Control Your Diabetes With Exercise

When you have type 2 diabetes, physical activity becomes an important component of your treatment plan.  It’s also important to have a healthy diet plan and maintain your blood glucose level through medications or insulin, if necessary.

If you stay fit and active throughout your life, you’ll be able to control your diabetes and keep your blood glucose level in check. Controlling your blood glucose level is essential in preventing long-term complications, such as nerve pain and kidney disease.

Being Physically Active Helps Your Mind and Body in Many Ways

Exercise has so many benefits, but the most critical one is that it makes it much easier to control your blood glucose (blood sugar) level. People with type 2 diabetes have too much glucose in their blood, either because their body doesn’t produce enough insulin to process it, or because their body doesn’t use insulin properly (insulin resistant).

In either case, exercise helps to reduce the glucose in your blood. Muscles can use glucose without insulin when you’re exercising. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you’re insulin resistant or if you don’t have enough insulin: when you exercise, your muscles need glucose to produce energy, and in turn, your blood glucose level goes down.

If you’re insulin resistant, exercise makes your insulin more effective. That is your insulin resistance goes down when you exercise, and your cells can use the glucose more effectively.

Exercise can also help people with type 2 diabetes avoid long-term complications, especially heart disorders. People with diabetes are likely to develop blocked arteries (heart disease), which can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Exercise keeps your heart healthy and strong. Plus, exercise helps you maintain good cholesterol—and that helps you avoid high cholesterol and the build-up of plaque that may block the blood from passing easily through your arteries.

Additionally, there are all the traditional benefits of exercise:

Lower blood pressure

Better control of weight

Increased level of good cholesterol (HDL)

Leaner, stronger muscles

Stronger bones

More energy

Improved mood

Better sleep

Stress management

But Before You Begin Exercising, here is what you need to do...

When most people are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, they are overweight, so the idea of exercising is particularly daunting. For your health, you have to get started on a good, reasonable exercise plan, but first...You should talk to your doctor.

 

Your doctor will be able to examine your heart health, which is particularly important if you already have blocked arteries or high blood pressure. You also need to take into consideration any other diabetes-related complications retinopathy or neuropathy, for example. As you begin an exercise program, your doctor can refer you to an exercise physiologist, physical therapist, or diabetes educator to help you figure out the best exercise program that allows you to get in shape for your fitness level.

 

Also before you begin exercising, you need to set realistic goals. If you haven’t exercised much recently, you will want to start slow and gradually increase the amount and intensity of the activity.

 

Remember to stay hydrated by drinking water and always have a treatment for low blood glucose handy (a 15 g carb snack is a good idea). It is good to check your blood sugar with your glucose meter before and after exercise to make sure you are in a safe range.

 

Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes does change your life, but making small changes to your routine can help you incorporate more physical activity into your day. You need to do what works for your body and your lifestyle. See the suggestions below for what types of exercise to do. These are just outlined, your exercise plan will be best designed by your exercise therapist which will be tailor-made in consideration with your body condition.

 

Allow yourself some time to build up to a steady, challenging exercise routine. And be okay with going slow it's better for your body in the long run.

 

What Kind of Exercise Should You Do?

There are three main kinds of exercise—aerobic, strength training, and flexibility work. You should aim to have a good mix of all three.

 

Aerobic Exercises

Aim to get at least 30 minutes of cardio (aerobic) exercise most days of the week. If the thought of finding 30 minutes too difficult, you can break up the exercise into shorter periods, say 10 minutes here and there, aiming for a minimum of 30 minutes at the end of the day. 

 

Aerobic exercises include:

Tennis

Dancing and Zumba

Jogging/Running

Walking

Basketball

Swimming

Cycling

Initially, you may not be able to do all the above-mentioned stuff, you can start off slowly with mild intensity and then gradually increase the intensity of your exercises. 

 

Also, stretch your creativity when it comes to fitting in exercise. Take a walk at lunch, or get the whole family out after dinner post an evening walk...  Walking from your car and into the store is exercise so park farther away.

 

You need to find a way to exercise that you actually enjoy it because if it’s not fun, you won’t do it. It’ll be harder to stay motivated, even if you know all the benefits of exercise. Consider taking group classes at the gym, or find a friend to walk or run with. Having someone else exercising with you does make it more fun and motivating. In the current scenario, you can even consider having a personal educator where all the fitness centers are shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Strength Training

Once you have been able to include aerobic activity into your days, then you can start to add in some resistance training. Remember to consider both aerobic and strength training hand in hand as the later is important for your muscles to work optimally without putting excessive load over your heart.  

 

Strength training helps you to achieve efficient muscles. These resistance-type exercises, adding to walking or jogging, also support strong, healthy bones. Building more muscle in place of fat is particularly beneficial in case of type 2 diabetes because muscles use the most glucose, so the more you use your muscles, the more effective you can be at controlling your blood glucose level.

 

Weight training is one of the most used strength building techniques, although you can also use your own body weight to build up strength. Lifting weights will again be best advised by your therapist in order to avoid unnecessary pains due to improper weight and reputation during the course of the exercise.

Flexibility Training

With flexibility training, you’ll improve how well your muscles and joints work. Stretching before and after exercise reduces muscle soreness and actually relaxes your muscles.

 

Create a Routine and Stick with It

Make a commitment to exercise; make it a priority. Your long-term health depends on it, so no matter how tough it may be to find time or to motivate yourself to exercise, keep at it. It will help you lose weight (if you need to do that), and it will make your body more efficient at using its insulin and glucose.

Sources

• American Diabetes Association.  Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes—2009. Diabetes Care. 2009;32:S13-61.
• McCulloch D. Patient information: Diabetes type 2: Overview. UpToDate Web site. January 30, 2009. Available at: http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=~n0K0MIfI1iZs.&selectedTitle=5~150&source=search_result. Accessed April 20, 2009.
• Becker G. Type 2 Diabetes: An Essential Guide for the newly Diagnosed. 2^nd ed. New York, NY: Marlowe & Company; 2007.