Top 3 bodybuilding myths exposed!

1-You need an insulin spike post workout.

“To reiterate, the pre-exercise meal can have profound effects on insulin levels that surpass the length of the training bout. Tipton’s team found that as little as 6g essential amino acids+ 35g sucrose taken immediately before exercise (45-60 minutes of resistance training) was enough to keep insulin elevated to roughly 4x above fasting 1- hour post exercise. It took 2 hours post-workout for insulin to return to resting levels. A similar insulin response was seen with 20g whey itself taken immediately pre workout. If carbohydrates were added to the pre-training protein, there would be a greater insulin response.”

2-A higher meal frequency means a faster metabolic rate.

With regards to metabolic rate there are two factors that need to be considered: they are the thermic effect of food and Basal metabolism.
Firstly in terms of basal metabolism, this is fundamentally based on your thyroid hormones. These hormones do not fluctuate throughout the day, they take weeks to fluctuate.

Secondly the thermic effect of food is based on total macro nutrient intake, consumed throughout the day. Therefore a person consuming one meal a day vs someone consuming 10 meals a day will have the same thermic effect, as long as the total macro nutrients are kept the same. The person eating 10 meals a day will spread out the thermic effect, versus one large increase from the person eating 1 meal. The total thermic effect would be exactly the same.

3-If you mix carbohydrates with dietary fat into a single meal you will get fat, as insulin will shuttle this dietary fat intake into adipose tissue (body fat).


Firstly, to think that you can isolate certain macro nutrients absorption rates is down right ridiculous when you consider there is an overlap of nutrients being absorbed from previous meals.
Secondly, this statement completely ignores energy balance and total macro nutrient intake, i.e. this statement implies short term fat deposits will override daily calorie, macro nutrient intake and energy balance at the end of the day.

James Krieger clears this up nicely in his insulin series:

“After meals, fat is deposited with the help of insulin. However, between meals and during sleep, fat is lost. Fat balance will be zero over a 24-hour period if energy intake matches energy expenditure.”

Thus, without taking into the context of the whole days calorie and macro nutrient intake, the theory that mixing carbohydrate and fat into a meal= fat gain, is left with zero substance!