If you are reading this you need to know exactly what is insulin resistance, so I’m going to spare you the intro words.
Here it goes:
You have certainly heard about Insulin Resistance, and you might have also heard this other term – Insulin Sensitivity. They both actually mean the same thing. Well, almost. Let me explain.
Insulin sensitivity and Insulin resistance both refer to how well your body cells respond to
the hormone insulin. I ought to give you a little of a background info before I go on.
Insulin is a hormone, released by the pancreas when blood sugar levels raise. It is one of the most anabolic hormones in the human body. That means there is hardly any other hormone that builds muscle mass faster than insulin.
The bad thing is it’s also the hormone that activates the chain of processes, leading to fat gain. That’s why the only time (arguably, but that’s a whole another topic) when you might benefit from higher insulin levels is the 2-hour period after intense training.
End of the background info and back to what I was saying…
So, if you are insulin resistant (or insulin insensitive) that simply means the cells in your
muscles, liver and fat tissue don’t respond well enough to the circulating insulin.
Consequently insulin and sugar levels in your circulation rise, which leads to the pancreas being forced to produce even more insulin. Fact is insulin resistance is just one step below diabetes type 2.
The difference between insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes is in the first case your tissues are not sensitive enough to the circulating insulin. In the case of type 2 diabetes, there is insufficiency of insulin in addition to the insulin insensitivity.
But, how does this apply to our sport?
Remember when I said that insulin is one of the strongest anabolic hormones?
Now, if you are insulin sensitive (the opposite of resistant) that means two things – you can
easily put on more muscle mass when high insulin levels (and blood sugar levels) are present, BUT YOU CAN ALSO GAIN FAT EVEN QUICKER THAN GAINING
MUSCLE!
If you are insulin resistant, you don’t put on muscle and get fat as easily as if you
were insulin sensitive, BUT you are in danger of developing diabetes type 2.
So, neither case is favorable for bodybuilders unless there was a way to increase insulin sensitivity in muscle tissue, and increase insulin resistance (decrease sensitivity) in adipose (fat) cells.
Here is the thing… This can be achieved to some (although minimal) degree.
Without getting into details here, I am going to only tell you that the neurotransmitter Norepinephrine (Noradrenaline), which is one of the main factors for fat loss, stimulates the release of another peptide, which in its turn may increase insulin sensitivity in muscles and decrease it in fat tissue.
The obvious conclusion is if you want to be less prone to putting on fat and more prone to
building muscle… …START LOOSING FAT. I know it sounds somewhat awkward and even absurd, but this is the simple logic behind all that.
But, any way, the idea of this article simply was to explain what insulin resistance (sensitivity) is. Hope you found the info helpful.