JJ Virgin explains how 10 pounds of muscle adds roughly 100 calories to your daily metabolism. Muscle acts as a sugar sponge that stores carbs instead of letting them turn to fat, and when you contract it, it releases signals that reduce inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, boost brain function, and strengthen bones.
Okay, let's talk about another key important thing for metabolism. Now, I talked about muscle and how when you have more muscle, you are gonna boost your resting metabolic rate. That's awesome, we love that. It's about, by the way, maybe 10 calories more a day, which you might go, "Ugh, that's nothing." Now, it adds up over time. You put on 10 pounds of muscle, 100 more calories a day, but that's actually the small part of the equation here. So muscle does a couple cool things. Number 1, it's your metabolic spanx. Holds everything in tighter, supports a better resting metabolic rate. Number 2, it's a sugar sponge. Carbohydrates get stored in your liver as something called glycogen, and if there's— if, if your liver is full, not a big place, they're going to spill over and create fatty liver unless they can now go into your muscles. One of the things that happens when you lift weights is that you create more area for your carbohydrates to get stored in your muscles as glycogen for energy for future use. So that's Awesome too. But there's another thing that happens, a third thing that happens when your muscles contract. I like to say your muscles are metabolic sponge, they are our metabolic Spanx, a sugar sponge, and a very key messenger. Every time your muscles contract, it's like your body is sending out an email with all sorts of incredible, like, like 600 different emails to your body. And here are some of the key messages that it's sending out. It releases these powerful cytokines or messengers, and one of the key things that tells your body to do is to reduce inflammation. Well, what do we know about inflammation? If you've got chronic inflammation, you block muscle protein synthesis. Very hard to build muscle. It also tells your body to start burning fat. It also tells your body to improve insulin sensitivity. It also tells your body to raise something called BDNF alpha, which gives you great memory and focus and mood. It also tells your body start building bone and remodeling bone. So all of these different cool things happen as we are lifting weights that will directly impact your metabolism and your ability to burn fat positively.
