Three cups of rice, pasta or even a couple of bagels at a single sitting? Sounds like it’d make you fat, right? Not if you consume it along with lean protein immediately following a training session. Carbs remain the mismanaged nutrient. While they have the ability to be stored as bodyfat, they’re crucial to the muscle-building process. When you eat a lot of carbohydrates after training, it sets off a cascade of hormonal changes that favor the rebuilding of muscle mass. This includes a rise in insulin, which not only forces protein into muscles for growth but also stabilizes testosterone levels, which often fall as a result of too few carbs after training. On the flip side, if you eat too many carbs and just sit around being fairly inactive, some of those carbs might end up as bodyfat. That’s why you should eat fewer carbs on days you don’t train. While you need them to grow on days you work out, your need for them goes down considerably on days when you don’t hit the iron.