When it comes to living with diabetes, exercise is as important as your meal planning, blood pressure, weight, blood sugar monitoring and medications. Staying physically active plays a very important role in regularizing your blood glucose levels.
Before you begin exercising, it is important to talk to your doctor about what kind of exercise regime you can safely start with.
What are the benefits of exercising regularly?
- Helps in keeping your blood sugar levels within the target range with less dosage of medication and/or insulin.
- Improves circulation.
- Helps in maintaining ideal blood pressure.
- Reducing the risks for stroke and heart attack.
- Helps in increasing insulin sensitivity (the insulin in your body works better)
- Helps in keeping your joints more mobile and less stiff.
- Helps in keeping your bones healthy and strong.
- Helps in you in managing your stress.
How does exercise help in lowering blood glucose levels?
When you exercise, your muscles become active and insulin sensitivity is increased. So, your cells can use available insulin better to take up the glucose from the blood for energy during and after the activity.
Staying active on a regular basis can also work in lowering your HBa1c levels.
What are the types of exercise and how can you go about it?
There are 3 types of exercise: –
- Cardio/Aerobic
- Flexibility/stretching
- Strength or resistance training/Muscle building
Here is the list that you need to check for before starting with the exercise routine: –
- Start slowly and gradually increase your activity under supervision depending on your progress.
- Keep yourself hydrated before and during the workout.
- Wear proper shoes and socks.
- Check your feet for sores before and after exercising.
- Warm-up and cool down is important.
- Contact your health care provider and stop exercising in case of ANY discomfort.
Exercise and hypoglycemia.
Insulin and certain specific diabetes tablets can cause low sugar, especially during/after exercise. Low blood sugar level below 70mg/dl is known as HYPOGLYCEMIA.
Symptoms of hypoglycemia: –
- Sweating
- Blurry vision
- Dizziness
- Anxiety
- Excessive Hunger
- Irritability
- Shakiness
- Fast Heartbeat
- Headache
- Weakness/Fatigue
Having these above symptoms does not necessarily mean your sugar is low. The only way to know if your symptoms are truly from hypoglycemia is to check using your glucometer. Keep your meter handy.
Check your blood sugar levels before exercising!
