The Role of Exercise to Achieve Normal Blood Sugar Levels in Diabetes
Diet, Exercise, and Weight Loss
The three main strategies to achieve normal blood sugar levels – the aim of every diabetic — are Diet, Exercise, and Weight Loss. The dietary approaches through meal planning and an understanding and explanation of the choice of food items, calories, nutritional categories, Glycemic Index, and such, are covered on my websites Diabetic Menu Guide and Diabetic Food List + Plus.
Exercise and weight loss are naturally linked because exercise requires energy that can be measured in calories and body weight loss, usually measured in pounds, can also be equated to calories. Since most diabetics are overweight, national diabetes associations recommend an increase in exercise activities to achieve a healthy bodyweight.
Food calories and body weight
The generally accepted equivalent number of calories to one pound of body weight is 3500. Meaning in simplistic terms, that in order to lose one pound of body weight requires a calorie deficit of 3500 calories, either through consuming fewer calories or increasing physical activities or a combination of both.
Caution
Consult your doctor when starting a program to substantially increase activity levels or decrease dietary intake of calories. You may be advised to monitor blood sugar levels more carefully before and after exercise to see what effects are caused, if any, by the exercise. All diabetics must be under the continuing care of a physician.
Exercise can range from outdoor activities such as the most basic forms of walking, jogging, bicycle riding, or for some who are younger and more agile there are the competitive sporting activities, tennis, basketball, or golf for example.
Indoor activities may require membership to a health club or a gym where there is specialized exercise equipment available. This can be beneficial especially where a personalized exercise and weight loss program is designed for each individual.
Some equipment can be acquired for use in the home, the simple items such as weights, skipping ropes, exercise balls or the more complex items such as stationary bicycles and treadmills. These can be very good in regions where weather makes it less comfortable to exercise outdoors. Whatever contributes to your main objective of losing excess weight and managing your blood sugar levels in order to reduce the risk of suffering the complications that are faced by all persons who have diabetes.
Don’t rush, avoid possible injury or lowering blood sugar levels too much
The main thing is to get moving and shed excess pounds but in a sensible and gradual way, not by fast and crash diets. For walkers maybe a pedometer would be of use as a guide to how many paces have been covered. For more strenuous exercises such as jogging, perhaps even a simple portable blood pressure measuring device would be worthwhile. Certainly avoid the risk of doing too much too soon. When a comfortable level has been reached the pace an be increased and also the number of times to work out each week.
Keep an emergency pack of supplies in your bag with an energy snack and some suitable drink such as apple juice in case you experience those feelings that tell you your blood sugars are becoming too low. Know your limitations.
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Hi, I’m a diabetic with type 2, blogging about diabetes also. I’m exercising everyday to do the best of the situation.