Muscle: The Organ We Forgot to Care For

When most people think about muscle, they think about strength or appearance. But physiologically, muscle behaves like an organ, one that stores glucose, releases protective signalling molecules, and largely determines how well your metabolism ages. Ignore it, and you lose far more than tone.

Muscle is a metabolic bank

Skeletal muscle is the body's largest site for glucose disposal. After a meal, healthy muscle pulls sugar out of the bloodstream and stores it, no insulin drama required. As muscle mass falls, that storage capacity shrinks, glucose lingers longer in the blood, and the pathway toward insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes opens up.

The "thin outside, fat inside" problem

Many South Asians carry a body type that looks lean but hides low muscle mass and high visceral fat, sometimes called the "thin-fat" phenotype. A normal weight on the scale can mask a metabolically fragile body. This is one reason diabetes and heart disease strike at lower body weights and younger ages in Indian populations.

Muscle protects more than metabolism

• Heart: better glucose control reduces cardiovascular strain
• Brain: exercise-driven muscle signalling supports cognition and mood
• Ageing: muscle preserves strength, balance and independence
• Bone: loading muscle strengthens the skeleton it pulls on

How to build and protect it

You do not need a gym or heavy weights to start. The two levers that matter most are resistance training and adequate protein.

• Resistance-train 2–3 times a week, bodyweight, bands or weights
• Prioritise protein at each meal, especially breakfast
• Walk daily and break up long sitting periods
• Protect sleep, muscle repair happens overnight

At Lyxaa, we assess body composition rather than weight alone, because two people at the same weight can have entirely different metabolic futures. Building muscle is one of the highest-return investments you can make in long-term health.