As should already be clear by now, the main adverse effect of a high-carbohydrate diet is insulin resistance, which in turn leads to both incomplete recovery from training fatigue and the accumulation of fat mass. This is why a product that facilitates cellular responsiveness to insulin is particularly suitable for such diets. However, as we have already seen, insulin resistance could also occur in diets with a high fat content due to the accumulation of medium-chain triglycerides inside the cells. For these reasons, theoretically, supplements capable of preventing insulin resistance would benefit more unbalanced diets, either in favour of carbohydrates or fats. More specifically, insulin boosters are particularly suited firstly to low-carbohydrate catabolic diets, and secondly to the initial and final phases of carbohydrate accumulation cycles. Indeed, these cycles are characterised by an initial low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet, which progressively shifts in the opposite direction. Evidently, the middle phase of the cycle is the one that is most balanced and in which there is the least need for an aid to prevent insulin resistance. A suggestion (not to be taken as an infallible solution) is to gradually reduce the dosages of the insulin booster as the diet moves more and more, in the context of the glucose accumulation cycle, from the beginning towards the middle phase; then, again gradually, increase them again as the final phase approaches.

The following page will discuss the quintessential insulin-boosting supplement: chromium.