Your body needs energy to live your life and do your daily activities, so glucose is stored in muscle and liver cells, and glycogen is the body’s quick energy reserve. Your glycogen level depends on what you eat, and if you want to lose weight, low-carb and keto diets help lower glycogen levels in your body.
Glycogen production and storage:
Most carbs you eat get converted to glucose, which is the main energy source for our body. But if there’s extra glucose, it turns into glycogen. Insulin is the main hormone that triggers this process:
- When you eat a meal with carbs, your blood glucose level rises.
- The rise in glucose signals the pancreas to produce more insulin, a hormone that helps absorb glucose from the blood for energy.
- Insulin directs liver cells to make an enzyme called glycogen, which links glucose molecules together.
- When glucose and insulin levels are higher than needed, they can be stored in fat cells.
The amount of glycogen stored in fat cells varies from woman to woman. It depends on how active you are and how much energy you burn. Also on the quality of food you eat.Glycogen stored in muscles is used throughout the body. Likebrain cells, spinal cord, and many other cells.
How does the body use glycogen?
Normally, there is about 4 grams of glucose in the blood, and that’s when you sit for long periods without eating or burning glucose during exercise.Also, insulin levels in the blood drop. When your body reaches this stage, it starts breaking down glycogen to get glucose and it becomes the main energy source in the body. During rest, your brain uses more than half of the glucose in the blood. Your brain needs about 20% of your daily glucose intake.
Glycogen and your diet
The timing of when you eat and the type of food you eat. The effect is strong when you follow a low diet carbohydrates, and here we create a glycogen deficit in your body.
Causes of fatigue and tiredness:
Some women suffer from fatigue and tiredness when they follow a low carb diet, and they keep feeling this way for a while, until their body adapts to using glycogen as a main energy source, and those symptoms start to fade, but some diets cause you to lose body water at first because water weighs three times more than glucose.
Glycogen and exercise:
The body can store about 2000 calories of glucose as glycogen, For athletes, when glycogen stores start to run low, their performance declines. So if you are a pro athlete and want to avoid this drop, follow these tips:
- Carb loading: Athletes eat a lot of carbs before exercise to get a big energy boost for the workout, but this wasn't ideal because it can cause digestive issues and increase body water.
- Glucose consumption: You can consume some gel products with pre-filled glycogen to boost its blood levels and help improve your workout performance.
- Following a low-carb diet: Eating a diet high in fat and low in carbs trains your body to use glycogen as an energy source and helps you when glucose stores run out.
