Bulletin #165 – 8 Secrets to Keep Your Six-Pack Ripped

Ripped abs – every fitness-conscious person wants them, but few know ex-actly how to get them, and do so health-fully, without sacrificing lean muscle. The secrets are out – here’s how.

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Secret #1:Eat fewer starchy carbohydrates.Reducing your intake of starchy car-bohydrates – potatoes, yams, whole grains, and brown rice, for example – is an amazing way to start stripping away fat. Metabolically, this dietary reduction helps shift your body into a fatburning mode. Your body sim-ply starts burning fat for energy, since there is a deficit of carbs in your body. How much of a reduction will work? A good rule of thumb is to adjust your carbohydrate-to-protein ratio to be-tween 1 to 1 or 1.5 to 1.Be aware that one problem with reduc-ing carbohydrate intake is a potential decline in your energy levels. To com-pensate, try supplementing your diet with CapTri®, our medium-chain tri-glyceride oil (MCT oil). This is a spe-cial type of lipid that provides quality calories and, unlike conventional di-etary fats, is not likely to be stored asbody fat. Calorie for calorie, CapTri® contributes less to body weight gain (fat gain) than carbohydrates or con-ventional dietary fat. Think of Cap-Tri® as an immediate energy source that will get burned before the body has time to store it. It is an excellent metabolic-support supplement. After a few days, increase to one ta-blespoon with each meal. During hard training, many athletes go as high as two to three tablespoons per meal – a level they have found to be benefi-cial.

Secret #2:Avoid or limit alcohol consumption.Beer, wine and hard liquor are high in sugar and empty calories you don’t need. In fact, each gram of alcohol has 7 calories, compared to 4 calories per gram for other carbs. Alcohol also stimulates your appe-tite. Plus, new research shows that heavy drinkers tend to gain weight in their abdomen area, giving credence to the idea of a “beer belly.” When there’s alcohol in your system, the liver has to work overtime to process it, so it doesn’t have adequate time to process fat. A study conducted at the University of Lausanne in Swit-zerland found that the addition of only 3 oz of alcohol per day to the diet resulted in about one-third less fat being processed. You can avoid drinking alcohol and still remain so-cial by sipping on juice, seltzers, club soda or sparkling mineral water on the rocks with a citrus twist.

Secret #3:Shun fructose.Of course, I’ve been saying this for decades. Now new research shows that fructose, found naturally in sug-ar and as high-fructose corn syrup in sodas and junk food, promotes belly fat. The reason for this is because the calories from fruit come in the formof fructose, which is quickly and eas-ily converted to fat in the liver. Excess calories from any carbo-hydrate source can be converted to fat. The enzyme that regulateswhether carbs are stored as gly-cogen or fat is phosphofructoki-nase-I. The job of this enzyme is to shuttle carbs into glycogen stores until full, then switch the flow of carbs from glycogen syn-thesis to fat synthesis. Fructose, however, skips this step in the liver where it is converted to fat.

Secret #4:Manage stress.Stress churns out and elevates cortisol, a hormone. If cortisol stays elevated, it directs fat stor-age to the abdominal area. If you’re like most people, you’ll need to let off some steam dur-ing stressful times, and exercise is the perfect stress reliever. Plus, it helps to burn off fat. So why not engage in a little additional aerobics to keep stress under con-trol? Do a bit more of your usual aerobic activity or try some new types just for fun. Spend an af-ternoon at an ice or roller-skating rink. Whack a ball around the racquetball court. If the weather permits, hit the ski slopes, try your hand at crosscountry skiing or rent some snowshoes and go exploring. Or get in the pool and swim a few laps.

Secret #5:Increase the duration and/or frequency of your usual aerobic exercise routine.Duration refers to the length of time that you work out. It’s amazing how many additional calories you’ll con-sume by pushing your body just a little longer. Increase your exercise frequency too: working out more times per week to obtain a greater caloric expenditure and burn more fat. In one study, men who worked out at moderate intensity on exercise bikes six days a week, twice a day, for 100 days lost an average of near-ly 18 lbs—and most of it was pure fat. Although you don’t have to work out this much to keep your six-pack ripped, these findings demonstrate that increased workout frequency translates into more fat loss.Aerobic exercise, even something as simple as walking is great for obtaining and keeping ripped abs. Researchers at the Washington Uni-versity School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, put a group of men and women, aged 60 to 70 on a nine to 12-month exercise program that consisted of walking or jogging. On average, the subjects exercised 45 minutes several times a week. By the end of the study, both the men and the women had lost weight. But get this: Most of their weight was shed from the abdominal area. This all goes to show that a simple exercise program like walking or jogging can melt off abdominal fat, which creeps on as we get older. From a health perspective, this type of exercise — by fighting waistline flab — may reduce the risk of diseases linked to abdominal fat. Compared to other fat storage sites on the body, the ab-dominal region is “lipolytically ac-tive.” This means it gives up fat eas-ily. A group of Canadian researchers put this to the test. In their study, 13 obese women exercised moderately for 90 minutes four to five times a week for 14 months. At the end of the study, the women underwent CT scans to detect any changes in body fat patterning. More flab was lost from the abdominal region than from the mid-thigh, proving that ab fat is easily burned with a consis-tent, long-term exercise program.Always concentrate on beefing up your aerobic intensity. Make the effort count. For optimum fatburn-ing, you should exercise at a level that is hard enough to raise your heart rate to 70 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. (You can calculate your desired heart rate by subtracting your age from 220 and multiplying that number by 70 or 80 percent.)

Secret #6:Cut the bad fats.Cutting fatty foods such as red meats, other fatty cuts, butter, and margarine from your daily diet should be part of a total plan to zap tummy fat. Interestingly, when a group of 124 women reduced di-etary fat, they each lost 10 to 15 pounds, and more than half the women lost body fat mostly from their abdomen. See the Parrillo Nutrition Manual for how much fat to include in your diet, includ-ing essential fatty acids.

Secret #7:Stop yo-yo dieting.Be forewarned about dieting: Go-ing on and off a reducing diet can make your waistline look like the equator. The proof is in some in-teresting research conducted at Yale University several years ago. Researchers there studied pre-menopausal women who had gone up and down in weight many times during their lives — a result of re-peated efforts at dieting. What they found was intriguing: Those women with a history of on-again, off-again dieting and fluctuations in weight tended to gain fat mostly in the ab-dominal region. In other words: When fat returns after you go off a diet, it returns to your waistline. It’s best to not diet too drastically, but rather follow a healthy nutritional plan, like the Parrillo Nutrition Pro-gram.

Secret #8:Work your six-pack.True, waistline exercises will firm up abdominal muscles underneath the fat and wake up sluggish circu-lation so fat-burning can proceed. So don’t neglect your ab work. Oneof my favorites is the knee –up. You’ll need a dip stand to perform this exercise. Facing away from the stand, hoist yourself up between thetwo parallel dipping bars and sup-port yourself there with your legs straight. Bend your knees and pull your thighs in toward your midsec-tion. Return to the starting position and repeat. Perform as many repeti-tions as you can.Good looks aren’t the only benefit you get from your ab workout. The four sets of muscles that make up your abdominal column work to-gether with your back muscles to help you sit straight, stand tall, and move with ease. If you’ve ever had a low-back problem, you know that one of the first rules in restoring health and preventing future back ailments is to strengthen your ab muscles.  Remember too: Trimming that rollaround the middle lowers your riskfactor for heart disease, high bloodpressure, diabetes, some cancers,and many other life-shorteningdiseases. There’s a healthy payofffor anyone who gives the abdomi-nals individual attention.

References

Rodin J, Radke-Sharpe N, Rebuffe-Scrive M, Greenwood MR:Weight cycling and fat distribution.International Journal of ObesityApril 1990;14(4):303-310.Kohrt WM, Obert KA, HolloszyJO: Exercise training improves fatdistribution patterns in 60 to 70-year-old men and women. Journalof Gerontology July 1992;47(4):M99-105.

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 #117 – The Parrillo 4-Step Prescription for Plateaus

You’re stuck. The scales won’t move. The body fat won’t budge. You’ve “pla-teaued.”The problem with a plateau is the mental frustration that goes along with it. So the faster you can push through the plateau the better. I will outline how to do that in this column. But for some perspective first: A major reason why most people plateau is that they’ve been living and eating in a caloric-deficient state for too long. If this describes you, it means that your body has adjusted to that caloric level and it stops burning fat. When denied food, your body begins to feed on the protein in your mus-cles.

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Because muscle is the body’s most metabolically active tissue, depleting it interferes with your ability to burn needed calories and start losing again. Plus, stay-ing in a caloric-deficient state lowers your metabolic rate, making it harder for your body to burn fat.To break your plateau, follow this four-step process .Step 1: Move into a caloric-surplus state.This eat-more-calories advice defies conventional wisdom, but it works. In-creasing your calories will help recharge your metabolism. For a period of two to four weeks, gradually increase your calo-ries – even to the point of gaining weight! Yes, you read that correctly: Gain some weight to ultimately lose more weight. Try to gain weight at the rate of one pound per week for every 100 pounds you weigh. But let me qualify this: I’m not talking about any type of body weight; I’m talk-ing muscle.

This is the time to tweak your weight training routine to concentrate on heavy pyramid sets for greater muscle weight. Increasing your muscle in this fashion will boost your metabolism so that you can burn fat at an accelerated pace.If you’re still not convinced, look at it this way: if you gain a pound a week for four weeks and lose a pound a week for four weeks, you’ll gain more mass and be much leaner than if you tried to lose first and gain later. So try to put on weight for several weeks. You will be amazed by how much bigger and leaner you will get. Depending on your sex, size, activity level, and present metabolic state, you should eat enough calories a day to gain at the desired rate . For some people, this will be around 3000 calories a day; for others, as many as 8000 to 10,000 calories daily .Step 2: Select plateau-busting foods.Yes, there are such foods, and they are the same foods you use to burn fat and construct new muscle. These foods include those from all the Parrillo Food Groups: lean proteins (fish, white meat poultry, and egg whites), starchy carbo-hydrates (potatoes, yams, rice, legumes, and whole grain cereals), and fibrous carbohydrates (salad vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, etc.).After meeting your daily lean protein and carbohydrate requirements, be sure to include a certain amount of fat in your diet. Good sources are safflower oil, sun-flower oil, linseed oil, and flaxseed oil.

These dietary fats provide essential fatty acids and help the body absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin A, vitamin D, and vitamin E. I recommend that you eat up to one tablespoon a day of these fats.You must increase your calories from these foods because they are the choices that will help create the desired benefit of a leaner body. The reason is, the same number of calories from different foods has different effects on the body. This is very easy to prove. Just try replacing 1000 calories of potatoes and brown rice with 1000 calories of candy and ice cream in your diet, and see what happens to your body fat levels. (Clue: You’ll get so big you’ll have to sit down in shifts.)Step 3: Use metabolic-    support  supplements.Supplements don’t burn fat per se, but they can support your body’s metabolism. That being so, make sure you are us-ing our Advanced Lipotropic Formula™. It contains fat-mobilizing nutrients your body needs to efficiently metabolize fat. For example.Choline. Present in all living cells, choline helps prevent fat from building up in the liver and works to shuttle fat into cells to be burned for energy. What’s more, choline levels can drop during hard exercise. This affects brain chemicals involved in the production of muscular energy.

Theoretically, by supplementing with extra choline, you could work out harder and burn more fat as a result.(1 )Inositol. Working together with choline, inositol helps prevent build-ups of fat in the arteries and keeps the liver, heart, and kidneys healthy. Biotin. This B-complex vitamin is re-quired to activate specific enzymes in-volved in metabolism. Without it, your body can’t properly burn fats. Biotin also influences the body’s ability to properly metabolize blood sugar (to avoid low-en-ergy periods).Vitamin B6. This nutrient helps keep the body’s water balance in check, plus helps regulate blood sugar so you don’t get swings in blood sugar and the crav-ings they cause. Restrictive diets can deplete the body’s supply of vitamin B6, and supplementation is extra insurance against a deficiency. Methionine. This amino acid has been linked to weight control. In combination with another amino acid – phenylalanine - methionine apparently assists in the breakdown of fat. (2) (Our Max Endur-ance Formula™ contains 200 mg of DL-phenylalanine.)Carnitine.

This nutrient shovels fat into the cells’ mitochondria (cellular furnaces) to be burned for energy. It also cleanses the mitochondria by removing cellular waste products. Thus, carnitine is abso-lutely vital to metabolism.When combined with chromium picolinate, carnitine ap-pears to boost fat loss — potentially up to two or more pounds a week. Chromium Picolinate. Chromium may stimulate the growth of lean muscle if you lift weights. In one study, 10 college men attending a strength-training class twice a week took either chromium supplements (200 mcg a day), or a placebo. After 40 days, the chromium supplementers gained an average of 4.84 pounds of muscle, with-out gaining any fat. The placebo group did not fare as well. They gained barely a pound of muscle, on average, and their body fat increased by 1.1 percent. (5)Enzymes. Advanced Lipotropic For-mula™ contains two important enzymes: pancreatin and betaine HCL. Enzymes such as these help ensure that our bodies properly break down the foods we con-sume so that they can be properly utilized by the body for growth and repair. I recommended that you take one cap-sule with each meal – which means four to six capsules daily, depending on how many meals you consume.

That way, your body receives a continuing supply of im-portant fat-mobilizing nutrients through-out the day . Step 4: Perform pre-breakfast aero-bics.Do your aerobics every morning for 45 to 60 minutes — before breakfast. At that time, your glycogen stores are low because you’ve gone all night without eating . With glycogen in short supply, you begin burning fatty acids for energy. You become leaner as a result, while bust-ing past that plateau . Later, the nutrients you eat, including natural, starchy car-bohydrates, are efficiently re-supplied to muscles, without being turned into body fat. Plus, your metabolism is activated for the entire day . There are many types of aerobic ac-tivities from which to choose: jogging, running, cycling, rowing, stair climbing, walking, swimming, jumping rope, to name just a few. Exercise so that you’re breathing hard but can still carry on a labored conversation. Always strive to increase the duration, intensity, and fre-quency of your aerobics. Doing more aerobic work improves the muscle fibers’ ability to oxidize fats for energy, and you get leaner as a result . The harder you work out aerobically, the better.

References

1. Kanter, M.M. 1994. Antioxidants and other popular ergogenic aids . From the proceedings of Nutritional Ergogenic Aids, November 11-12, Chicago, Illinois.

2 . Taylor, D .S . 1989 . Amino acids aid in weight control. Better Nutrition, May, 10-12 .

3. Trent, L.K., and D. Thielding-Can-cel. 1995. Effects of chromium picolinate on body composition. Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 35: 273-280 .

Bulletin #80 – Rut Blasters

Amino acid supplementation can push your physique up to the next level of de-velopment assuming you have a quality product and a proper understanding of us-age, timing and dosage. Different amino combinations produce differing results and are highly effective if used correctly. Most Parrillo supplements are what might be termed ‘core’ products, because they are used daily by serious bodybuilders; possess a high name recognition and their use and purpose is widely known. Cre-atine, protein, carb powder, sports nutri-tion bars, vitamins and minerals make up our core group of well-known products.

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There is a second group of Parrillo sup-plements, a little less known yet just as effective. We currently offer four amino acid supplements: Ultimate Amino, Liver Amino, Advanced GH and Muscle Amino . Each is designed with specific formula-tion for a specific purpose (or series of purposes) using specific amino groupings to stimulate results . Used correctly, target amino supplementation can blast you out of whatever rut you find yourself cur-rently in. But the Devil, as they say, is in the details . First and foremost: obtain the bulk of your nutritional needs from plain, whole-some food. They are called nutritional supplements are not nutritional replace-ments and our products should be used in addition to regular food, not instead of it. Your most important nutritional purchases happen at the grocery store, not the local Health Food Store. It has long been my contention that food is the cor-nerstone of proper nutrition. Whole foods are the foundation of bodybuilding nutri-tion and if you’re not dieting right your supplements won’t make up for bad eat-ing habits. Initially, concentrate on food content and meal timing and then add on lots of heavy lifting and high intensity aerobics to complete the solid nutritional and training foundation. I’m not going to go into deep detail on our philosophy of food.

We have a multi-dimensional ap-proach based upon science and empirical knowledge gained preparing the world’s top pro bodybuilders. We have in the past devoted article after article on food selection and will continue to do so in the future. On a related note: In my estima-tion, the single most valuable nutritional product we offer is not a supplement but rather the Parrillo Nutrition Manual. Why? Knowledge is power and never was this statement truer than as it applies to bodybuilding. The nutrition manual has turned average bodybuilders into phy-sique champions and as a system has many famous proponents. Come look at the incredible number of signed en-dorsements from the great champions of past and present hanging in our Hall of Champions at Parrillo HQ. Do you have a copy of the Manual? Why not dial up our 800-number right now and obtain a copy? Maybe it will change your life as it has innumerable others – But I digress. Eat 5-8 times a day using clean foods (low fat and sugar) in proper balance and combination. When is the optimal time to supplement?

After your basic diet is in place and operational. Layer on top of a good eating program one or more of the core Parrillo nutritional supplements: Op-timized Whey, Hi-Protein Powder, Energy Sport Nutrition Bars, High Protein Bars, 50-50 Plus, Pro-Carb, CapTri . Creatine is another ‘must’ supplement as are Es-sential Vitamin Formula and our Min-eral-Electrolyte tabs. Both are required to round out the ‘basic game plan.’ Step two involves integrating the core products with the base diet. There is yet another level to the Parrillo nutritional supple-mentation program and it is subtle and precise . Sports supplements are designed to enhance performance, add muscle and improve body fat composition. In body-building competition winning or losing is determined by small differences. Amino acids offer that little something extra that often makes the difference between 1st place and 8th place. We offer four distinct amino acid products each with a different purpose and formulation. Taken cor-rectly, these products will give you the physical and competitive edge.MUSCLE AMINO FORMULA This amino grouping provides you with Leucine, Isoleucine, and Valine, the three branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs). The time to use this product is imme-diately before and after training. Hard dieting is a great time to supplement with branch-chain amino acids. During times of energy insufficiency (dieting) your body will actually break down its own muscle to use as fuel if no other is avail-able.

Catabolism is a dreadful metabolic state that occurs when glycogen stores have been depleted and fat oxidation has maximized. Metabolically, your body requires a certain level of glucose (blood sugar) to be maintained in order for the brain to function. While body fat provides a long-lasting energy supply, fat cannot be converted into carbohydrate by the hu-man body. But protein (amino acids) can. Under adverse conditions, carbohydrates are exhausted and your body breaks down protein stores (muscle tissue) to con-vert into carbohydrate to supply energy. Branched Chain Amino Acids are ef-fective because they form a substrate for growth and are metabolized as fuel directly within muscle cells. A handful of Muscle Amino Formula™ capsules will help prevent the onset of catabolism (1-4) and has both anabolic and anti-catabol-ic properties . Hi-Protein and Optimized Whey are fortified with extra BCAAs for just this reason. We suggest two or more with every meal. Remember that BCAAs require insulin for absorption into muscle cells so take them with food (carbs) rather than on an empty stomach!ULTIMATE AMINO FORMULA Think of an amino acid as the filet cut of the protein molecule, the essential es-sence . Ultimate Amino is a scientifically balanced profile of 17 free-form amino acids and is specifically designed to sup-ply the base building blocks necessary for muscle growth. Ultimate Amino For-mula™ includes a complete profile of all twelve “essential” amino acids, which are those that the body cannot manufacture itself (3,4).

Some amino acids are con-vertible into other aminos and therefore if you have a deficiency in one amino your body can correct the balance, if all the corrective elements are present. There are some amino acids that your body cannot make on its own and these have to be sup-plied by the diet (1-5). Ultimate Amino Formula™ insures that all the essential amino acids are supplied in the proper ratio and there will be no missing links in the amino profile chain. This is our best all-around amino acid product, complete unto itself. If you have money enough for only one amino product, this might be the one for you. We suggest two or more cap-sules be taken with each meal and make sure to take Ultimate Amino Formula™ with a starchy or fiberous carbohydrate as specified in the Parrillo Performance Nutritional Manual.LIVER AMINO FORMULA An oldie but a goody. Bodybuild-ers since the heyday of Steve Reeves and Clancy Ross back in the 1950’s have known all about the muscle-build-ing properties of beef liver condensed into tablet form. A steady stream of Liver Aminos will help keep the body in positive nitrogen balance. Concentrated protein is stuffed into a potent tablet and each Liver Amino Formula supplies 1 .5 grams of pure beef liver. Among the various cuts of meat, organ meat contains the highest concentration of protein, far exceeding the amino density of other beef cuts. But how many people can stomach a steady diet of liver and onions or sweet-breads (brains)? Parrillo Performance has engineered a liver formulation that is a tremendously concentrated source of amino acids.

Our unique product pro-vides high quality amino acids plus heme iron from purified, de-fatted liver extract. Anemia, a low red blood cell count, is surprisingly common among athletes, particularly women who suffer from iron deficiency anemia. Serious athletes often suffer from “sports anemia” which is pri-marily the result of the cortisol secretions and the catabolic demands of extensive and intense exercise (6-9). To make he-moglobin you need iron and to make red blood cells you need protein. If you are deficient in either, anemia can result. Most iron supplements provide metal-lic iron in the form of ferrous sulfate. This sulfate is absorbed poorly by the body, perhaps 10% at best. When iron is obtained from a biological source it is already incorporated into heme, a build-ing block of hemoglobin. Heme iron is absorbed through the intestine far more efficiently then ferrous sulfate. Liver Ami-no Formulation contains expensive heme iron and is combined with amino acids - plus a complete array of B vitamins. Competitive endurance athletes are in need of hemoglobin to deliver oxygen to muscles and should gobble these po-tent tablets eagerly. For many endurance athletes, especially women, Liver Amino Formula™ is a ‘must’ supplement. We recommend 5-8 tablets with each meal depending on your bodyweight.

Take a handful at bedtime to forestall the cata-bolic effects of the fast period we call sleep . This is our most economical amino formulation. Arnold used to eat up to 100 liver tablets a day in his competitive days and he was a man never known to make a foolish move.  ENHANCED GH FORMULA Is there a natural way to stimulate the release of growth hormone in the body? Several prominent studies indicate that this is a distinct possibility. Amino acids, two in particular, have shown great prom-ise . Arginine pyroglutamate and lysine monohydrochloride have been shown to increase the natural release of growth hormone in scientific studies (10-14). The idea is to douse the body with Arginine and lysine (particularly before sleep) and allow this specific combination to work its magic. Growth hormone increases lean muscle mass by increasing protein synthesis and by stimulating nitrogen retention. GH increases the utilization of fat for energy and has fabulous muscle-sparing characteristics. Growth hormone is generally considered the most anabolic of all hormones and has been shown to alter body composition by increasing lean mass while simultaneously decreasing body fat. I suggest taking 2-3 capsules on an empty stomach first thing out of bed in the morning and again the last thing at night before sleep. If possible, Enhanced GH should be taken when the stomach is empty .

References

1. Friedman JE and Lemon PWR. Effect of chronic endurance exercise on reten-tion of dietary protein. Int. J. Sports Med. 10: 1188-12, 1989 .

2. Hickson JF and Wolinsky I. Human protein intake and metabolism in exer-cise. Nutrition in Exercise and Sport, CRC Press, 1989.

3. Guyton AC. Textbook of Medical Physiology. WB Saubders, 1991.

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BACK DAY: Parrillo Style

Ted Arnett had been lifting weights for the past six years and felt he was ready to move up to the next level. Secretly he wanted to be a competitive bodybuilder. Ted trained at Ron Johnson’s Steel Pit Gym in suburban Pittsburg. Ted approached Ron about training with an elite squad of lifters and bodybuilders that gathered together three times a week. Informally known as “The Big Boys,” this motley assortment of bikers, pro bodybuilders, top notch powerlifters and bouncers would gather together to “sling the big iron.”

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Ranking The Parrillo Training System

Question:

There are all kinds of bodybuilding systems out there. How does yours compare to the others?

Answer:

Parrillo Performance Products
(800) 344-3404

Today, it seems that so many athletes are searching for a miracle supplement or a miracle training technique that will transform their physiques overnight. What they don’t realize is that they must take a comprehensiveapproach to bodybuilding. At Parrillo Performance, we teach you the basics- a set of interrelated programs that are “synergistic;” that is, they all work together to produce the best results. There are five interdependent components involved: proper nutrition, supplementation, training, stretching, and aerobics. These work synergistically to produce results. I’ll briefly explain each one:

1. Proper nutrition: This involves training your metabolism to partition food more effectively, so it can be used to burn fat and build muscle. A diet that achieves this is a high-calorie one (between 2,000 and 10,000 calories a day or more) with five or more meals spread throughout the day and spaced two to three hours apart. The meals in this diet should include the proper combination of lean proteins, starchy carbohydrates, and fibrous carbohydrates. This combination of foods slows your digestion for consistent energy levels and increased endurance throughout the day and provides a constant supply of nutrients for muscular growth and repair.

2. Supplementation: Vitamins, minerals and electrolytes, amino acids, medium chain fatty acids, aspartates, lipotropics, and other supplements increase the nutrient density in body cells, activating your body chemistry for growth. Supplements, however, will never replace proper nutrition. Once you’re eating correctly, supplements can be added to your diet to maximize the results.

3. Workouts: The optimum training routine employs heavy/low rep sets to build mass and thickness and high rep sets to build shape and “cardiovascular density.” By cardiovascular density, I mean the size and number of blood vessels. When this circulatory network is increased, more nutrients are carried to the muscles while performance-inhibiting toxins are effectively transported away. All of this results in muscular growth. In other words, the greater your cardiovascular density, the bigger you can become.

4. Fascial Stretching: This is an advanced and specialized method of stretching which I developed just for bodybuilders and athletes. It involves stretching between each exercise set when the muscle is fully pumped and utilizes some very aggressive self and partner-assisted stretches. Fascial stretching stretches the fascial sheath that covers the muscle and leads to greater mass, muscularity, and muscular separations. 5. Aerobic Training: This is absolutely critical for three reasons. First, aerobic exercise enhances recovery. Second, it builds cardiovascular density; and third, it accelerates fat-burning. Aerobics should be performed at certain times during the day: at night after your last meal and in the morning before breakfast, especially if you are trying to lose body fat. In the morning, your body draws upon fatty acids for energy in the absence of muscle glycogen. As a result, more body fat is burned. The key point to remember is that these components work together. The most intense training system in the world, for example, will yield only marginal results unless you’re fueling yourself with proper nutrition. Used together, however, each of these components will help you achieve your physique and performance goals.

Question:

Even though I’m a competitive bodybuilder, I never know exactly how to eat in the off-season to get good results. What’s your off-season nutrition prescription?

Answer:

Many bodybuilders use the off-season to go off their diets, eating everything in sight and paying very little attention to nutrition. For competitive bodybuilders, the off-season is the ideal time to put on muscle, while staying relatively lean. That way, you don’t have to diet as hard as your contest approaches. In the off-season, you must eat enough to increase your body weight and still stay strict on your nutrition program. Eat the right foods (lean protein, starchy carbohydrates, and fibrous carbohydrates) in the right combinations and in multiple meals (five, six, or more a day). In addition, use CapTri, supplements such as ProCarb, Hi-Protein Powder, or any of our Supplement Bars to increase your daily caloric intake. (For more information on off-season nutrition, consult the Parrillo Performance Nutrition Manual. Ordering information is on page 14. ) Be as consistent with your nutrition during the off-season as you are during the competitive season, and you’ll emerge ready for your contests bigger and more defined.

Parrillo Performance Products
(800) 344-3404