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Muscle Gain

Increase energy consumption and indulge in guilt-free cookies

Increase energy consumption and indulge in guilt-free cookies

The Advent season, Christmas, and New Year's Eve are just around the corner—how does one manage to stay in shape with temptations lurking everywhere? The answer lies in having more muscle mass as the true key to burning calories. Discover how you can effortlessly increase your energy consumption and make the most of your glucose stores right here.

The good old days – Basal metabolic rate decreases every year

Remember the past when, as a teenager, you could do so much more without gaining weight? Somewhere around 30, that changed, and the pounds seemed to pile up just by looking at food. What happened to cause such a shift in your metabolism?

For most people, it's likely a decrease in muscle mass. As we age, our muscle mass tends to decline. Often, a sedentary lifestyle with minimal physical activity contributes to accelerating this effect. This leads to two significant outcomes:

  1. Sarcopenia and consequently a higher risk of injuries and dependence on others as we age.
  2. A decrease in basal metabolic rate. In other words, the body requires less energy and stores excess calories in fat tissue.

The latter can have a massive impact on body weight. Losing 2 kilos of muscle, for instance, reduces daily energy expenditure by 250 calories. Initially, it might not sound like much, but it's actually the equivalent of 5–6 speculoos cookies a day, determining whether there's weight gain or not.

Let's scale this example up to the 4 weeks of Advent. If a few years ago, you had 2 kilos more muscle mass than you do now, but your diet remains the same as it was back then, you'll gain 1 kilo of body fat in this short period.

The solution lies in maintaining a consistent basal metabolic rate.

How can you restore your youthful metabolism and increase energy consumption?

To indulge in cookies and other delights this year, increasing calorie expenditure and thus boosting muscle mass is necessary. Fortunately, muscles have memory and can be reactivated through appropriate training stimuli. Once the necessary muscles are rebuilt, losing weight becomes much easier. Not only do you gain muscles, but you also gain strength—the most crucial biomarker for longevity.

Your AURUM Coach will show you the exact training stimuli needed. Just 6 minutes of training per week in advance will suffice.

Book your free trial session now.

What does strength training have to do with cookies?

Strength training depletes the glucose stores in muscles. Following a high-intensity session, these stores are emptied, and the muscles experience a glucose deficiency that needs to be addressed. Muscle cells respond with increased insulin sensitivity. If we consume cookies and similar treats during this phase, the fast carbohydrates directly enter the muscles and get stored there.

The critical aspect now is the type of training undertaken because the more intense it is, the emptier the glucose stores. With low-intensity training, the effect lasts only a short while. However, with high-intensity training, insulin sensitivity can be increased for several days until the stores are refilled.

In simple terms: By increasing your calorie expenditure through muscle building and utilizing the time post-training for small extras, even the holidays with their delightful temptations won't affect you. With AURUM training, you can treat yourself guilt-free.

Despite this, sugar and traditional wheat flour should still be considered part of an unhealthy diet and shouldn't be consumed in excess. That's why we recommend this recipe for delicious, protein-rich cookies—combining proteins with indulgence.

Discover more recipes here: 6-Minute Sugar-Free Nutty Cookie Recipe. We wish you lots of fun trying them out and look forward to welcoming you to AURUM training.

Source:

12 Minuten pro Woche: Der wissenschaftliche Beweis für die unschlagbare Effizienz des hochintensiven Krafttrainings von Dr. med. Doug McGuff und John Little

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