In looking at the job of a few major hormones in the body you can begin to see how there is a fine line between making your body’s natural regulatory systems work for you and being at their mercy. It is certain that you can make physical gains without the knowledge of how to manipulate the most influential aspects of your body’s muscle building processes. What is also certain however, is how intelligent training and dieting, both time correctly, can create a more favorable cellular environment for building muscle and shedding fat.

The first two important hormones to be concerned with are Insulin and Glucagon. The pancreas is the organ responsible for secretion of these hormones. Within the pancreas you have both exocrine and endocrine tissue. The main tissue to be concerned with is that of the endocrine gland. It is in this area that islets cells are contained. Of these cells there are two types: alpha and beta. Alpha cells are responsible for secretion of glucagon and beta cells are responsible for the secretion of insulin. The function of glucagons is to raise blood sugar and function of insulin is to lower blood sugar.

Insulin is an essential hormone. Without insulin a condition referred to as hyperglycemia occurs. This term refers to elevated blood glucose. If this state is exaggerated for an extended period of time the eventual result is a condition known as diabetes mellitus. If insulin is absent, blood sugar rises in an attempt to regain what is a highly sensitive balance. At the same time, if the pancreas secretes too much insulin or if it is injected intravenously than a condition known as hyperinsulinemia occurs which is paralleled by a steep drop in blood sugar levels known as hypoglycemia.

The net result of insulin’s effect on metabolism is the production and storage of energy with control of its discharge and use. What is important to be aware of as will soon be illustrated is the opposing relationship that insulin has with glucagons. If blood sugar rises, insulin secretion is enhanced and the amount of blood sugar will return toward normal levels. By the same token, if blood sugar is depressed, when the body is deprived of food, insulin secretion is slowed.

To give you an idea of insulin’s role in the body think about what happens after you eat a meal. Your blood sugar/glucose levels are raised and insulin is released to transport glucose out of the bloodstream and into the tissue. As blood glucose levels fall, insulin secretion diminishes. As a result of insulin, muscle and fat tissues absorb glucose from the bloodstream and blood sugar levels are reduced.

The most significant thing about insulin in regard to muscle building is its role as mediator in bringing glucose from your bloodstream into the muscle cells. Insulin can be thought of as a traffic cop who directs human traffic across the street. With this analogy, people can be seen as the glucose with the street being the bloodstream and the side of the road that people are directed towards being the muscle cells. Another reason insulin is so important involves its interaction with amino acids. Insulin effectively retrieves these building blocks of protein and pushes them into the muscle cells. Without insulin the body would be unable to properly store and utilize the raw materials running through the bloodstream after we eat a meal. Our blood sugar levels would rise uncontrollably. Simply put, our body would be seriously out of whack.

Glucagon on the other hand, has an opposite regulatory effect. This equally important compound steers blood sugar in the opposite direction. Glucagon's release occurs as a result of blood sugar/glucose levels getting too low. When glucagon is secreted a signal is sent to the liver to release stored glucose into the bloodstream. Glucagon also acts as a sort of key that unlocks the liver’s ability to synthesize glucose from other sources such as protein and muscle tissue. The muscles are normally the first area to have their glucose usurped when blood sugar/glucose levels fall below normal levels. This results in muscle fiber breakdown.

It is this breakdown that is important to be aware of. Muscle growth as a result of nutrient uptake is obvious but not so obvious is the way in which your body will literally eat away at its own muscle and protein stores in order to keep blood glucose levels stable.

So what does this all mean in terms of controlling lean body mass? Basically, if we consume foods that have a favorable effect on our blood/glucose levels as well as on the hormones insulin and glucagons then we will limit the detrimental catabolism that occurs when the body is short of glucose in the blood. In this way we will also contribute to the muscle building responses such as protein synthesis and growth hormone release that occur as a result of the muscles being flooded with essential nutrients post workout.

In order to get the most out of tweaking this system, we need to be aware of a couple of basic ideas. One issue to be concerned with is net effect that foods have on our blood sugar/glucose levels. The other issue to look at is the timing of food consumption.

The glycemic index is what we need to focus on in order to understand our how foods distribute their nutrients into the blood stream. The glycemic index itself is basically a measure of how much or how little a certain food raises blood sugar/glucose levels in the bloodstream when it is consumed. Essentially carbohydrates that break down quickly during metabolism are said to have a high glycemic index. Those foods that are metabolized slower are given a lower glycemic index ranking. The main thing to be aware of is that foods with a high glycemic index cause a spike in blood sugar levels. On the other hand, foods with a low glycemic index still raise blood sugar/glucose levels, but do so more gradually.

Certain foods are said to digest more quickly than others. Cereals, potatoes, rice and bread for instance all have high glycemic indices. The sugars and starches in these foods are absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream. By the same token, foods such as fruits and vegetables as well as oats and bran digest more slowly and are released more slowly and steadily into the body.

So what how does this determine their placement in your diet? Think back to the roles of insulin and glucagons. Opposite and complementary, these two chemicals raise and lower blood sugar. Their ability to do so depends a lot on what the body needs during a given time period. If you have just finished a grueling workout for instance, the body is craving any type of food available in order to replenish blood glucose levels. This is why people often crave sweets or starchy carbs after working out. They provide the quickest spike in blood sugar levels because of their high glycemic indexes. Insulin sensitivity is very high at this point. Insulin being the mediator wants to hurriedly assist the glucose across the plasma threshold into the mouths of muscles. The problem with eating just carbohydrates, whether simple or complex, is that unless utilized immediately they are stored as fat. Now, a more effective approach would be to pair a carbohydrate with a protein source. The insulin release would be equally strong, but now what would be transported back to the muscle fibers would be not only carbohydrates which could be stored more a little more efficiently, but also protein which would supply the muscles with nutrients.

Ultimately with whatever you are doing, your main goal should be to maintain a somewhat placid, stable blood sugar level. The two factors that compete with this aim are working out or physical activity and fasting. Assuming you are eating meals on a regular basis, the only fasting that would apply would be the periods of several hours or so during which you do not eat. In order to knock out fasting as a competitor, you simply need to consume similar sized meals as frequently throughout the day as you can. This approach allows insulin demand to be relatively low, less glucagon to be released (which take nutrients away from muscles), and blood glucose levels to remain stable. Now, as for the other issue, working out, you have a problem that mirrors the last. When the body completes any type of physical exertion the result is low blood sugar levels, high amount of glucagons released, and a lack of insulin. So in order to help blood sugar remain as stable as possible before, during, and after working out, you need to bracket your meals around the physical activity. This basically follows the same premise as snacking throughout the day but simply says that you must spike blood sugar levels before you work out. This gives the muscles more glucose to deal out. In addition, you must eat immediately upon completing your workout after which blood sugar levels have dropped, glucagons is released, cortisol levels are raised, metabolism is slowed, and the body is begging for balance without which it will slowly become less effective at building muscle and shedding fat