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Your Body’s Recovery and Why Diet is Paramount

September 20, 2018

Your Body’s Recovery and Why Diet is Paramount

 

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This piece is designed to emphasize the importance of recovery from your physical exertions. Such a recovery doesn’t mean simply lying down on the couch, or refraining from any physical labor. We’re going to discuss glycogen and cannibalism, the latter referring not to the headhunters of Papua New Guinea, but the body’s own actions to replenish losses.

These losses we inflict upon it every day. Improper diet, not enough fluid intake, and excessive work without recovery are the inflictions we foster on ourselves. In past articles, I have stressed the importance of protein in many Ready Nutrition articles, as well as tissue repair and building muscle. Regarding muscle, the substance we need to discuss is called glycogen, and it is defined as a substance formed by your liver and muscle tissues from carbohydrates (glycogenesis) or non-carbohydrate sources (then termed glyconeogenesis).

Glycogen is excess carbohydrates stored in the liver and muscles that is (in a process known as glycogenolysis) later converted to glucose. When blood glucose levels decrease, the liver picks up the slack and makes new glucose from the stored glycogen.  Glucose is used by the body for many functions and is the primary energy source for all living things. This is basic stuff, and it is important for you to understand this in order to allow your body to recover.

Glycogen stores are utilized with heavy lifting and physical exercise. When you’re lifting weights, shoveling snow for three hours, or cutting wood for two, your body is breaking down muscle tissue. Anabolism is a phase of where the muscle tissue is “torn,” or broken down with the physical exertions. Catabolism then follows, where the protein in your body needs to be prevented from breaking down too far: in this phase, you must take in (replenish) your protein and carbohydrates.

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