20240211 Day 672 Part-4 - FAQs: “I want to work out but I don’t want to get too bulky.” Part-2

20240211 Day 672 Part-4
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FAQs: “I want to work out but I don’t want to get too bulky.” Part-2: The relationship between muscle, glycogen, water, the scale and the mirror.
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Ok so for this part we have to look at the function of muscle. It’s contractile tissue sure but another key function of muscle is it’s our biggest “pocket” for glycogen or stored carbohydrates. This is a key component to our metabolic health and one of the primary reasons to gain and maintain a meaningful amount of muscle into middle and old age.
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Here’s the kicker. When you store glycogen in the muscle, it brings along a bunch of water. For every gram of glycogen stored you pull in around 3g of water with it. Now this is a good thing for performance, hydration, etc.
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If you’re lean, it looks awesome too. After the gym, when I eat bbq sauce or have my shake with Gatorade my muscles swell up, veins pop out, and you can even watch it happen because I’m lean. I ALSO get POUNDS heavier on the scale and if I wasn’t lean, one could easily misconstrue this “filling up” of muscle with glycogen and water as “bloat.” It’s part of the brief recovery from training process and it’s a necessary part of getting leaner, more muscular, “more toned” or however you want to term it.
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Most people “feel” like a few weeks in, they’re getting “puffy.” The scale weighs more and you look and feel a bit bigger. As you gain muscle and lean out between that and the training, the times you felt like you looked bloated are the times you’ll eventually think you look the best.
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Don’t let the mirror and scale early on discourage you from doing the single most impactful thing you can to alter your appearance for the better. Don’t forget, YOU decide what you lift. If you want big arms, nice legs, a wide back? Learn the movements and set up a balanced program that focuses on the thing you care about the most.
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Give it a few weeks and as you start to get leaner, what you used to think of as “the bloat” will start to become “fullness” and those’ll be the times you look for a mirror instead of avoiding one.
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Stay in the fight 🇺🇸🇰🇪
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