Tip: Use Vinegar to Get Lean & Build Muscle

Insulin can make you fat or it can make you lean and muscular. It all depends on whether you're insulin sensitive or insulin resistant. Without optimal insulin sensitivity, all that protein you eat never gets delivered to muscle. Instead, a lot of it goes to fat. So what you want to do is optimize insulin sensitivity.

Here's an easy way to do that: pour vinegar in everything. Vinegar not only attenuates the glucose and insulin response from a carb meal, it raises insulin sensitivity. Several studies have confirmed this, and one study reports that vinegar raised insulin sensitivity at the 60-minute post-meal point by an impressive 34%. It does this because acetic acid (vinegar) suppresses disaccharidase activity, giving it physiological effects similar to acarbose or metformin, two drugs used to treat Type II diabetes.

Another study took 29 people and divided them into three groups: one group with type II diabetes, one with pre-diabetic signs, and one group that was healthy. All were given apple cider vinegar before a meal. The results were pretty impressive:

• All three groups had better blood sugar readings with vinegar than with placebo.
• The group with diabetes improved blood sugar by 25 percent.
• The group with pre-diabetic symptoms had lower blood sugar than even the healthy group.
• The group with pre-diabetic symptoms benefitted the most as their blood glucose concentrations were cut almost in half.

A follow-up study also revealed that the continued use of vinegar led to an average weight loss of two pounds in four weeks, and another found that when people with type II diabetes took two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar before bed, their fasting blood sugar test the next morning was lowered by 4 to 6 percent.

Reference

1. Johnston CS et al. Vinegar Improves Insulin Sensitivity to a High-Carbohydrate Meal in Subjects With Insulin Resistance or Type 2 Diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2004 Jan;27(1):281-2. PubMed.