Let’s compare your body to a busy factory town that runs around the clock to keep everyone fed and supplied. The factory is the body, and the town’s main delivery system is a fleet of delivery trucks-INSULIN.

In normal times: After a big meal, the towns bakery (the gut) bakes a lot of bread (glucose) and sends it to the streets. The delivery trucks (insulin) zoom through the streets, signaling the towns warehouses (muscle and fat) to open their doors and store bread.

The warehouses store what’s needed for the day, and the town runs smoothly.

When everything is balanced there are enough trucks, drivers, and the warehouses happily accept deliveries with doors that work.

What happens when there is a burden on insulin?

Let’s use the town metaphor again…the delivery trucks start to have trouble. Either there aren’t enough trucks, or the drivers aren’t as responsive. The warehouse doors don’t work as easily anymore (insulin resistance). So glucose can’t get stored quickly. Can’t deliver the bread.

Glucose lingers in the streets, like bread being left in the middle of town, causing the streets to become crowded and hot (high blood sugar).

To compensate, the town hires more drivers and keeps some trucks running longer. The whole town has to breathe harder, and the drivers all have to work over time to keep up.

If the town keeps piling bread on the streets and the warehouses doors don’t open well, the delivery system gets strained. Trucks wear out, routes get clogged, and the town relies on insulin more and more maintain order.

Building Muscle:

Think of muscle as the helper crew. They come in and expand doors and gates so the bread deliveries can get into the factory and the bread doesn’t pile up outside the factory in the town. Muscle adds more doors to the factory as well.

With better working doors and more doors in general the factory works more efficiently and lessens the burden on the town and things go back to normal in the town.

Muscle is a blood sugar mop.

Muscle acts like a “loading dock” for glucose. When you have more muscle, a larger share of post meal glucose gets stored in the muscle rather than lingering in the blood.

When muscle is bigger they are healthier, and tolerate insulin better (improved insulin sensitivity). Using the factory in a town metaphor again, more muscle means fewer bottlenecks for trucks to deliver the bread to the factories and more doors (that work well) in the factory to receive the bread mean things run more smoothly in town (your body)

How to build and keep muscle on your body

Strength training 2-3 times a week

Include eating enough protein to support muscle growth (typically 1 gram per pound of body weight)

Recover~ SLEEP and HYDRATE

Any questions you have please email us

elizabeth@thehouseofobrien.com

ENJOY!!