Hello There,
Welcome back to K&T blog, How are you keeping?
We hope you had a wonderful week. Our topic today seems counterintuitive , how do we suggest “working out” when you are depleted off energy? but it is true, working out generates energy. It is 4:30 Friday morning as we are writing this post, it is end of the week and we are very tired, nothing in our body wants to workout, but we are about to do so at 05:00 as planned. We are motivated to workout because we know we will be feeling great after , we will be bursting with energy (and smiles too) and ready for the day. We will also be having no regrets and we will be grateful that we did not skip the workout, the feeling of not wanting to workout is an obstacle we are happy to overcome because it brings us one more step closer to our goal 🙂 .
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it” – Moliere
So how come working-out creates more energy?
- When you start moving your muscles, the body has no choice but to look for energy to enable the muscles to move. Moving signals to the body to produce mitochondria inside your muscle cells, mitochondria is the energy production factories inside your cells, they create chemical energy from glucose and oxygen.
- Exercising also help with better circulation of oxygen, and oxygen helps with energy production as highlighted above. Oxygen also helps with efficient use of energy.
- Moving your body also induce the production of hormones that gives you energy and well….makes you happy, such as endorphins(The happy hormone). Other hormones released during exercise are growth hormone, testosterone, cortisol, adrenaline, and catecholamines.
- Working out also helps you sleep better, this leads to more deep sleep which in turn leads to waking up refreshed and energized.
If we put the medical literature aside and look at our practical experience, we have experienced this energy transformation daily. Whenever we complete a workout we always feel more energetic than when we started, and this happens in both our morning and evening workouts. We also practically experienced this change in energy when we tested a Continuous Glucose Monitor(CGM) a few weeks back. Out of curiosity, we decided to buy a CGM to see what we can learn about blood sugar control, and Tshepi was our test subject .
A CGM is a device that monitors and tracks your blood sugar throughout the day to help you with managing things that affects your blood sugar especially if you are diabetic. In the CGM readings, among other informative things we could see the rise in Tshepi’s blood sugar level whenever we exercised (see blue highlights below). This was a good indication that the body is making means for blood sugar (Glucose) to be available for use as energy, the blood sugar spike is not extreme but a rise nonetheless, and it confirmed what we knew , experienced and felt about energy levels and exercise.
That’s it for this week, life as we know it currently is very busy and leaves us drained and sapped off energy on daily basis, in response to this state we turn to food, coffee and energy drinks to regain the energy, but we are convinced that there is an alternative to regain our energy “Moving our bodies”. Moving our bodies generates energy , especially when we really don’t feel like it and leaves us feeling better than when we started. Perhaps it is a good idea that next time when you are feeling tired, instead of reaching for energy drink or grabbing a cookie or scrolling through social media, push past the obstacle and go for a walk, a light jog, play with children, do some gardening or stretching or get exercising, the body will respond kindly and you will feel great 🙂 .
Until next week, Stay blessed.
K&T
Kat & Tshepi 