Genius Foods

treadmill, for example), creating even just a little more
muscle is beneficial for long-term weight loss. This is
because the more muscle you have on your body, the higher
work capacity you will have, the more high-intensity
activity you can sustain, and the more calories you can soak
up without storing them as body fat. Every time you hit the
lactate threshold in your workouts, which is when your
muscles start burning and trembling as you approach failure,
you are emptying the stored carbs in the muscle and turning
your body into an energy sponge. This means that when
you consume a starch like rice or a sweet potato, the carbs
become more likely to be shuttled into your muscle cells
where they stay, waiting to power your next workout. And
increasing muscle mass means more calories burned to fuel
those muscles, even when you’re just waiting in line to
check out at the supermarket.
Pushing yourself to your physiological limits, however,
confers benefits that extend far beyond bathing suit season.
At the microscopic level, your mitochondria, the organelles
that create cellular energy, feel the burden of increased
demand. This is in part due to the surge in production of
reactive oxygen species (ROS), a normal by-product of
metabolism. You may also know of ROS by another name
—free radicals. Under normal circumstances, we want to
keep these free radicals to a minimum, but in the case of
exercise, their increase acts as a powerful signaling
mechanism, setting off a cascade of events at the genetic
and cellular levels meant to protect us—and enhance our
resilience to future stress.