When you’re first told you have diabetes it can be hard to imagine how your life can ever be the same again. However, it’s possible to live a full and happy life with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes – you simply need to understand what diabetes is, and how to manage and monitor it.
How Exercise Helps Manage Diabetes
Exercising increases your insulin sensitivity, allowing your body to utilize the insulin you have and convert glucose into energy. This can help prevent high blood glucose levels and keep your energy levels elevated. Exercise is also an effective way of promoting the conversion of protein to fuel, also helping to maintain your energy levels without elevating your blood sugar.
Of course, exercise will also help you to burn excess sugar and calories, reducing weight gain or even helping you to lose weight. This has been shown to help deal with diabetes.
But that’s not all, exercise is also critical to ensure your bones are strong, you have higher energy levels, an increase in good cholesterol, and lower blood pressure. On top of this, regular exercise releases endorphins which will improve your mood and help to ward off depression and can even help you to sleep better.
As sleep is the time your body heals and rebalances itself, getting enough sleep is an important part of managing your diabetes. Ideally, you should be getting 7-8 hours every night.
Before You Start
If you have diabetes it is imperative that you speak with your doctor before you start exercising. You should work out a program together that will allow you to lose weight without excessively straining your body.
Swimming is one of the best ways of doing this as it is considered an aerobic exercise but your joints are not placed under stress. It is also easy to do with friends as you can balance swimming lengths with socialising too.
Don’t forget that warming up and cooling down are essential when you exercise; it reduces the risk of injury.
Walking To Manage Diabetes
If you’re new to exercise you don’t want to start with a 5-mile run. However, just walking around the block is a great place to start. In fact, anything that gets you active is good.
You’ll want to aim for 30 minutes of exercise a day, that’s something that elevates your heart rate but still leaves you able to talk. Don’t worry if this isn’t possible when you start, stick at it and it soon will be.
Intensive Exercise and Weight Training
We have mentioned before how intensive exercises helps to manage diabetes – some researchers recommended that 150 minutes of intense exercise is taken each week to control diabetes. Weight training is a great way to add intensity to your workouts and as you get stronger, you can work harder and lift more, which means that your workouts become even more effective at managing diabetes.
Don’t forget, formal exercise like running, swimming, cycling, and even hitting the gym I great. But playing with your children, doing badminton, basketball, or other similar activities all count as well.
Monitoring Your Blood Glucose Levels
What testing kit is most appropriate for you? In many cases you can prick your finger at home and test your blood glucose levels, but, if you have a more serious case or want to have more information regarding your blood sugar levels you’ll want to consider continuous glucose monitoring supplies. Whatever your decision, it is important to find exercises that can help with diabetes control.
Health Eating – Diabetes Diet
A healthy diet is vital for diabetes management too, so ensure that you are eating all the right things and exercising often. So long as you maintain a health diet and take regular exercises, you will find that you can much better manage your condition.