helps reduce risk of prostate cancer, the second deadliest form of cancer in American men. Selenium works by protecting cells from damage. It may also block the action of carcinogens by interfering with their metabolism.Chromium Picolinate: Chromium is a trace mineral that helps turn carbohydrates into glucose (blood sugar), the fuel burned by cells for energy. Chromium also helps regulate and produce the hormone insulin. Plenty of research over the years has found that chromium picolinate may improve body com-position and promote weight loss in healthy adults. It also may stimu-late the burning of carbohydrates so that they are converted into energy given off as heat, rather than being turned into body fat. Chromium is also believed to help stimulate the metabolism. Further, it appears to aid in protein synthesis. Assisted by chromium, insulin helps amino ac-ids gain access to cells, where they reassemble themselves to construct new muscle tissue.

Thus, chromium may have an indirect effect on mus-cle growth.Iodine: This mineral in our supple-ment comes in the form of kelp, a nutritious sea vegetable rich in io-dine. Iodine is a trace mineral that helps the thyroid gland produce thy-roxin, the principal thyroid hormone involved in metabolism.Supplementing With MineralsYes, you can get protective levels of these minerals from natural foods – including lean proteins, whole grains, and vegetables, but it’s a good idea to hedge your bets and take a mineral supplement. Per pill, Parrillo Min-eral-Electrolyte™ contains 250 mg of calcium; 5 mg of iron; 250 mg of phosphorus; 75 mcg of iodine in the form of kelp; 250 mg of magnesium; 11 mg of zinc; 50 mcg of selenium; 500 mcg of copper; 10 mg of man-ganese; 25 mcg of chromium pico-linate; 45 mg of potassium; 500 mcg of boron; along with other nutrients. I recommend that you take one tab-let with each meal during the day for improved metabolism and well-be-ing.

Bulletin #155 – Carotenoids Count!

Don’t risk your health by short-changing yourself on orange, red, and yellow fruits and vegetables. They’re brimming with carotenoids, a kind of super-antioxidant making news.  Carotenoids are responsible for the colorful hues of plants and even some animal foods, including salmon and shrimp. But they do more than serve as natural pigments. Carotenoids have “provitamin A activity,” mean-ing that your body produces vitamin A from them, especially beta-caro-tene (the most well known of the  carotenoids).As antioxidants, these protective nutrients neutralize free radicals at the cellular level, thus protect-ing cell membranes, DNA, and other cellular components against  damage.The first carotenoid to be isolated was beta-carotene. Today, scien-tists have discovered more than 600 carotenoids and are reporting that many may be a hundred times more powerful than beta-carotene and other antioxidants alone.

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Among the main carotenoids now under the most investigation are alpha-caro-tene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein, ly-copene, and zeaxanthin.Alpha-carotene, which makes up about one-third of the carotenoids in carrots, shows promise in stalling the growth of certain malignant tu-mors and may be protective against breast cancer. Beta-carotene reduc-es the risk of cancers of the colon, rectum, breast, uterus, prostate, and lung.

Beta-cryptoxanthin looks promis-ing against breast cancer and lung cancer. Lycopene appears to be protective against cancer of the colon, bladder, and pancreas, but is particularly noteworthy for its role in preventing prostate cancer. In a diet study sponsored by the  National Cancer Institute, research-ers identified lycopene as being par-ticularly powerful against prostate cancer. Tomato sauce, tomatoes, tomato juice, and pizza are prima-ry sources of lycopene, and those individuals who consumed greater than 10 servings of these combined foods per week had a significant-ly decreased risk of developing prostate cancer when compared to those who ate less than 1 1/2  servings per week.Lutein, better known for prevent-ing eye diseases, may guard against cancer of the colon, lung and breast. Its less-well-known companion ca-rotenoid, zeaxanthin, is linked to a lower risk of breast, cervical, and colon cancers. Both carotenoids are being investigated for their role in preventing skin cancer.

The table on the following page provides an overview of the key carotenoids, their health benefits, and food sources in which they’re found.As extra insurance for all the an-tioxidant nutrients you need, be sure you’re supplementing daily with Parrillo Essential Vitamin Formula™ and Parrillo Mineral-Electrolyte Formula™.What You Can Do Now: There’s no recommended daily require-ment for beta-carotene and oth-er carotenoids. However, many health experts recommend 6 mil-ligrams a day of beta-carotene. When you eat beta-carotene-rich foods, you’re automatically get-ting other carotenes.Here are some tips for super-charging your diet with carot-enoids:• Use the counter to identify the best sources of carotenoids. In-clude these foods in your daily diet.• Color your plate with as many colorful vegetables you can. The more colorful your food selec-tions, the more carotenoids you’ll eat.• Eat canned soups with a tomato base.• Drink vegetable juices rather than sodas.• Eat a hefty serving of tomatoes or tomato-based foods at least twice a week or more.

• Add extra tomato sauce or paste to soups or stews.• Eat sandwiches and salads with to-matoes.• Make sure fruits and vegeta-bles are as fresh as possible. Once they’re plucked from the vine or harvested from the ground, their antioxidant power starts to  dwindle.• Snack on raw fruits and vegetables to get the most carotenoids. One exception, though, is carrots, which actually release more carot-enoids when cooked.• Enjoy exotic fruits such as guavas or mangoes for a change of pace.• Blend cooked carrots or pump-kin into a smoothie.

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