Did you know that whey protein powder spikes insulin levels, building as much body fat as sugar in many cases?

Insulin is the hormone responsible for shuttling sugar (glucose) to our cells.

But, when our cells can’t take any more sugar, then it attaches the glucose to fatty acids to create body fat. This is how body fat is created.

And, while insulin is present in the blood stream, fat loss cannot occur.

Now, normally sugar is what causes insulin to be released. But whey is unique among proteins in that it can cause as much or more insulin to be released than sugar can.

This is one of the biggest reasons that we build so much excess body fat along with muscle when bulking — because we’re also taking whey.

And it’s what causes our cuts to take so long.

Because, even when we cut calories and cut down on carbs, if we’re still taking high levels of whey, then to a large degree the whey is causing new fat creation.

And, at the same time, it’s also preventing fat loss.

All because of the high levels of insulin it stimulates.

But why is this and how does this work?

Let’s dive in.

How Insulin & Fat Creation Occurs

As covered in this article, insulin is our major fat-creating and fat-loss-preventing hormone. 

When we consume sugar or carbohydrates, our body needs to get it into cells fast as free floating sugar in the blood stream is harmful to our blood vessels.

So when we eat carbohydrates our pancreas releases insulin. This insulin then shuttles the sugar (carbohydrates, glucose) to our cells and tells the cells to take it in to be used as fuel.

If the cells are full, then insulin tells our specific cells in our muscles and liver to take in the sugar and store it as glycogen (stored sugar).

And if those are full, then insulin has the glucose attached to fatty acids and stored as body fat. That’s how body fat is created.

And lastly, when insulin is present in the blood stream, fat burning is suppressed and almost no fat burning occurs until the insulin is gone.

But that’s sugar. How does whey stimulate insulin if it’s a protein, not a sugar?

And how does it spike insulin when other proteins don’t, or don’t nearly as much?

How Does Whey Spike Insulin?

Two ways:

First, we know that we don’t get protein from protein, we get the building blocks of protein — amino acids.

Proteins are just combinations of amino acids. And it’s these amino acids that the body uses to make new proteins in the forms that it needs.

But, it needs specific amino acids, the essential amino acids. And it needs them in the correct ratio. Any amino acids in excess of what is needed are converted to sugar (glucose) or body fat.

And over 80% of whey is excess amino acids.

So that’s one reason.

But with whey it goes much further.

Certain amino acids on their own, especially the three BCAAs, and especially Leucine, stimulate insulin release.

Not only that, these amino acids, when high on their own, as they are in whey, actually cause insulin spikes even when sugar isn’t present.

In fact, in some studies, whey spikes insulin as much or more than sugar.

So while we do get essential amino acids from whey to build muscle, at the same time we’re getting insulin spikes that not only cause fat creation, but prevent fat burning.

If taken late at night, before sleep when most fat burning occurs, we actually prevent fat burning, or make it much less, even when we’re on a cut or when calories aren’t excessive.

This also leads to rapid shifts in blood sugar which can cause sudden hunger, sugar cravings, fatigue and even lethargy.

But it goes further.

Whey is considered a fairly fast-digesting protein.

And when this happens, with these high levels of leucine, we get not only insulin released, but insulin spiking suddenly.

But the whey also triggers something else, our incretin hormones. These are hormones that amplify insulin.

So now we have raised, spiked and amplified insulin, leading to insulin levels that can rival or even beat insulin spikes from high sugar consumption.

That’s why natural protein sources provide much lower levels of fat gain and much higher levels of muscle gain than whey. (The golden age body builders had to do much less cutting. And they never had whey protein.)

If we want to build lean muscle, but without the calories, without the insulin spike and without the cravings or need to cut calories way down, then we need to look at what the body actually needs.

PerfectAmino Vs Whey: Muscle Building Without The Excess Body Fat

What our body needs to build muscle, cells, skin, bone, etc. is the amino acids.

That’s what all proteins contain. But our body needs specific amino acids, the essential amino acids, and it needs them all in an exact ratio.

If our body gets that then we get complete protein creation — nothing wasted, nothing converted to sugar or body fat, and nothing to spike insulin levels.

But different proteins have different amino acids ratios leading to different amounts of protein creation and different amounts of sugar and body fat creation due to excess amino acids.

PerfectAmino is pure essential amino acids in the exact ratios needed by the body.

So we get almost no caloric impact (sugar or body fat creation).

We get no insulin spike. In fact, PerfectAmino can be taken during a fast without breaking the fast, allowing us to maintain or even build lean muscle while also slimming down.

And instead, we get the ability to build lean muscle without the excess body fat… and then keep on building.

Even more, one serving of PerfectAmino provides the same protein building power as whey, but without the caloric impact.

If that’s what you’re looking for, then PerfectAmino is for you.

Here you can find our PerfectAmino Usage Guide, which goes into how much PerfectAmino to take and when so you can get the best results possible.

Or, if you want to go even further, either to lose excess body fat or build lean muscle while slimming down, we have specific programs and guides to help with this. 

The Body Recomposition Guide & Program is very effective at helping to lower cravings, remove excess body fat and keep it off, while also getting to the root of how it first came to be. 

And the Lean Body/Lean Bulk Guide and Program helps us to either tone and shape our body, while slimming down, or build more lean muscle without having to cut.

They're both very effective.

And make sure to join our BodyHealth Community where you can ask all of your questions and we can help you with anything you need.