Building lean muscle is so much more than aesthetics and striving for that beach body. Yes, a nice, lean, shapely physique looks nice and can certainly build self confidence and body image, but the benefits go well beyond buff and brawn.
If we look at the relationship between insulin utilization and lean muscle mass one should be more motivated to start a strength building program.
Insulin is a hormone that is released from our pancreas, whose job is to regulate the use of calories we consume from our foods we eat on a daily basis. When we ingest food, our pancreas releases insulin in response to elevated blood glucose levels from the digested foods and stores as either glycogen or fat.
The factors that determine how these calories are stored are many but having a greater percentage of lean muscle will certainly optimize more of those calories being used as an energy source in the form of glucose from carbohydrates ingested.
Our muscle tissue is highly insulin sensitive, which means any foods we ingest, the muscle tissue acts as a sponge to store the majority of our calories as energy to be readily available for our bodies to draw on.
Conversely, an individual who has a greater percentage of body fat, will have a higher potential to store calories as fat. They develop insulin insensitivity(cells are impaired to use food as energy source). This becomes a vicious cycle that leads to greater fat storage.
So active individuals and those with a greater percentage of lean muscle tissue will be able to use foods more efficiently and effectively as an energy source to draw on.
This is why athletes; gym enthusiasts and active individuals are more apt to store any additional calories that are consumed as fuel not body fat. Conversely, individuals that are sedentary have a greater chance to store these calories as fat hence developing poor metabolic health issues.
The bottom line here is to MOVE. Movement is truly medicine and our ancestral make up is truly birthed from this as hunters/gatherers.
Today, make it a mission, to take strides to incorporate more movement into your day to day lives. Make insulin your friend not your enemy by using your food more productively.
BE BLESSED.