Drop your cupcakes & pick up a dumbbell today!

There is no denying the fact that without resistance training one's fitness regime is incomplete irrespective of the gender. Human physiology is common to both the genders. Therefore, adaptation from exercise sessions is also common to both genders. Having said that, the level to which one adapts to the exercise session & specifically resistance training is different & rather modest in women than in men. The key to understanding body's adaption to various exercise, nutrition & lifestyle decisions is with a thorough appreciation of how the various hormones in the body interact with various cells in the body to carry out a metabolic function. For example, when we train consistently & intensely the body super compensates by increasing the release of hormones in the body, which instructs the body to increase the size of the productive lean skeletal tissues to equip itself to sustain (and if I may, to rule :D) the subsequent bouts of physical activity. These lean tissues that responds & gets built due to consistent bouts of training sessions also happens to be the "toned" ones because each of the lean skeletal tissue is characterized by a starting point on one end of the bone structure & an insertion point into the other end of the bone giving the body a defined look, and the growth of which gives the body a very "toned" look!

The primary & the most significant of hormone which induces & instructs the body to build more lean/toned tissue is the hormone "Testosterone". Testosterone is found in good amounts in males compared to the female counterpart. Thus, when the two independently engage in physical activity such as strength training, even at similar intensities, the women do not add significant muscles or add broadness on their shoulders that men would because of the lack of anabolic hormones, such as the testosterone in women! In fact for what it's worth, given the fact that aging leads to degeneration of lean tissues giving the body an aged look, gives all the more reasons & motivation to train with weights in order for women to keep hold of the lean tissues & to make them stronger & grow them, which gives the body it's lean, youthful & tight look!

Now coming to the part about cupcakes. It all again comes down to which hormone is triggered when we eat cupcakes, which makes us accumulate fat & gives us a bulky look. This hormone is none other than the hormone "insulin"! As humans, whenever we think or smell food the body starts preparing itself to metabolize the food by releasing insulin in the blood stream. The function of insulin is to clear the glucose from the blood & store the blood sugar glucose in form of carbohydrates glycogen into Liver & Skeletal Muscles, and all the excess blood glucose is converted into the "triglycerides" & stored into the Fat Tissue, so that the new sugar, protein & fats from the forthcoming meal gets sufficiently managed without much stress on the pancreas & panic in the system!

Now what happens when we eat copious amount of cupcakes is that it contains refined & processed ingredients in form of white flour & refined sugar. These carbohydrates once eaten instantly convert into blood glucose & enter the blood stream at a very high rate. In response to the increased blood sugar the body then releases a lot of insulin to deal with the high blood sugar. The insulin has very high affinity to fat tissues, therefore, in the liver, the excess blood sugar starts getting converted into fatty acids (triglycerides) & the insulin eventually pushes this recently produced fats converted from excess blood sugar glucose into the fat tissue. The fat tissue as we know is a sac like mass sitting just underneath our superficial layer, the skin. Once the triglycerides are fed & loaded into these sac like tissues, it gains size! And once these sac like structures start to house huge amounts of triglycerides in them, they gradually grow in size & they easily give into the gravity, giving the body higher volume, out-of-shape & bulky look!