Time to bulk without getting fat!
I hate to be the one to say it – but Summer is almost over. And for serious bodybuilders, we all know that when Summer ends, bulking season begins. It starts with a few extra servings of carbs, trading some tuna for red meat, maybe a cheat meal turns into a cheat day…and before you know it,you’re looking fat!
But what if it didn’t have to be that way? Well, it doesn’t if you understand how insulin works. In fact, here at Needtobuildmuscle.com,we’ve even designed a supplement called Need2Slin, to help maximize your insulin control.
Insulin is an anabolic hormone,primarily responsible for pushing nutrients like proteins (in the form of amino acids) and carbohydrates into muscle cells where it can promote serious muscle growth. The primary way we raise insulin levels is by eating food – this seems pretty obvious, but when you eat food, you push your body into anabolic (muscle building) state. And, unfortunately, if you eat too much food,you end up getting fat. This is the double edged sword of insulin, and it’s why the most successful bodybuilders can often get very fat in the off season.
Insulin is released into the blood by the pancreas, where,it acts to shuttle glucose (carbohydrates) amino acids, and even fats into the specific cells. Of course, we want all of these goodies to end up directly in our muscles, because that’s going to make them grow…in other words, we’ll get bigger and more muscular. But guess what happens if insulin is directing all of that traffic into fat cells? You guessed it – we get bigger, but we don’t get more muscular, we just get fatter! You see, insulin isn’t only a anabolic hormone that can build muscle, it’s also a storage hormone.
If you’ve got too little insulin floating around your body,then it’s going to be very difficult to gain muscle. On the other hand, if you have too much, it’s going to be difficult to stay lean. In fact, having consistently elevated insulin levels isn’t just bad for your physique, but it also increases your risk for insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease and maybe even type 2 diabetes.
Although it’s dangerous practice, many professional bodybuilders have even resorted to injecting insulin with their meals, to make sure that their food is turning/ending up as muscle and not fat. But unless you’re a professional bodybuilder,shooting insulin is overkill, because you can learn how to tip the scales to favor the anabolic effects of insulin, instead of storing fat.
First, we need to understand the difference between being insulin resistant and insulin sensitive. With insulin resistance, your cells(including muscle cells) don't respond to the anabolic effects of insulin. In other words, they resist insulin’s effects. This means your body needs to respond by producing and releasing huge amounts of insulin which can ultimately make you fat, diabetic, and ugly. Well, maybe not ugly, but you get the point.
Insulin sensitivity is the opposite of insulin resistance,and as you might have already guessed, it’s a good thing. When you’re insulin sensitive, your cells (again, muscle cells) display a high level of response to a low level of insulin. In other words, they can build muscle without being saturated with tons of insulin. And if you keep those insulin levels low, while still building muscle, then you’re going to be losing fat at the same time.Yeah, you heard me right – if you keep your insulin sensitivity high, and your insulin levels low, then you’re going to constantly be losing fat while you’re building muscle at the same time!
If you’ve ever known someone who can eat anything and somehow, still remain lean and muscular, then you probably know someone who is insulin sensitive. In fact, one of the reasons that steroid users can consume more calories than natural trainers is because anabolic steroids dramatically improve insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity (or resistance) plays a major role in your muscle/fat ratio, A guy who is bulking up, and displays high levels of insulin sensitivity is going to “bulk” but gain almost no fat; a natural lean bulker. But a guy who is insulin resistant…well…those are the guys who only look like bodybuilders when they’re a week away from a contest.
And if you're dieting, and you aren’t insulin sensitive,then you will lose a lot of muscle for all of the fat you’re losing. So there’s no way around it: You’re want to improve your body’s ability to process insulin. Period.
Both exercise and diet positively affect your body’s sensitivity to insulin. Intense resistance (weight) training will improve your insulin sensitivity, as will staying away from too much sugar and saturated fat. In fact, these two methods of increasing insulin sensitivity are the most important. If your diet is full of total junk, and you’re not training right,then you’re never going to reap the full benefits of insulin. But even if you’re doing everything else perfectly, and your diet and training are optimal,you can still continue to improve your insulin sensitivity with supplementation.
To take advantage of the effects of insulin, you’ll want supplement your diet with Need2Slin. Acetyl-L-Carnitine,one of the primary ingredients in Need2Slin, has been shown in medical studies to improve insulin resistance in humans…and we know how important that is to making favorable changes to our body composition. So it should come as no surprise that it has also been shown in medical studies to positively alter body composition . Gymnemasylvestre, an herb found in Need2Slin, has been studied and shown to increase insulin sensitivity, delay glucose absorption in the blood, and lower blood sugar levels. Need2Slin also contains is sodium bonded version of R- Alpha lipoic acid. Alpha lipoic acid stimulates insulin signaling and supports glucose uptake by muscles, while also stimulating the metabolism of fats.
But even when you supplement your diet with Need2Slin, you’ll want to manipulate the insulin that your body is producing, so it’s high when you want it to be high (post workout) and low when you want it to be low (the rest of the day). So this means we’ll want bursts o fit after training. We’ll accomplish that with a nice high-carb/high-protein post workout shake, and if we’re bulking, we’ll slam down 3 Need2Slin caps with that shake, and another 3 Need2Slin caps whenever we eat another high carbohydrate meal.
Another effective way of dosing need2slin is to take 1 cap in the morning, 1 cap in the afternoon and one cap at night. Much larger people (250lb and above) can use 2/1/2
and this will creat a constant state of perfect insulin sensitivity at all times. Your body will get the insulin response it needs when it needs it.
Ideally, our carbs will be higher in the morning and early afternoon, and lower at night…this way we’ll make sure we’re burning them for energy and signaling our bodies to grow, and not just putting on fat. And ideally, we’ll want to do everything possible to control insulin, and persuade it into making our body lean and muscular, even if we’re just trying to put on muscle until our next cutting season.
