It’s not who diets the hardest, it’s who diets the smartest: Some people try to lose too much fat too quickly by making drastic dietary changes. Your body is like a thermostat: it does not respond well to severe change of any kind. If you drastically lower your caloric intake, your body begins hoarding fat and slowing its metabolic rate to conserve energy. Soon, you feel bad (you have no energy) and look terrible (you store fat and lose mass). Sure, you may lose some bodyfat, but you also lose a lot of muscle mass, not to mention your sanity, your spouse, and perhaps your job! Rather than making a quantum leap from off-season dieting to pre-contest starvation, we encourage bodybuilders to gradually modify their off-season diet while simultaneously increasing the time and intensity of their aerobics. By doing so, you give your body time to adjust so it can continue to burn bodyfat and maintain muscle mass.

Training Tip of the month:

The Essential Elements of Good Form,

A Five Part Series

Element #2: Use slow, strict reps in both the lifting and lowering portion of each exercise.

When you’re moving too fast through the exercise, inertia—and very little of your own muscle power—is doing all the work. So you’re really not getting much from the exercise. Plus, fast lifting is very stressful on your connective tissue. Each rep should be performed in a slow, controlled fashion throughout the range of motion. There’s one exception, however. If you need to strengthen your connective tissue for another sport, perform the last rep of each set in a fast, explosive way, or do an entire set this way.

Question of the month:

Question: I’m trying to convince my workout partner that the off-season is just as important as preparing for a bodybuilding show. Can you back me up on this one?

Answer: Intelligent bodybuilders always maintain a good off-season diet. They utilize these months to add lean muscle mass and minimize bodyfat. They eat basically the same foods as they would on a pre-contest diet, but in larger quantities and slightly different protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. When it is time to start a pre-contest diet they have less bodyfat and more muscle mass. Smart bodybuilders know that preparation for the next contest begins the day after the last contest. Bodybuilding is a year-round lifestyle and the off-season is as important, if not more so, than the pre-contest period. It’s no accident that the most ripped bodybuilders are also have the most dedication to a strict off-season diet program.

News & Discoveries

In Fitness & Nutrition

Carriers of “Plaque” Gene at Greater Risk

When it comes to obesity, all fat deposits are not alike. A study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-funded scientists found that individuals who were born with a particular gene variant had a significantly greater buildup of plaque in their arteries than those who were not carriers. The researchers found that among more than 2,000 local study participants, those who had a particular variant of the APOA5 gene had higher levels of arterial plaque, as measured by carotid artery lining thickness.

Although obesity is a known contributing factor to heart disease, the problem was shown to be even worse among the 13 percent of both men and women who carry the less common gene variant. High blood lipids, such as total and LDL cholesterol and triglycerides—which can be detected through blood tests—are both genetically and environmentally controlled contributors to coronary artery disease risk. This study showed that it may be more important for some people than for others to make preventive dietary and lifestyle changes, depending upon their genetic makeup.

- By Rosalie Marion Bliss, Sept. 2007, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

Quick Tip of the month:

Think about joining a Community-supported agriculture program to get a weekly “CSA” produce box delivered to you. What’s better than having a great variety of fresh locally-grown vegetables delivered right to your door? In some areas you can even get locally-raised meat, poultry and grain products in your CSA box, saving you time spent waiting in line at the grocery store.

Dominique’s Time Cruncher

ÚTry one of the new “mini blender/food processors” now available, they are great time savers! You can chop onions and other veggies in them, make salsa, bean dip, and even dessert with them. Plus, the clean-up is a snap, just put the mixing cup in the dishwasher. Here’s one idea for a quick sweet treat: Put one scoop of Chocolate Ice Kreem Mix™ in the mixing cup, along with 8 oz of water and a handful of ice cubes. Blend until frothy and enjoy as a delicious milk shake. You can also put the blended mixture in the freezer and enjoy as a frozen treat!

Typically, the first question a new client asks of a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainers is, “How do I fit in training when I am working long hours and have lots of outside responsibilities and commitments? I can’t spend two hours a day in the gym.” Any Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer (PCPT) will be quick to point out transformative fitness does not need to take a lot of time if the time spent is well spent. In Parrillo World, when we train, we train all out: cardio and weight training are done with gut-busting intensity. Better to spend thirty minutes using blistering intensity than to pretend train for two hours, engaging in halfhearted training, interspersed with lots of socializing and talking with other gym members. If you work hard and work smart you can get by with way less, particularly if you make it a point to not socialize during workouts. As one fabled IFBB professional once noted, “When I train, I feel as if I am in a battle with my own body. I am not at the gym to hit on women or shuck and jive with the other fellows. I might say a few words to my training partner about how I want him to spot me on the next set. Other than that, don’t come over and try and strike up a conversation with me while I’m training. You’ll get the cold shoulder. If you want to talk with me save it for after the workout.” In every single workout maintain tight concentration and become completely focused; that way you’ll get the most return for your time investment.

When it comes to obtaining real results, the Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer trumps the run-of-the-mill personal trainer you’ll encounter at the local fitness facility, gym, club or spa every single time. 99% of all personal trainers only know one way to train. You could fit their nutritional knowledge on the head of a pin. The average personal trainer insists that you train their particular way – not because his or her strategy is all that sensational, factually this is the only way they know. You are the square peg being jammed into a round hole. Any PCPT is ready, willing and completely able to select from a dozen different customized training templates. PCPT will customize a training strategy for every single client. The idea behind Parrillo-style weight training and cardio is to make maximum use of the available training time – no matter how limited or sporadic that might be. Parrillo Certified Personal Trainers have umpteen training strategies all right at their fingertips and all equally effective. A PCPT will quiz you about your work schedule and effortlessly constructs a training template that meshes perfectly with your lifestyle. How best to deliver the most results for the least amount of time investment? Subject yourself to the most grueling, intense and effective weight training and cardio sessions of your entire life. Intense training is result producing training. If you train hard and if you train intense, you don’t necessarily need overly long workout sessions. Those employing the services of a PCPT can expect to see dramatic physical improvement by the end of the first month.

How do we manipulate ordinary circumstance to obtain extraordinary results? Here is a true tale based on the true story of a Parrillo Performance Press reader and his dramatic transformation working under a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer…

Ron is a real estate agent working in a down economy; he manages a branch office for a national real estate firm and has a work schedule that requires him to put in 50+ hours per week. He starts his workday at 9am and most days he heads home at 7pm. He works a half day on Saturday and has a wife and two teenage boys that need attending to. Over the past ten years Ron had packed on a ton of bodyweight and he weighed 240 pounds standing six foot. The former star football halfback looked like an out-of-shape nose-guard. He was worried that the combination of job stress and fast food was going to give him a heart attack by age 50. Determined to ‘stem the tide’ Ron engaged the services of a local PCPT. Ron was spurred into action when he saw the fantastic physical transition a friend of his underwent working with a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer. His friend was a settlement lawyer and shed 70 pounds in a year. Ron quizzed his attorney pal on how he’d managed to make such an incredible physical transition. He discovered that the amazing makeover was overseen by a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer. Introductions were made and Ron met Phil, a longtime PCPT. Phil had a no BS approach that Ron related to. Ron agreed to commit to a 12 week program that included weight training three times a week and cardio five days a week – all done in the morning before work. In addition, Phil had Ron adopt the Parrillo Nutrition Program, complete with supplementation and weekly BodyStat body composition testing.

Both men agreed that the only way Ron could fit training into his hectic work schedule was for Ron to wake up early and train before work. Monday thru Friday Ron awoke at 5 am and headed to a local fitness facility on his way into work. For the first four weeks Phil had Ron on a “shape-up” routine. This was designed to get Ron back into some semblance of basic physical condition without killing him in the process. Cardio was done five times a week and in each successive session, Phil asked Ron to go a little faster. Each successive weight training session, Phil had Ron lift a little bit heavier or squeeze out a few extra reps in each exercise. Each successive week Phil had Ron clean up and tighten up his eating. At the conclusion of each training week, Phil gave Ron a Parrillo BodyStat test; he used skin-fold calipers to determine changes in Ron’s body composition. By the end of the first month Ron had shed 11 pounds of fat and added 3 pounds of muscle. He was now ready to swing into the second month. “You are in good basic shape, now you have a handle on the basic eating and supplementation template and now we can start the real work!” Phil said as he laid out the training template for month two and three. The key to “fitting everything in” was to get it done before he started his workday. Now instead of dragging into work and having to drink four cups of coffee to get the day started, he burst through the door fired up from his just-finished training. He tackled the workday with gusto. Here is how Ron’s 2^nd and 3^rd month training template was constructed (see below). He weight trained and performed cardio five times weekly.

Parrillo-style cardio: Ron left home dressed for the gym. He carried with him his business suit which he stashed in a gym locker. At 6:30 every morning Ron mounted a cardio machine and began a brisk 5 minute warm up. He would then gradually increase the pace and before long he broke into a terrific, toxin-expelling sweat. “If you ain’t sweating, if you ain’t huffing and puffing,” Phil would continually remind him, “Then you ain’t working hard enough to burn off fat and spike the metabolism.” Ron was a Type-A personality and he found that he had an ability to push himself in the gym. Ron also bored easily. He found that one way to keep his interest peaked on cardio was to jump from one machine to another, alternating machines every quarter hour. After 15 torrid minutes on the elliptical machine, Ron might leap onto the Step Mill. This gruesome device was tough and he labeled it, “Pure hell.” After the Step Mill, Ron would shift to the relative ease of a stationary bike and attempt to keep the intense pace up for the final fifteen minutes. Phil showed Ron how to cruise along right below his oxygen debt threshold. Done, Ron would jump off the bike, change out of his sweat-drenched t-shirt into a dry one and down a double chocolate 50/50 Plus™ shake. Now it was time to weight train!

Parrillo-style weight training: “The key to result-producing weight training is finding some manner or fashion to equal or exceed capacity in each and every session,” Phil told Ron repeatedly. While Phil did not expect Ron to exceed his personal best in every lift in every session, he did expect him to work up to (and past) his capacity – even if his capacity was diminished. “While you cannot be expected to exceed all-time best lifts in every single session, you can still get a result-producing workout,” Phil explained. “You might show up today and be a bit off, for whatever reason; perhaps on an off day you lose 10% in your exercise capacity…that’s okay…we work to equal or exceed those reduced capacities.” Phil was real big on forced reps and whenever he was around he would assist Ron in performing forced rep sets on whatever body part Ron was working on. Phil showed Ron how to use drop sets to “goose the training intensity.” Phil called drop sets “forced reps without a training partner.” If, for example, Ron was performing the overhead dumbbell press, on his final set he would finish off using the drop set strategy: he would work up to a pair of 50 pound dumbbells for a top set of 5 reps. The instant he finished the 5^th and final rep Ron would replace the 50s and immediately grab a pair of 40 pound dumbbells and again “rep-out,” pushing the 40s for as many reps as possible…he would replace the 40s and immediately grab a pair of 30 pound dumbbells and do a final all-out drop-set rep-out. This excruciating strategy was used on curls, tricep pushdowns, lateral raises, pec dec, seated machine bench presses, leg extensions and leg curls. Within three months Ron had doubled his strength in every exercise. His formerly flaccid physique developed a visible thickness and hardness. With each successive session he grew stronger, more muscular and leaner. Friends, relatives and coworkers were amazed.

The final piece of the puzzle: Phil completely revamped Ron’s nutrition. Phil taught Ron how to prepare massive amounts of “acceptable and approved” bodybuilding foods ahead of time. Sunday afternoons were used to grill chicken and turkey; he learned how to create steamed vegetable concoctions and prepare brown rice and potatoes for consumption during the week. Ron would cart his prepared bodybuilding meals to work and heat them up in the office microwave. His multiple-meal eating schedule was “straight Parrillo.” (see chart below)

To Ron’s everlasting credit, for three straight months he never missed a workout, never missed a Parrillo Meal and he took his supplements faithfully. His reward was an astounding transformation. In only 90 short days Ron had gone from stressed-out, fat and unfit into lean, trim, strong and vibrant: he looked, felt and acted 10 years younger and his pant size went from 38 down to size 32. His bodyweight plummeted from 238 to 204. His shirt size went up from 44 to 48. His bench press went from an awkward 135 for four reps to 225 for one and 205 x 5. Best of all he felt healthy; more than just feeling healthy, his blood pressure dropped, his cholesterol dropped, his stress levels dropped and his resting heart rate dropped. His progress was so staggering that his wife Denise started training with him. She had ballooned up to 150 pounds and after seeing her husband’s radical progress she wanted in. “I can’t believe you eat all that food and still lose weight,” she said repeatedly. Denise morphed from a naysayer into a cheerleader and finally a participant. One night after a killer weekend workout they had taken together, they talked over grilled salmon, fresh asparagus, spinach, potatoes roasted with butter-flavored CapTri® and Parrillo Ice Kreem™. Denise shed 10 pounds in her first month. She looked at her lean and taunt husband and said, “Who knew fitness could be so fun and dieting could be so delicious!” Ron just smiled and silently thanked his lucky stars he’d crossed paths with a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer.

To locate a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer in your area, call us at 1-800-344-3404

The Essential Elements of Good Form,

A Five Part Series

Element #1: Proper alignment of the muscles prior to exercise

This means correct positioning of the muscle or muscle groups to be worked—before you even begin the exercise. A case in point is the bench press. Most lifters use the strength of their delts to push through this exercise. The ultimate result is a great set of delts but flat upper pecs. To work the pecs, you must press your shoulders down and back into the bench while thrusting your chest forward. This subtle change in positioning puts the mechanical advantage on the pecs, placing emphasis where it belongs. The Parrillo Training Manual discusses the proper setup for 41 basic bodybuilding exercises (found in Ch. 4.) Be sure to pay close attention to each exercise description.

nutrition Tip of the month:

Practice proper food combining: Each meal in The Parrillo Nutrition Program includes a lean protein source such as egg whites, white meat chicken or turkey or fish; one or two starchy carbohydrates such as brown rice, oatmeal, potatoes, sweet potatoes or corn; and one or two fibrous carbohydrates such as broccoli, cauliflower, green beans or salad vegetables. This combination of foods at each meal has two important benefits. It slows digestion for consistent energy levels and increased endurance throughout the day and it provides a constant supply of nutrients so your body can maintain its energy, repair, and growth status. Avoid refined and simple carbohydrates such as pasta, bread and sugars. These foods are released into the body too quickly, overloading metabolic processes. Unable to be burned rapidly enough, the extra calories from these carbohydrates are easily converted to body fat.

Question of the month:

Question: What are some of the benefits of stretching during workouts?

Answer: Stretching has incredible benefits when integrated into a weight training program. The stretching I use is very specialized—a method I developed just for bodybuilders, called “fascial stretching,” a term I coined and defined. Combined with weight training, it multiplies the results!

• Your muscle size increases when stretching is a regular part of your training program. Stretching also gives the muscle better shape, with more separation.

• Stretching elicits responses in muscle groups that have reached sticking points in training.

• Done consistently, stretching also makes you stronger. You can raise your golgi tendon reflex threshold by regularly stretching your muscles, tendons and ligaments. As a result, you’ll be able to handle more weight with ever-increasing intensity.

• Stretching makes your body more flexible, giving your muscles and the joints they connect, greater range of motion. Stretching also helps prevent muscle soreness and promotes better recovery.

News & Discoveries In Fitness & Nutrition

Baby’s Obesity Risk: What’s Mom’s Influence?

Aspiring moms may be advised to achieve a healthy weight before they become pregnant, and to gain only the recommended amount of weight during their pregnancy. Now ongoing studies by Agricultural Research Service-funded investigator Kartik Shankar and colleagues could provide new insights into those recommendations. Shankar is taking a new, closer look at how influences that occur in the womb—and perhaps during the first few months of life—might affect development of a child’s ability to regulate his or her weight later in life.

In fact, the child’s body-weight-regulating mechanisms might be permanently altered by maternal signals associated with the mother’s own overweight, according to Shankar. Such maternal programming of the unborn child could increase the risk that the child would become an overweight or obese adult and would have a higher risk of obesity-related afflictions. Shankar looked at weight gains among rat pups whose dads were lean and whose mothers, called “dams,” were either lean or overweight (from overfeeding) before conception and throughout pregnancy.

All offspring were of normal weight at birth and at weaning. However, when the weaned offspring were given free access to an unlimited amount of high-fat rations, the offspring of overweight dams showed remarkable sensitivity to the high-fat rations. They gained significantly more weight, and more of that weight as fat mass, than did the offspring of lean dams. The study strongly suggests that exposure to the mother’s obesity while in the womb results in programming of the offspring’s metabolism and body-weight-control mechanisms. The dams’ obesity alone was sufficient to significantly increase the pups’ susceptibility to obesity.

Quick Tip of the month:

Broccoli Coins: Don’t overlook broccoli stalks!

Did you know that broccoli stalks are edible and taste just as good as the florets? All you need to do after you trim off the florets is peel any tough areas on the outer skin with a vegetable peeler, then slice into ¼ inch thick “coins”, and cook them right along with the florets. Get more for your money with less waste!

- By Marcia Wood, March 2010, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

Dominique’s Time Cruncher

ÚHere’s a quick vinaigrette to add flavor to your steamed veggies like broccoli, green beans, asparagus or brussels sprouts. In a small bowl, whisk together: ¼ cup balsamic vinegar, 1 clove minced garlic, 1 tsp. ground mustard (optional), a pinch of salt and black pepper, then whisk in ¾ cup CapTri® MCT Oil. Add a few tablespoons to steamed veggies and toss. Keep the leftover vinaigrette in the refrigerator, whisking well before using.

Parrillo Whey powder™ & Creatine Monohydrate™;

Made from the finest ingredients available:

A lot of supplement makers are cutting corners in tight times. At Parrillo Performance Products results still matter and corners aren’t cut. Elite athletes use our products because of the purity and the potency. Those that incorporate John’s innovative training and nutritional strategies make radical progress. Parrillo offers a no nonsense approach for those intent on building muscle mass: consume two Optimized Whey™ protein shakes per day, take upwards of 5 to 10 grams of potent Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ and use CapTri® to boost the clean calorie intake. Eat big but eat clean; train hard and train heavy, use target supplementation to accelerate progress. Please don’t neglect (or drop altogether) aerobics during a mass-building phase. Too many trainees cut out cardio in the mistaken belief that aerobic exercise interferes with muscle size gains. Cardio exercise, handled correctly, keeps the metabolism revved and the appetite kicking. Cardio makes you far fitter and far more able to take longer, harder and more frequent Parrillo-style high intensity workouts. Keep the cardio cranking and the body weight gains will be muscle gains. A serious mass-building effort should last for eight to twelve weeks at a minimum and should be attacked in a methodical fashion. Each week eat more clean calories, each week kick up the training poundage. Constant cardio keeps the metabolism from becoming sluggish. Each week use the whey-creatine-CapTri® combination to kick everything up to the next level.

Supplementing the food-based multiple-meal eating plan:

John Parrillo once famously said, “Food is the greatest supplement ever invented.” Lean protein, fiber carbohydrates, starch carbs and potent nutritional supplements form the backbone of the Parrillo nutritional game plan. Food forms the foundation, the nutritional base. The bad news is that the Parrillo Nutritional Program is strict: you eat only “approved” foods. The good news is, assuming you don’t stray from the food selections, you are allowed and encouraged to eat a lot of these approved foods. Lots of clean calories are spread out over the course of the day, 5 to 8 meals are eaten each day. A meal is consumed every 2-3 waking hours and the metabolism has to “rev up” in order to digest the hard-to-digest lean proteins and the hard-to-digest fibrous carbs. A classical “Parrillo meal” consists of a serving of lean protein, a serving or two of fibrous carbohydrates and a serving of starchy carbohydrates. The human body will produce heat during the protein and fiber digestive process. The resultant body heat is called the thermic effect of feeding (TEF). Some foods are easy to digest and don’t create a lot of body heat; these foods have a predisposition to end up partitioned into body fat storage. Other foods are difficult to digest and the body heats up to a dramatic degree to deal with the digestive effort. The hard-to-digest foods are preferentially used to build muscle or power activity. Obviously a bodybuilder seeking to become as lean and muscular as possible will bias their food consumption towards the nutrient-dense, hard-to-digest foods while avoiding the easy-to-digest foods that preferentially end up stored as excess body fat.

Building the metabolism:

The metabolic rate is the rate of energy expenditure and has several components: the basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the body’s rate of energy expenditure while at rest; the thermic effect of feeding (TEF) is related to how hard or how easy it is to digest a specific food; this is sometimes called “diet-induced thermogenesis.” The TEF is defined as “the increase in energy expenditure caused by eating certain foods.” The thermic effect of activity (TEA) is how many calories are expended during a particular
activity.

• In the Parrillo Nutrition Program meals are eaten every 2-3 waking hours. Each time a Parrillo Meal is eaten the metabolism must accelerate in order to aid the digestive process. Only approved foods are eaten.

• Creatine Monohydrate™ allows for longer and harder workouts and allows extra, growth producing reps. Research suggests that depleting phosphocreatine reserves serves as a muscle growth stimulator. Creatine supplementation can play a major role in “muscle force” production and allows for much more intense muscular contractions. Creatine supplementation enables the hard training athlete to push or pull extra growth-inducing repetitions.

• Muscle tissue needs protein to grow. The body needs protein to recover from the trauma associated with intense weight training. Whey protein is an extremely efficient protein delivery system. Whey
protein delivers its protein payload quickly and this quick availability is used to the bodybuilder’s
advantage.

• CapTri® provides calories needed to ensure muscle growth. Impossible to end up stored as body fat, CapTri® calories are used to build muscle or provide energy. Elite bodybuilders will take thousands of CapTri® calories per day. CapTri® calories ensure “positive nitrogen balance,” a highly desirable metabolic state.  Unless we take in more calories than we expend on a consistent daily basis, no muscle growth is possible.

Why Whey?

Whey protein is loaded with branch-chain amino acids: valine, isoleuine and leucine. These particular amino acids promote muscle healing and speed up muscular recovery. The quicker you recover from a training session the more sessions you can squeeze in over the course of the training week. Whey protein makes an ideal post-workout drink because whey protein is quickly available. After an intense, endorphin-producing weight training session, nutrients are transported to muscles at an accelerated rate. By drinking an Optimized Whey™ protein shake immediately after training (33 grams of protein, no sugar or fat, only four carbs) the body “up takes” the healing protein in an
accelerated fashion.

Because of the low number of carbs in Optimized Whey™, elite bodybuilders drink a Parrillo whey shake immediately upon awaking in the morning. Cardio exercise has the optimal effect if it is done before the first meal of the day. Morning cardio presents a terrific opportunity to melt off body fat. Glycogen stores are at their lowest levels after sleeping all night. If an intense aerobic session is done first thing in the morning, before eating breakfast, the body, deprived of glycogen, will burn stored body fat in glycogen’s absence. Drinking a whey protein shake containing only four carbs will not disrupt the low glycogen, post-sleep state.

Creatine Monohydrate:

When Creatine Monohydrate hit the commercial marketplace in 1991 the public went crazy for the stuff. Creatine zoomed to the top of nutritional product sales charts and stayed there for the next decade. Creatine Monohydrate still is one of the best selling nutritional products in the world. The reason is simple: the stuff works. Creatine Monohydrate is taken five to six times a day for a week during the initial “loading phase.” You saturate your system with CM for an initial ramp-up and after the loading phase is complete, cut back to one or two grams per day for the remainder of the creatine cycle. The post loading phase is called the “maintenance phase.”

Inside a muscle cell creatine helps produce and circulate adenosine triphosphate. ATP is a molecular fuel that powers muscular contractions. Creatine supplementation increases levels of a high energy compound called creatine phosphate. The more ATP available to cells, the longer, harder and heavier you can work out. Creatine assists in the manufacture of contractile proteins within muscle fiber and creatine supplementation postpones exercise fatigue. Studies have shown that when creatine levels fall off within a working muscle, complete fatigue occurs quickly. Keeping muscles pumped full of creatine phosphate  has proven to be a tremendous strategy for adding muscle mass. Clinical studies have repeatedly shown amazing increases in muscle mass within weight trained control groups taking creatine. Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ is potent and concentrated and not diluted with chemically-drenched fillers.

Pump up the volume with CapTri®:

Want to pump up the mass-building volume further yet? Combine creatine monohydrate with whey protein and then add CapTri® to the supplemental mix. It is critical for the muscle builder seeking to build mass to “stay anabolic.” You cannot recover, session to session, unless your nutrition is perfect. You will not be able to stand up to the cumulative pounding of upwards of six weight sessions per week, along with four to six weekly cardio sessions per week, unless your nutrition is perfect. In the Parrillo approach, the studied consumption of regular food is the nutritional foundation. On top of the rock solid food foundation (eating only approved foods) we add supplementation. The supplementation depends on the situation. Supplements are not designed to replace regular food; supplements are designed to “supplement” a rock-solid multiple meal eating schedule. CapTri® is used with each food meal in some manner or fashion as it “ups” the clean calories. CapTri® supplementation ensures the individual stays anabolic instead of “going catabolic.” When a hardcore trainee is overworked and underfed the body will break down and actually start cannibalizing its own muscle tissue in order to ward off starvation. The antidote to catabolism is calories. CapTri® offers a dense source of calories that are impossible to end up compartmentalized as body fat.

Solving the mass-building puzzle:

CapTri® provides the clean calories needed to recover from intense weight training. In order to build new muscle we need extra calories to grow. We also need lots of supplemental amino acids. That’s where Optimized Whey™ comes into play. We recommend those serious about building mass to consume a minimum of one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day: some students of John’s will take 2+ grams of protein per day! If you weigh 150 you would need to consume at least 150 grams of high quality protein each day. It can be difficult to eat that much protein. Supplemental protein shakes make hitting daily protein requirements a snap. CapTri® contains 120 calories per tablespoon and elite bodybuilders use it both for adding mass (tablespoons of CapTri® are sprinkled over food meals) in the off season to replace reduced starch calories. Parrillo Creatine Monohydrate™ rounds out this supplemental triangle. Creatine supplementation drenches the body with ATP and allows for longer and more intense muscular contractions. Science has shown the intense weight training and creatine supplementation can actually increase fiber diameter of individual contractile proteins within a muscle cross-section. Radical gains in size and strength are a foregone conclusion for those smart enough to use this three way combination. Cut corners and potential results will be compromised. Eat right and train hard and attain supplemental synergy through the combining of these three potent Parrillo
supplements.

Hey, this is Nate; I’m just one of the trainers here, at Parrillo Performance.  And I have some things I want you to know about myself, and Parrillo Performance.  Were currently among other things, a one-on-one, personal training facility that covers every needed aspect of making you feel, look, and live a healthier way.

When I’m not here working, I’m also a current student at Cincinnati State.  I’m majoring in health and fitness, and working towards my bachelors’ degree.  This is exciting for me, because when I’m done, I can now spend the majority of my time, helping different kinds of people get more out of their workouts.  The limitations people have are something I really appreciate, and I want to expand my education out as far as possible to cover every aspect.  “Helping others achieve their goals is one thing, but I want to help people push themselves forward to new goals, and realize what can lie ahead.”

I played roller hockey growing up at a very competitive level, and always played well against my peers.  I was about sixteen when I realized that pure skill and talent could only take me so far, I needed an edge over the rest of them.  This is when I found my love for working out, and later weight training, and also competitive bodybuilding.  At sixteen and halfway through the hockey season I realized that a lot of the other kids were beating me cause they were bigger and weighed more, they simply just out muscled me in the game.  This is when I started lifting weights and wanted to gain a few pounds so I wouldn’t get tossed around.  After a few workouts I was hooked, not only did I enjoy this more than playing hockey but I was better at it also.  At the time I was around 5’1’’ and weighed almost 125 pounds.  Eventually, as I started to learn more and the workouts progressed, there was no more time left to play the sport I was supposed to be training for.  Slowly but surely I started to get in better shape, gaining lean mass and changing my diet.  Since it was something I loved, I stuck with it.  Over the last 7 years of working out with all kinds of different people, in different gyms, getting Parrillo certified, and then teaching those structured values as a Parrillo Certified Personal Trainer.  People now ask for my advice on certain diet and training issues, and I’m always glad to help them.  This is my main passion, helping others achieve their fitness goals, and teaching people how to achieve their goals the right way.

What is Food Efficiency? It’s the calories consumed of a particular food divided by the resulting weight gain. Different foods are metabolized differently and are converted into body weight with different efficiencies. You may not have realized it, but a given number of calories from one food may have a very different effect on your body weight than the same number of calories from a different food. This is easy to prove: Just pull out 1,000 calories of potatoes and rice from your diet and replace it with 1,000 calories of candy and ice cream and see what happens.

So you must consider the net energy balance (calories consumed vs. calories expended) but also the type of calories consumed. To the human body, not all calories are the same. Different foods are digested at different rates and with different efficiencies, and different nutritients perform different functions within the body. Generally speaking, calories from protein are used for maintenance, repair, and growth of tissues and organs; calories from carbs are used for energy; and calories from conventional fat are very prone to be stored as body fat. Simply put, the net energy balance determines whether you’ll gain or lose weight, but what kind of foods you eat will determine if it’s muscle or fat.

Training Tip of the Month:

Pre-Contest Peaking: During pre-contest training, many bodybuilders shift to lighter weights, thinking that this practice will sharpen muscularity. This is a big mistake, however. You should continue your heavy training to support the mass and density you have achieved up to this point. Reducing your poundages will only make you look softer and smaller.

By promoting further gains in muscle mass, heavy work during pre-contest training keeps your metabolism revved up. Remember, the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is for fat-burning and muscle-building.

In the final weeks before your competition, perform one or two additional high rep sets at the end of each body part workout in order to increase the load on your red muscle fibers. By continuing your heavy work and combining it with high rep sets, you can better achieve your contest peak.

Question of the Month:

Question: What is sports anemia?

Answer: The condition known as sports anemia occurs when an athlete experiences a decrease in red blood cell count and serum iron levels during the early phase of training. This condition could be due to the fact that aerobic training causes an increase in myoglobin (an oxygen carrying protein) and cytochrome content of muscle tissue, and the protein and iron required for their formation could be obtained from destruction of red blood cells. In other words, myoglobin may be increased at the expense of hemoglobin if protein intake is inadequate. Furthermore, skeletal muscle fibers are damaged during intense exercise training, and this damage must be repaired during the recovery period following exercise. If dietary protein intake is inadequate, the body will draw on red blood cells, hemoglobin, and plasma proteins as a source of protein to repair the muscles. All the more reason to be sure you are fulfilling your body’s daily protein requirements during high intensity training and endurance exercise.

News & Discoveries

In Fitness & Nutrition

Vitamin D & Calcium Interplay Explored

Increasing calcium intake is a common—yet not always successful—strategy for reducing bone fractures. But a study supported in part by the Agricultural Research Service underscores the importance of vitamin D and its ability to help the body utilize calcium. The study also may explain why increasing calcium alone isn’t always successful in dealing with this problem. Currently, calcium intake recommendations are not tied to vitamin D status, which may explain why markedly different recommended calcium intakes exist among countries. In the United States, the recommended calcium intake is 1,200 milligrams (mg) daily for adults aged 50 and older.

The body’s skeleton needs adequate dietary calcium to reach its full potential in terms of bone mass. Still, many other factors affect bone mass, such as exercise, smoking and vitamin D—the latter through its effect on calcium absorption and direct effect on the skeleton. The study involved a close look at about 10,000 men and women aged 20 and older participating in a nationally representative survey.

Blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D are used as the primary indicator of vitamin D adequacy. Within the study sample of U.S. adults, a large fraction of younger and older adults were below a suggested desirable serum vitamin D concentration of at least 75 nanomoles-per-liter (nmol/L). The study supports the idea that correcting inadequate blood levels of vitamin D is more important than increasing dietary calcium intake beyond 566 mg a day among women and 626 mg a day among men for better bone mineral density. For example, a higher calcium intake beyond 566 mg a day may only be important among women whose vitamin D concentrations are low (less than 50 nmol/L), according to authors.

Quick Tip of the Month:

Here’s an idea for the warmer months coming up when you want a delicious frozen treat: Parrillo “Cookies and Kreem” Protein Ice Kreem! When you’re making Parrillo Ice Kreem™ in your ice cream maker, just add in some crumbled Parrillo Chocolate Shortbread Contest Cookies™. You’ll need to read your ice cream maker’s instructions to find out when you should add cookie pieces during the mixing process for best results.

- Rosalie Marion Bliss, Mar. 2010, Agricultural Research, Service, USDA

Dominique’s Time Cruncher

Ú Now’s the time to fire up the grill, so take advantage of the warm weather and use the grill to make your meals ahead of time. You can grill up a big batch of chicken all at once, then divide it up into containers for each meal. You can do the same with your veggies, like potatoes, onions, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, etc.

Selecting a good spotter: The use of a spotter crucial to intense training. A spotter lets you use advanced training techniques, monitors your form and helps break previous barriers. Not everyone with whom you work out with is an effective spotter, however. There is a real art to spotting.

Here are some guidelines for selecting
a good spotter:

• The spotter must have the mental capacity to be as focused in the workouts as you are.

• He/she is knowledgeable enough in physiology to know if you are using the right muscles.

• He/she has the ability to prompt you on proper form, and then correct you if necessary.

• He/she is a good communicator, capable of reading your non-verbal responses to workout exertion.

Remember, you may choose the best spotter in the world, but maximum intensity in every workout is still your responsibility—and yours only.

Nutrition Tip of the Month

Importance of Essential Fatty Acids: Are you getting enough essential fatty acids? The body is unable to manufacture EFAs itself, they must be obtained from the diet. Normally people don’t have to worry about EFA deficiency in this country because the typical diet contains so much fat. Furthermore, EFAs can be stored in body fat so a dietary deficiency won’t show up for a long time. Extremely lean athletes, however, who follow a low-fat diet for a prolonged time are definitely at increased risk for fatty acid deficiency. Have I ever actually seen any bodybuilders with the clinical symptoms of essential fatty acid deficiency? You bet. Did their symptoms resolve after fatty acid supplementation? Yes – rapidly and dramatically. Parrillo’s Evening Primrose Oil™ and Fish Oil DHA 800 EPA 200™ provide EFAs without excess non-essential fats, letting you maintain a low-fat diet.

Question of the Month

Question: Why are Parrillo Liver Amino Formula™ supplements recommended for bodybuilders and athletes?

Answer: Parrillo Liver Amino Formula™ is one of the best supplements available for bodybuilders and endurance athletes: It provides heme iron, high quality protein, and B vitamins all in one. Desiccated liver supplements, like Liver Amino™, represent probably the most bioavailable iron source. High potency beef liver tablets, taken at recurring intervals throughout the day, combined with sensible eating, will allow an athlete to have a better recovery rate all day long. Each tablet contains a whopping 1.5g of high BV protein – along with blood strengthening heme iron (women take note), plus a handful of B-12, Choline and Dibencozide as well. We recommend athletes take 5 to 8 tablets with each meal, depending on your size, and a handful before bed. These nighttime tabs will provide you with a nice anabolic jolt as they dissolve deep into the sleep cycle.

News and Discoveries in Fitness and Nutrition

Cooling Inflammation for Healthier Arteries

Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-funded scientists have reported new reasons for choosing “heart-healthy” oats at the grocery store. Nutritionist Mohsen Meydani, director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass., led the research on the oat compounds, called avenanthramides. Meydani previously has shown that phenolic antioxidants in oats obstruct the ability of blood cells to stick to artery walls.

Chronic inflammation inside the arterial wall is part of the process that eventually leads to a disorder known as atherosclerosis. Meydani and colleagues have reported findings that suggest the avenanthramides of oats decrease the expression of inflammatory molecules. The study showed that forms of avenanthramides possess potential anti-inflammatory properties through inhibiting factors that are linked with activating proinflammatory cytokines.Cytokines are small proteins released by cells while seeking to protect and repair tissue. Some trigger inflammation, for example, while responding to infection. Inhibiting inflammation through diet, drugs, or key nutrients is considered to be of great benefit in preventing atherosclerosis. Details of this study can be found in the scientific journal Free Radical Biology & Medicine.

The study provides additional indications of the potential health benefit of oat consumption in the prevention of coronary heart disease beyond its known effect through lowering blood cholesterol.

Quick Tip of the Month

Here are some easy ideas to add a little spice to your breakfast: Try adding a dash of cinnamon or nutmeg to your Parrillo Hi-Protein Pancake & Muffin™ batter. Add a shake or two of cinnamon to your bowl of oatmeal. You can even add a pinch of cinnamon to your morning coffee before you brew it. Add a pinch of dried thyme or dill to your egg whites before you scramble them. For some heat sprinkle in a little cayenne pepper or hot paprika.

- Rosalie Marion Bliss, Feb. 16, 2010, ARS website: www.ars.usda.gov

Dominique’s Time Cruncher

If you miss having a tall glass of cold milk, or milk to pour over your shredded wheat cereal or oatmeal, try this: Get a big pitcher with a lid, pour in 8 scoops of Parrillo Milk-flavor All-Protein Powder™ and 4 cups of water, mix well and place in the refrigerator. Now the next time you sit down to enjoy a Parrillo Contest Brownie™, you can pour yourself a glass of cold Milk flavor All-Protein™ to wash it down!