Physical activity is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. In addition to improving your general health and well being, increasing your daily level of activity may help you to better manage your diabetes.
Below are a few ways exercise can help your diabetes:
- It can reduce insulin resistance — this means that your body can use insulin more efficiently and this is especially important for people with Type 2 (non-insulin dependent) diabetes.
- It can help you achieve and maintain a healthy weight.
- It can improve your heart and circulation, and reduce blood pressure.
- It can increase your energy levels, but also help you sleep and relax.
- It can have positive psychological effects, making you “feel good” and helping you combat stress.
- It can also improve the health of your bones and help prevent osteoporosis.
When you exercise, your muscles work harder and use up their glucose stores for fuel. When the glucose stored in muscle runs low, glucose from the blood is used. Exercise can help use up some of the glucose that builds up in the blood. And exercise has another bonus for people with diabetes. It seems to make muscles and other tissues more sensitive to insulin, so less insulin is needed to move glucose out of the blood and into muscle cells. Some people with Type 2 diabetes find they no longer have to take insulin or other diabetes medication once they start a regular exercise program. However, you should never start an exercise program or make changes in your diet, insulin, or medication without first talking it over with your health care team.
In a recent study at the Duke University Medical Center, researchers have shown that long-term, intensive exercise can significantly improve the body’s ability to control blood sugar levels, adding further evidence that exercise can slow the development of diabetes or heart disease in people at risk. Furthermore, the study reports, these beneficial effects of exercise were maintained one month after ending the exercise program. “It now appears that there is also long-term beneficial effect from regular exercise, most likely due to the fact that there is a significant amount of fat lost,” said exercise physiologist Cris Slentz, Ph.D., author of the study.
HOW TO STAY MOTIVATED
- Joining a group can make exercising more fun and having other people with you can make it easier. You might also benefit from the added bonus of meeting new people.
- Schedule your workout and stick to your schedule.
- Use a mixture of exercise activities instead of doing the same thing every day.
- Set realistic and specific goals. Don’t expect to lose a lot of weight within a few days. Set goals like exercising four times a week and losing 15 pounds this year.
- Reward yourself.
- Track your progress. Keep an exercise journal and record noticeable changes like your energy level, the way your clothes fit, and the amount of medication you take.
