A Hypothetical 12 Month Rotational Nutritional Macro Cycle
Which Nutritional System Trumps the Other?
More often than not, after I outline both the Parrillo nutritional approach and the Warrior Diet approach, my listener inevitably asks, “So which system is better? Which one trumps the other?” That is the wrong question. It is like asking does a shovel trump an axe? Does a screwdriver trump a hammer? Dietary strategies are nutritional tools, nothing more, nothing less. Each of the systems I recommend works spectacularly if implemented completely and comprehensively. The procedures are exacting and need to be executed with disciplined diligence. If you do as each dietary strategy dictates, the body will build new muscle and give up its stored body fat. Both methods have philosophic gravitas and time-tested pedigrees. Each has been delivering significant benefits to diligent adherents for decades. Each system flat out works: the only wildcard, the only variable is you.
There is an old dietary adage that goes, “All diets work!” Regardless the foods selected, if you burn off more calories than you eat, on a consistent daily basis, you will lose bodyweight. As Purposeful Primitives we are concerned about losing body fat. The Parrillo approach and The Warrior Diet represent tested strategies. Each system utilizes dietary procedures that allow the dieter to maintain muscle tissue despite purposefully plunging into Negative Energy Balance. Losing body fat requires we operate in NEB. How do we lose body fat without losing muscle? This is the eternal conflict, the Zen dietary Koan. Both systems offer up comprehensive methods designed to resolve this seemingly irresolvable physiological contradiction.
Both Parrillo and Warrior recognize and seek to create “windows of opportunity.” Create the window (through the expert manipulation of exercise and timed nutrition) then take full advantage of the newly opened window. In order to force the body to give up body fat, the idea is to straddle the caloric cusp, the tipping point that separates anabolic from catabolic. After maneuvering to the cusp, use intense exercise to create a catabolic state. Body fat is preferentially burned to fuel the exercise. Fat calories are mobilized and oxidized at an accelerated rate if intense exercise is performed in a glycogen-free metabolic state. When the session is over, take in a specific amount of specific nutrients and purposefully morph from catabolic to anabolic. The Window is created catabolically and closed anabolically.
How can two such diametrically opposed nutritional strategies peacefully coexist in our Purposefully Primitive Universe?
The seasoned Purposeful Primitive is always on a search to find effective extremes. You would be hard-pressed to find more contrast: one system says “eat often” while the other system says “eat seldom.” The Parrillo Nutritional System and The Warrior Diet peacefully coexist within the primordial world of the Purposeful Primitive because these two approaches are effective extremes, profoundly different, yin and yang, thesis and antithesis. The contrast between the two systems could not be greater and this creates the exciting possibility of cyclical rotation.
We have far too much respect for each system to tamper with the integrity of the respective protocols. Each system stands alone and each system can be used exclusively and in perpetuity just as they are. I choose to periodically rotate the two systems and create a rotational synthesis.
For a person intent on revamping their current ineffectual approach towards nutrition, there are three preliminary questions that need to be answered…
1. What is the physical goal?
2. Can you prepare your own meals?
3. Are you situationally and psychologically able to commit to a 4 to 12 week process?
Where is your physical starting point? Are you clinically obese and desperate to lose weight? Are you an underweight athlete seeking to add muscle to improve sports performance? Are you ready, willing and able to prepare your own meals? Are you unable or unwilling to make your meals? Do you work a lot of hours? Are you able to eat properly at appointed times? Success is dependant on having a life situation conducive to sustaining a prolonged and exacting regimen of diet and exercise.
The first step in designing a customized nutritional program is to establish realistic physical goals. Select a dietary plan. Select a resistance and cardio exercise program. Periodize the exercise and periodize the dietary approach. Break the overall goals down into weekly mini-goals. Each successive week the trainee achieves that particular week’s mini-goals. There are many weekly mini-goals. A comprehensive training and nutritional game plan will have predetermined weekly poundage and rep goals for each resistance exercise; cardio goals will revolve around frequency, duration, intensity and number of calories burned per session. Predetermined nutritional benchmarks could include weekly bodyweight goals, daily caloric or protein goals, increasing or decreasing carbohydrate intake. Over time the continual attainment of modest mini-goals results in the ultimate attainment of the final physical goal.
Let us assume that you are ready, willing and able to embark on a battle campaign designed to jar your complacent body out of its current stagnant physical status. Let us further assume you have the time, the situation and the inclination to commit to a twelve week renovation process. The first order of business is to set some goals. Realistic goals…
What is you starting point? Are you an athlete seeking to increase size and strength? Are you a competitive bodybuilder in the off season? Are you a thin person seeking to become significantly more muscular? Are you looking to “muscle-up,” i.e., grow a significant amount of muscle while staying lean in the process? Are you desirous of radically increasing your base strength and raw power?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to these questions then it would be impossible to top the effectiveness of the Parrillo nutritional system. Parrillo adherents eat lots of “clean” calories in an unending series of daily mini-meals. These smallish feedings “build the metabolism.” Parrillo insists precision eating be combined with intense weight training and intense cardiovascular exercise. The Parrillo approach requires time. Time to prepare food ahead of time, time to stop and eat 5-7 times a day seven days a week; time to weight train 4-6 times a week, time to perform cardio 5-6 times a week. The Parrillo route, a classical bodybuilding template, requires a heavy time investment. It requires a lot of discipline and commitment. If you select the Parrillo approach, be aware that critical mass is achieved through strict adherence to a very exacting set of protocols and guidelines. Use a fully implemented Parrillo approach for a protracted period and the results are positively astounding. If you have the situation and the motivation, the Parrillo nutritional approach is pure perfection.
What is your starting point? Are you are significantly overweight or obese? Are you an athlete needing to stay light to compete in a particular weight class? Are you afflicted with blood sugar disorders? Are you an older trainee with limited time to train? Are you unable to prepare meals ahead of time? Are you cursed with excessive estrogen and in need of detoxification? Are you in a situation that makes it impossible to eat with any regularity during the day?
If the answer is yes to these questions then it would be impossible to top the effectiveness of the Warrior Diet. In our manic, frantic, modern world, time seems to be our most precious commodity. The Warrior Diet is the ultimate in ease—no fuss, no muss, no bother— little if any eating during the day and then eat once at night, consuming hearty amounts of nutritious, natural foods. If you select the Warrior Diet approach, be aware that critical mass is achieved through strict adherence to a very exacting set of protocols and guidelines. To repeat what we said about the fully realized Parrillo approach: the tenacious implementation of a full-on Warrior Diet for a protracted period results in dramatic physical improvement. The Warrior Diet nutritional approach is also pure perfection, perfection in a different flavor.
Both systems boldly proclaim that you must eat more (of the right stuff) in order to lose body fat. Ponder that for a minute. That is a profound and counterintuitive assertion: eat more to lose body fat! How is that possible? Hofmekler and Parrillo both concluded that intense exercise amplifies dietary results and conversely, timed and targeted nutrient intake actually amplifies workout results. In both the Parrillo and Warrior approach diet and exercise are inseparable.
Be aware that there is an inherent rigidity within each of these two nutritional approaches: both systems have specific guidelines and are quite formalized and nuanced. The best approach is to make a two week commitment during which you will follow every rule and guideline of the chosen system. Experience has shown that a 14 day trial period will bring to the forefront one of two possibilities: that the system selected can and will meld with the realities of your life—or that there is no realistic way at this point in time that you will be able to use the selected approach. A 14 day test period done with diligence, regardless the system selected, will yield tangible results. Often, after only seven days, the trainee becomes so fired up by the preliminary results that they undergo a wonderful psychological transformation. Those initial seven days produce such rapid and radical results that the trainee receives a psychological jolt, an infusion of exuberance that morphs into genuine procedural enthusiasm. Real progress fires up the trainee like nothing else and causes the individual to exert an ever greater degree of disciplined commitment. Time and again I have seen quick results catapult a stagnant individual into a growth spurt that borders on miraculous. It’s a wonderful thing to see. The secret to triggering near instantaneous progress is to lock down all aspects of the selected program fully, completely and simultaneously-right from the proverbial ‘git-go’.
Sensual gratification is a dynamic, often overpowering human urge. Many of us are slaves to gratifying one sense or another. The most overlooked aspect of disciplined eating (dieting) is the psychological aspect. Food consumption is based on personal habits, likes and dislikes. Modifying habits is self-administered behavioral modification. The mind needs to be reconfigured a bit if we are to successfully adopt a new relationship with food—assuming the relationship we currently have with food (and drink) isn’t working. First we must recognize that Taste is King. Food and drink habits are directly related to sensual gratification. We all have highly individualistic taste likes and dislikes.
Taste gratification is a major driving force in all of our lives.
Most diets attempt to suppress or ignore the power of taste. Suppression is another form of willpower and all acts of will are finite. Rather than attempting to suppress taste we need to recognize and come to grips with taste. Do not pretend it doesn’t exist, do not deny its impact, or, worse yet, satiate it in a way that undermines the “cleanliness” of the Parrillo approach or the “detoxifying/all natural” tenants of the Warrior Diet. Can we successfully satiate powerful, primordial taste cravings and still stay true to the clean food precepts of the Parrillo and Warrior nutritional approaches?
We all have certain foods that we like to eat and that also happen to be good for us: acceptable foods under either the Parrillo or the Warrior approach. We need to identify those acceptable foods and construct our dietary approach, be it Parrillo or Warrior, around the consumption of these acceptable foods. Make tasty, acceptable foods, food you find tasty, the backbone of your nutritional effort. Often professional bodybuilders will eat the same acceptable foods many times over the course of the day. Often Warrior Dieters will eat the same feast meal three or four times a week. If you like it, if it’s acceptable and beneficial, give your self permission to eat it—often.
Addiction to sweets and sugar is another major dietary stumbling block. Rather than attempting to suppress a sweet tooth, let us find potent nutritional supplements that satiate and satisfy sugar cravings. Both Parrillo Performance Products and Defense Nutrition make excellent nutritional supplements designed to nourish and enhance our dietary efforts. A person with a sweet tooth can overcome detrimental sugar binges via the purposefully primitive “substitution principle.” When a sugar craving hits and a binge is about to happen, instead of eating candy, pie or ice cream, substitute an “engineered food,” a food that tastes sweet but is in actuality a beneficial nutritional supplement that contains no sugar. We trick the taste buds. Don’t try and suppress a sweet tooth—satiate it!
Creeping Incrementalism is another helpful psychological tactic—be aware that as the dieter delves deeper into the process they gradually, naturally, incrementally tighten up the food selections and amounts in direct proportion to their degree of success. The deeper into the process they are drawn, the more results they see and the more they commit. Initially the mildest of dietary changes reaps tremendous results and this ignites enthusiasm, a self-sustaining mental propellant. Over time tangible physical results spur the dieter to become far more discerning, selective and disciplined. Creeping incrementalism enables the trainee to induce further progress by gradually tightening down protocols and procedures on an ongoing, across the board basis.
A profound psychological metamorphosis occurs when “dieting” is no longer viewed as dieting.
As long as we view dieting as an odious task of self-denial, a repugnant and extended exercise in stressful willpower, we will never turn the corner. Tangible results generate genuine enthusiasm for the process. When exercise becomes enjoyable and dieting becomes effortless, enthusiasm has supplanted willpower. Enthusiasm is an infinite mental propellant and can propel the process indefinitely.
Plan ahead. Regardless of which nutritional direction you decide to head in, make a real commitment. If you choose to head in the Parrillo multiple-meal direction, you need to determine the acceptable foods that you like. Assemble the lean proteins, fibrous and starchy carbs that you intend on using. Prepare food ahead of time, on the weekend. Consume the pre-made foods during the week, Come to grips with food preparation. If you decide to embark on The Warrior Diet, brush up on the rules. You may eat during the day. Not a lot, some low glycemic fruits, raw vegetables, light proteins, salads are okay. Both systems insist you “smart bomb” after a training session: drink a potent protein/carb liquefied drink immediately after every workout.
Both men correctly insist dietary results are amplified dramatically by combining right eating with intense exercise. Pick a plan and execute it with the requisite gusto. If you eat and train correctly, after seven days you will gain a toehold; two perfect weeks nets you a foothold; three weeks without a back slide and you establish full traction. Synergistic momentum kicks in within a month; when that occurs the process achieves critical mass. There is nothing like dramatic results to fire a trainee up and cause them to redouble their efforts.
Eat like a Man, even if you’re a woman. Do not, as author Jim Harrison once noted, “Approach a meal with the mincing steps of a Japanese Geisha.”
There are more nutritional theories than there are stars in the sky and one seemingly contradicts the next. As soon as you buy into one dietary theory, you come across another one that blows the underpinnings out from beneath the one you just finished accepting and embracing. As the old saying goes, all diets work. If you eat more calories than you burn off, you will not lose weight no matter how sophisticated the food selections or how sophisticated the dietary philosophy. If your caloric breakeven “zone” ranges from between 2,000 and 2,300 calories per day and you eat 3000 calories, it becomes a thermodynamic impossibility for you to lose weight. On the other hand if your caloric norm is 2,300 calories per day and suddenly you drop to 1,000 calories per day for a protracted period, regardless if those calories are derived from ice cream or chicken breast, you will lose body weight.
Not all calories are created equal. Some calories have a detrimental effect on the human body while other calories have a beneficial effect. Obviously, for muscle building or fat-melting purposes, a wonderfully grilled cod fillet trumps a serving of pecan pie—despite the fact they both might have an identical number of calories.
In the ridiculous world of mainstream fitness, an “expert” publishes a diet book that gains traction and becomes all the rage. Draped in pseudo science, the fad diet book trumpets one food nutrient over all others. If the fad dieter consumes fewer calories, regardless the type of nutrients consumed, the dieter loses body weight. The dieter mistakenly attributes their weight loss to the dietary uniqueness of the fad philosophy. In fact their weight loss is entirely attributable to calorie reduction. Fad strategies only work if the user tips the energy balance equation to the negative. Fad diets turn adherents into crash dieters. The crash dieter loses an unacceptable amount of muscle tissue during the weight loss process and feels drained and exhausted all the time. They eventually quit. Let us be done with the fad diets.
The prime directive of any intelligent nutritional game plan is to stimulate the oxidation of body fat and/or accelerate the acquisition of new muscle mass. Saying “I want to add muscle and lose body fat simultaneously (do both at the same time) betrays rookie ignorance. Elite athletes go in one direction or another. The athletic elite alternate directions, they swing pendulum-like between the two extremes: they pick one direction, add muscle or lose body fat, and then focus 100% of their efforts towards the attainment of that goal. Goals are always set into timeframes.
If the goal is to add muscle—consume more calories than you oxidize on a consistent daily basis. Adding muscle mass requires you to stay in a calorie-surplus state. The Energy Balance Equation (EBE) must be tipped to the plus side. Simple as that: no new muscle can be built if you are not in a caloric-surplus status. More calories need to be ingested than oxidized in order to supply enough excess food/fuel to support the construction of additional muscle tissue.
If the goal is to reduce body fat—burn more calories than you consume on a consistent daily basis. The Energy Balance Equation must be to be tipped into the negative. Stored body fat cannot and will not be mobilized and drawn down until activity exceeds the available energy pool of calories.
To attempt to melt off fat while simultaneously building muscle creates a thermodynamically irresolvable dilemma. The Energy Balance Equation cannot be tipped both directions at once. Pick one of two directions: add muscle or burn off stored body fat. Head in the selected direction, commit to the process fully and completely for 30 to 90 days.
Used singularly or in continual rotation, the Parrillo Nutritional System and The Warrior diet are each effective dietary systems, despite being light years apart philosophically. Each system is effective and each can stand alone. You may at some point choose to toy with the Purposefully Primitive rotational synthesis of these two dissimilar approaches.
The Parrillo Nutritional system has general guidelines that stay constant regardless if the goal selected is to add muscle mass or become as lean as possible. Protein intake is kept high year round, regardless the direction selected. Parrillo is a great believer in consuming lots of lean protein as protein “spares” muscle tissue during the fat burning process. Fiber carb consumption is also kept high, regardless the phase or direction. Starchy carb intake is manipulated depending on the goal—less for fat loss, more starch during mass building phases. Supplements are used to augment the Parrillo nutritional approach. Supplements make hitting make hitting daily protein and carb goals much easier: you don’t have to cook and eat every bite! His engineered foods can be used by those wanting to wean themselves off sweets. Powder mixes are used to create cakes, cupcakes, muffins and pancakes. His line of sport nutrition bars provide sweet treats devoid of sugar. These are powerful nutritional tools for use in the battle against sugar addiction.
1. Pick a goal: either add muscle mass or reduce body fat.
2. Establish a multiple-meal eating schedule with feedings 2-3 hours apart.
3. Meals should be relatively equal in the caloric sense.
4. Three to four meals (or more) should be regular food meals.
5. A food meal consists of a portion of lean protein, a portion of fiber and starch.
6. One to three meals may be “supplement-only” meals.
7. Daily protein intake should be a least one gram per pound of bodyweight.
8. Fibrous carbs are eaten with every food meal to dampen insulin.
9. Starch carb intake is dependent on the goal: less to lean out, more for mass.
10. Goals are set into a 4-6-8-10-12 or 16 weeks timeframe.
11. Weekly target goals are established and achieved in systematic fashion.
12. The scale, skin-fold calipers and a tape measure are used to access progress.
13. Saturated fat is limited to 5% of caloric intake; sugar and alcohol deleted.
14. Parrillo sport bars, cakes, muffins, etc, are used to satiate a sweet tooth.
The Warrior Diet adherent eats little or no food during the day. The exception to this rule is the Warrior Dieter who will eat or supplement immediately after an intense training session, regardless the time of day. At night, the Warrior Dieter engages in “feasting,” a 1 to 4 hour period of nutritional super compensation. Night feasting creates a miniaturized anabolic burst. Daytime fasting allows the detoxification and fat-burning process (begun during the sleep cycle) to continue. The day fast creates a window of opportunity and eating ample amounts of approved food at night kicks the metabolism into overdrive. After an intense exercise session Warrior Supplements are consumed to take advantage of the post-workout window of opportunity. Healing, regenerating nutrients are absorbed and distributed far faster and far more efficiently when the post-workout window is open. Warrior supplements are used to overcome sweet cravings.
1. Only all natural, low glycemic, organic food is consumed.
2. Eliminate manmade foods and foods and beverages loaded with chemicals.
3. The principle of intermittent fasting is used.
4. Daily windows of opportunity are created: after intense exercise; after fasting.
5. During the fast, detoxification and fat burning occur.
6. During the fast, the body’s enzyme pool is reloaded.
7. During the fast, insulin drops and the fat-burning hormone glucagon increases.
8. If you must eat during the day, eat a bit of raw food, i.e. fruits and vegetables.
9. The daily ‘overeating’ phase occurs late in the afternoon or at night.
10. Start the overeating phase with subtle-tasting raw foods.
11. Move to cooked foods; include many textures, tastes, colors and aromas.
12. Fasting followed by overeating accelerates the metabolism.
13. Fasting followed by overeating replenishes glycogen.
14. The Warrior Diet uses foods and supplements to satiate a sweet tooth.
