Many Hands Make Light Work How to turn your body into a fat-burning machine
You have little energy, are lifeless, eat 3 leaves a day but you simply do not lose weight. Symptoms that are common, but that does not mean that they are normal. To actually build a bulletproof body it is important that we understand what is happening at an intra-cellular level. In my previous post I gave an intro about the body as a company, today we will break down the structure of the company a little further.
Warehouse management
There is chaos on the work floor, the warehouse is overfull, the incoming goods department cannot handle it anymore and has closed the shutters. The suppliers start stacking the pallets outside. In the meantime, orders are only marginally delivered and often are going to the wrong customers. The number of employees you have left is now working overtime, in doing so they are breaking their backs to get the job done.
This is kind off what is happening inside your body, especially when you are a bit more overweight or not active on a daily basis. Your cells are overfull and can no longer handle the supply of nutrients, as a result, they will keep the door shut more and more often. We call this insulin resistance, which in turn can lead to type 2 diabetes, but more about this in another blog.
The body doesn’t want all these “goods” like glucose, triglycerides and toxins to float around the bloodstream and therefore has to dump it somewhere. And you can guess where that will go to….?
Introducing … your Mitochondria
May I introduce you to your personal warehouse workers, your mitochondria. These are small organelles inside your cell, every cell in your body contains around 1000 to 2500 of them. They have the important task of converting incoming nutrients into energy. Everything that happens in the body requires energy. Not just movement but also, your heart and brain and what about your digestive and hormonal system. Even making energy requires energy! Extremely important these little rascals.
The task of HR
To get our warehouse back in order it is important that more employees come and that they do their work more efficiently. Not by giving out sweets and Christmas gifts, but by hiring the right people and firing non-functioning employees.
Creating new mitochondria and breaking down dysfunctional mitochondria is a process that the body will normally regulate by itself. Only as said, a number of things are not going well at the moment and it is important that we give the body a push in the right direction by applying the right training techniques.
Workers in training
Simply put, we have two types of muscles in our body, slow and fast-twitch. The fast-twitch muscles deliver a lot of power initially, but on the other hand, are also quickly exhausted. You use them mostly during short sprints or low repetitions strength training. Slow-twitch muscles are less powerful but, they can provide power for much longer. For example, endurance sports or sets of 15 or more repetitions.
When we know that fast-twitch muscles contain few mitochondria and slow-twitch, contain much more, we can adjust our training accordingly. By means of strength training with 15 or more repetitions or cardiovascular training, we can trigger our body to produce more slow-twitch muscles. More slow muscles which means more mitochondria! In addition, research has shown that training stimulates the break down of bad mitochondria.
Many hands make light work
Through specific training, we can ensure that we have more workers who are doing a better job. After this, it will be much easier to burn your excess fat because we simply have more workers who can do this for you. The great thing is, you don’t have to do anything for it afterward. Whether you lie, sit or sleep your mitochondria are always at work for you!
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