Your friends are starting a fifteen-mile bike outing three times a week. You want to participate, but you’re not positive about how to manage your diabetes during exercise. Exercise benefits for diabetics include improved muscle strength, decreased sleep apnea, lower blood pressure, and cardiovascular fitness. Set up a time to meet with your doctor to get a medical clearance and plan your new fitness program.
Discuss Your Plan with Your Doctor
It is imperative to know how your body will react before exercising. The American Diabetes Association stresses that “Additional carbohydrate intake and/or insulin reductions are typically required to maintain glycemic balance during and after physical activity. Frequent blood glucose checks are required to implement carbohydrate intake and insulin dose adjustment strategies.”
Use these recommendations for the times to test your blood sugar levels.
- Test 15 minutes before exercising.
- Test again every time you reach 30 minutes of exercise.
- Test when you are done exercising.
- Retest your levels every couple of hours.
Optimum Exercises for Diabetes Wellness
You need 150 minutes of exercise a week to gain the most benefits. Vary your exercises between resistance training, aerobic exercises, flexibility training, and balance exercises. Complete your exercises on non-consecutive days. Stay hydrated and bring along your monitoring kit.
Aerobic exercises
- jogging or walking
- swimming
- biking
Resistance Training
- free weights
- weight machines
- resistance bands
Flexibility and Balance
- tai chi
- yoga
- dance
Blood Sugar Challenges
Take your blood sugar frequently and adjust the levels as needed. If your blood sugar is low, you may need a carbohydrate snack. If your blood sugar is too high, it’s dangerous to exercise and adjustments need to be made. Precise monitoring of your blood sugar will prevent life-threatening episodes of hypoglycemia.
Meet your friends. Choose a new exercise! Monitor your sugar and reap the benefits.
