Bulletin #22 – Fruit and Your Diet

At Parrillo Performance we have al-ways said that proper nutrition is the foun-dation of bodybuilding excellence. And wecontinually emphasize that food is the cor-nerstone of nutrition. Our philosophy is tolay the foundation by eating the right foods.The details of exactly which foods to eat,how much to eat, and how to combine mealsfor maximum metabolic efficiency are allspelled out step-by-step in the Parrillo Per-formance Nutrition Manual. We specificallyaddress the questions of how to gain leanmass and lose fat.One of the best things about work-ing with people who have given our pro-gram a try  is when they call to tell me howmuch they’ve been able to change their lives— how the Parrillo program has allowed themto achieve the body of their dreams. Some-times it’s an up-and-coming bodybuilder, butjust as often it’s a middle-aged man or womanwho has been trying their entire life to get inshape. Helping people achieve their goals ismy greatest reward.Can supplements help? Try to finda champion bodybuilder who doesn’t usethem. The key is to use the right ones anduse them properly.

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Again, you must first laydown the foundation by eating the rightfoods. On top of a diet of lean, nutritiousfoods, the supplements can boost levels ofspecific nutrients even higher. For thosepeople who eat a lot of junkfood then expect supple-ments to make up for their lackof nutrients, you must realizethat no amount of supple-ments can redeem a poor diet.One of the most commonquestions about our programis why we omit fruit from thediet. Although it will take afew pages of biochemistry toexplain it, I can tell you theanswer in one sentence:FRUIT MAKES YOU FAT.This little-known fact hascaused such a stir that some-times I almost regret bringingit to light, but my job is to get the best re-sults possible for the people who follow ourprograms. Can you eat some fruit and stillhave a good physique? Sure you can. Butpeople who come to Parrillo Performancewant the BEST RESULTS POSSIBLE. Pro-fessional bodybuilders don’t want goodphysiques — they want perfect physiques.If you’re not interested in biochemistry orphysiology, you can skip the rest. All youneed to know is that fruit makes you fat, andjuice is even worse than whole fruit.Of course, fruit is generally ahealthy food — high in fiber, vitamins andminerals and low in fat. But try to think offruit as nature’s candy, because that’s ex-actly what it is. If your goal is to build a leanand muscular physique, then you don’t wantto eat candy.

Sugar and fat are natural, butthat doesn’t mean they’ll make you lean andmuscular.I originally learned that fruit makesyou fat not by reviewing the biochemicalpathways of metabolism, but by actuallydoing nutritional experiments with real body-builders. Rather than being some theory outof a book, this is an experimental fact. For along time I didn’t understand it — I just knewfrom our work in the gym that certain foodsmade bodybuilders get in better shape andother foods made them get fat. The experi-ment goes like this: As a bodybuilder getscloser to a contest, his body fat level getsvery low — maybe 3-5% for a male and 8-9%for a female. At his point the skin is paperthin (in the human most fat is stored justunder the skin). You can see the striations ofmuscle clearly through the skin. As you canimagine any little change at this point reallyshows up. This is why I like to use competi-tive bodybuilders for the most demandingnutritional experiments — they are a verysensitive indicator of what works and whatdoesn’t.

With the athlete in contest shape,we measure body weight and percentage ofbody fat every day. We weigh the food thesubject will eat and calculate how many calo-ries are being consumed and break it downinto calories from protein, carbohydrate andfat. If the subject’s weight doesn’t change,this means caloric intake exactly balancescaloric expenditure, so we have a direct em-pirical measurement of the total daily energyexpenditure for the subject. Everything ismeasured and controlled, and nothing is leftto chance.Okay, here’s what happens: Let’ssay we remove 300 calories worth of com-plex carbohydrates from the subject’s diet inthe form of rice, and replace it with 300 calo-ries worth from fruit. The subject’s total ca-loric intake remains the same as does thepercent of calories from protein, carbohy-drate and fat. The training program remainsexactly the same. The only change is in theform of carbohydrate supplying 300 of thecalories: rice has been replaced by bananas.You would expect the subject’s body weightand percent body fat to remain the same,right? To everyone’s surprise, the subjectstarts to gain fat. We let this go on for acouple of weeks and the subject continuesto gain fat. Now, we pull the bananas out ofthe diet and put the rice back in — i.e., goback to the original diet. Guess what? Thesubject loses fat. Amazing, but true.We’ve done countless experimentslike this with just about every food imagin-able. That’s how we came up with our diet— by finding what really works. The ParrilloPerformance Nutrition Manual tells you Well, back to the story on fruit.

Whydoes it make any difference what kind of foodyou eat? For a given number of calories itseems like it shouldn’t matter what foodsthey come from. This is one of the most com-mon mistakes people make when trying tolose fat. They think that if they reduce calo-ries they will automatically lose weight. Thisis true, but only for a little while. And if youlose weight by drastically cutting calories,about 50% of the weight lost will be muscle.What people fail to realize is that the typesof food you eat is just as important as howmany calories you consume. If cutting calo-ries was the answer, then those low-calorieweight loss drinks would work. But theydon’t.The key point is that differentfoods have different chemical compositionsand therefore have different effects insideyour body. Of course, all food is fuel, butwhat type of fuel it is matters a lot.

Try put-ting kerosene in you car sometime and seehow it runs. For any machine to run opti-mally, including the human body, it requiresthe right kind of fuel.During the last year in this column,I’ve explored two major themes in detail. Thefirst was the central role of hormones in de-termining your body composition (amountof muscle and fat) and how to control thesehormone levels through diet and exercise.The second theme was thermogenesis — thethermodynamics of food metabolism in thehuman body. The bottom line you shouldhave gotten out of this was that differentfoods have different effects on the body, byvirtue of the hormonal responses they elicitand the route of energy metabolism that theyfollow. These concepts are so important thatwe devoted about 50 pages to them in thePerformance Press  during the last year.  Theyform the theoretical underpinnings of ourexperiments with the diets of bodybuildersthat I described earlier. Like all good scien-tists, we make progress by combining scien-tific theory with real life observations.Some foods, such as simple sug-ars, are undesirable because they cause alarge and rapid insulin release, and insulin isa potent stimulus for fat storage (1). Otherfoods, such as conventional dietary fats (butnot MCTs like CapTri®) are undesirable be-cause they have a low TEF (Thermic Effectof Feeding) and lower the FQ (Food Quo-tient) of the diet (2). Please see the series onthermogenesis in the December 1993, andJanuary and February 1994 issues in thePerformance Press.

Remember that the en-ergy contained in all foods is converted toATP (adenosine triphosphate) before it isused as fuel in the body. ATP is the chemicalform of energy directly used to power musclecontractions and other biological functions.Simply put, if a food is efficiently convertedinto ATP, then all of the energy contained inthat food is available to do work in the body.Any excess energy from such a food will bestored as fat. If a food is inefficiently con-verted to ATP, then a substantial portion ofthe calories contained in the food will be lostas heat, and therefore cannot be stored asfat.The problem with fruit is that virtu-ally all of the calories it supplies come in theform of simple sugars. The most abundantsugar in fruit is fructose (commonly knownas fruit sugar), although some fruits (orangesand grapes for example) also contain a lot ofglucose.  I know, I know, all of you buddingbiochemists out there are going to point outthat fructose is very low on the glycemicindex.

This means that it does not elicit alarge and rapid insulin release, and so onthat basis we would not expect it to promotefat storage. Right you are. Although the rea-son fruit makes you fat is because of thefructose it contains, the effect is not medi-ated by insulin. The problem with fructoseis that it bypasses the enzyme phosphof-ructokinase-I (PFK-I), the rate-limiting stepof glycolysis (3). In other words, fructosebypasses the control point that decides if adietary sugar is going to be stored as glyco-gen or fat. Complex carbohydrates, such asrice, oatmeal or potatoes, are preferentiallystored as glycogen until glycogen stores arefull. Fructose, on the other hand, gets di-rectly converted to fat in the liver, then getswhisked off in the bloodstream to be storedin fat cells (3). Next month I’ll walk youthrough the metabolic pathway, step by step.

References

1. de Castro JM, Paullin SK and DeLugasGM. Insulin and glucagon as determinantsof body weight set point and microregulationin rats. J. Comp. Physiol. Psychol. 92: 571-579, 1978.

2. Bjorntorp P, and Brodoff BN. Obesity. J.B.Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1992.

3. Shafrir E. Fructose/sucrose metabolism,its physiological and pathological implica-tions. Sugars and Sweeteners, Kretchmer Nand Hollenbeck CB, Eds. p. 63-98. CRC Press,1991.

Fruit Makes You Fat

Question:

Why do you exclude fruit and fruit juices from your Nutrition Program?

Answer:

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I am frequently asked to explain why fruit and fruit juices are not included in my Nutrition Program. The answer has to do with a little-understood simple sugar found in fruit: fructose. Fructose came into favor years ago because of its low glycemic index. Unlike other simple sugars, it triggers neither a surge in insulin nor acorresponding drop in blood sugar an hour or more after eating it. But there’s more to the fructose story. After you work out, your body moves from an energy-using mode (catabolism) to an energy-storing and rebuilding mode (anabolism). During the transition, dietary carbohydrate is broken down into glucose and fructose to be used for “glycogenesis,” the manufacture of glycogen to restock the muscles and liver. Fructose is used primarily to restore liver glycogen; it’s really not a good re-supplier of muscle glycogen. Glucose, on the other hand, bypasses the liver and is carried by the bloodstream straight to the muscles you just worked, where the glycogen-making process begins.

Any muscle emptied of glycogen due to exercise is first on the list to get its quota of glucose. Clearly, one of the keys to effectively restoring glycogen is the type of carbohydrate you eat. Natural, complex carbohydrates such as potatoes, yams, whole grains, corn, legumes or maltodextrin-based drinks like our Pro-Carb^TM Formula do a better job at this than simple sugars do. In one study, a diet high in starchy carbohydrates restocked more glycogen in the muscles 48 hours after exercise than simple sugars did. If you eat simple sugars like fructose, you’re not going to be able to store as much glycogen. What implications does this have for you as an athlete or bodybuilder? First, you won’t be able to train as hard or as long during your next workout because you will be glycogen-deficient.

Second, you’ll notice less of a pump while working out, also due to lower glycogen stores in the muscle. If you can’t get a good pump, it’s difficult to fully stretch the fascia tissue surrounding the muscle when you stretch between sets. This limits your growth potential. Third, fructose is easily converted to body fat. Because of fructose’s molecular structure, the liver readily converts it into a long-chain triglyceride (a fat). Therefore, a majority of the fruit you eat can end up as body fat on your physique. People on our program notice incredible differences when they eliminate fruits and juices from their diets. If you want to get leaner and more muscular — and build your recuperative powers by restocking glycogen more efficiently — avoid fruit altogether and choose starchy and fibrous carbohydrates instead, as our Nutrition Manual recommends.

Question:

I’ve heard that doing aerobic exercise is a good way to burn body fat, but won’t it cause me to lose muscle mass?

Answer:

Never underestimate the power of aerobics in your training program. It has numerous benefits, from fat-burning to cardiovascular health to improved recovery mechanisms. Many bodybuilders, however, typically shy away from aerobic exercise, particularly in the growth season, fearing that it will cause a loss of muscle mass. This loss, however, has less to do with aerobics and more to do with improper diet. A bodybuilder who loses muscle during a period of aerobic training is simply not eating enough to compensate for the calories spent by the aerobic activity. Take in enough quality calories, and you’ll preserve muscle mass while your body fat drops. Aerobics forces oxygen through your body, increasing the number and size of your blood vessels. Blood vessels are the “supply routes” that transport oxygen and nutrients to body tissues, including muscles, and carry waste products away for muscular growth, repair and recovery. the expansion of this circulatory network is called “cardiovascular density.” Your ability to build additional muscle is limited by your degree of cardiovascular density. Without aerobics in your total bodybuilding program, your body can’t create any new supply routes for your newly developed muscles.

The more blood vessels you have and the bigger they are, the longer and more intense your workouts can be. In other words, the better your cardiovascular density, the greater potential you have for building bigger muscles. Do your aerobics in the morning for 45 to 60 minutes – before breakfast. By exercising before your first meal, you begin burning fatty acids for energy in the absence of glycogen. You become leaner as a result. Then later, the carbohydrates you eat are efficiently re-supplied to muscles, without being turned into body fat. Plus, your metabolism is activated for the entire day. Most people don’t understand the importance of “aerobic intensity.” For a long time now you’ve probably been urged to achieve your “target heart rate” during aerobic activity. This is the elevation of the pulse to approximately 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate (220 minus your age).

Reaching target heart rate and keeping it there for at least 20 minutes is supposed to boost general cardiovascular conditioning. Also, it’s always been assumed that if you exercise at your target heart rate long enough, you burn more fat. Optimal cardiovascular is not achieved by just raising your heart rate, but is rather optimally achieved by increasing “oxygen uptake” or VO2max. This represents your body’s maximum capability to deliver oxygen to the working muscles. So how do you boost your VO2max? By exercising so intensely that you’re breathing hard. The harder you breathe the more energy you expend, and the more fat your burn. Granted, less of a percentage of fat is being burned compared to total calories, but more fat is being burned because more work is being performed. Train consistently like this, and some important metabolic changes take place inside the body. First, the mitochondria (cellular furnaces where fat and other nutrients are burned) increase in size and total number inside muscle fibers. Second, muscle fibers build up more aerobic enzymes – special chemicals involved in fat-burning.

Third, Aerobic exercise appears to increase levels of myoglobin, a muscle compound that accelerates the transfer of oxygen from the bloodstream into the muscle fibers. Remember to eat more protein so that you don’t develop sports anemia. Larger mitochondria and more of them, greater levels of aerobic enzymes, and increased blood flow – these factors all boost the fat-burning capability of muscle fibers. The more aerobically fit you become and the harder you train, the more your body learns to burn fat for energy. So you can see why intense aerobic is so important for leaning out. Endurance athletes have known these things all along. That’s why bodybuilders can learn a lot from the training regimens of endurance athletes. They train regularly and at long duration at or near their VO2max, and as a result their muscles are conditioned to rely more heavily on fat for energy and less on stored carbohydrate (glycogen). To approach the training level of an endurance athlete, perform aerobics several times a week, at my recommended duration. But don’t “coast.” Work out hard, so that you’re breathing hard. The harder you breathe, the more fat you burn.

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