Why Your Muscles Matter for Blood Sugar and Metabolic Health

What’s the deal with muscles and sugar?
Your skeletal muscles—the ones that move your body—are the biggest organ in your body by weight. But they don’t just help you walk or lift things or attract a mate. They also help control your blood sugar. After you eat, about 80% of the sugar in your blood gets absorbed by your muscles. This keeps your blood sugar from getting too high.

What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a disease where your body can’t control blood sugar properly.

• Type 1 diabetes happens when the body stops making insulin, the hormone that helps move sugar from your blood into your cells.

• Type 2 diabetes is when your body makes insulin, but your muscles and other tissues stop responding to it—this is called insulin resistance.

What is prediabetes?
Prediabetes is when your blood sugar is a little too high, but not high enough to be diabetes. It’s a warning sign, and if left untreated, it often turns into type 2 diabetes.

Why do muscles matter in diabetes?
Since muscles are the main place sugar goes after you eat, if they stop responding to insulin, blood sugar stays high. This can happen long before someone is officially diagnosed with diabetes. Fixing the way muscles respond to insulin can help prevent or even reverse the disease early on.

What makes insulin resistance worse?

• Aging: As people get older, they lose muscle and gain fat, which can lead to insulin resistance.

• Bad Diet: Processed foods, seed oils, and sugar. Extra fat, especially around the belly, can cause inflammation that messes with how your muscles and other organs respond to insulin.

• Lack of exercise: Being inactive can make muscles weaker and worsen insulin resistance.
  

What makes insulin resistance better?

1. Protein Rich Diet: Eating threshold protein for your first meal to jump start the skeletal muscular system into removing glucose from the muscles to the liver and out of the body.
   
2. Weight Training: By working the skeletal muscle system, you are cleaning the sugar from the blood, absorbing it into the muscle until it can be removed from the body by the liver. 

    

3. Getting Enough Sleep & Managing Stress: Poor sleep and high stress mess with your hormones, including insulin. Sleeping 7–9 hours a night and finding ways to relax (like meditation, hobbies, or time outdoors) can improve insulin sensitivity.

Can exercise help?
Duh! Exercise helps your muscles take in sugar, even if insulin isn’t working well. 

Bottom line:
Your muscles aren’t just for movement—they help control your blood sugar. Keeping them strong and healthy through exercise and good habits can help prevent metabolic disease like diabetes.