Your blood sugar is affected by food, physical activity, and insulin. Before you got diabetes, your body balanced these things all by itself. Your blood sugar would stay at about the same level, between 70-115 most of the time. But because you have diabetes, your blood sugar goes up faster and higher after you eat and usually comes down more slowly. This happens because you do not have enough insulin at just the right time for your body to use. People with diabetes need to help their bodies control blood sugars by carefully balancing food, exercise, and medicine.
Food causes your blood sugar to go up. Some foods, like fruit juice, cause your blood sugar to go up fairly quickly. Other foods, like meat, cause your blood sugar to go up more slowly. Your meal plan has different kinds of food to help keep your blood sugar on an even keel. You can find out how different foods affect your blood sugar by testing your blood about one to two hours after you eat. You will probably notice that very sweet foods cause your blood sugar to go up more than you like. This is why most people with diabetes limit the amount of sweets they eat.
Exercise will cause your blood sugar to go down. If you exercise every day, but miss one day, your blood sugar will probably be higher that day. It also works the other way too. If you usually don’t exercise, but one day you are more active than usual, your blood sugar will probably be lower that day. Activities that you do once in a while, like mowing the lawn or shoveling snow, can cause your blood sugar to go down.
Diabetes pills and insulin also cause your blood sugar to go down. But if you take too much of either or eat less than usual, your blood sugar will get too low. If you forget to take your diabetes medicine or don’t take enough, your blood sugar will be too high.
Keeping your blood sugar in the normal range can prevent or delay the long-term complications of diabetes. You will also feel better. A good way to keep your blood sugar levels in balance is to plan ahead. Keep in mind the need to balance your food, activity, and medicine. Get to know how each of these things affects your blood sugar. You can do this by keeping a record of your blood sugar levels, and writing down the foods you eat, your activity level, and what medicine you took. Then your records can give you a picture of your blood sugar patterns all through the day. These records can help you and your health care team plan your care. It is not easy to keep everything balanced and stick to your treatment program. If things do not go well one day, try again the next. When things go right, you should feel good about how well you have done. Keep trying. Balancing your diabetes care is done one day at a time.
