Physical activity is an important treatment for diabetes. Also, it is important to always maintain a balanced glucose or insulin level with Healthline.
Staying healthy and active throughout our entire life is important for keeping our blood glucose levels steady. In addition, we can prevent long-term complications like kidney disease and nerve pain. Besides, there are many benefits that exercise can offer.
But, the most important benefit that it can offer for those with diabetes is to help them reduce the glucose in their blood.
When we exercise our muscles, we get the necessary amount of glucose that they need to distribute around the body. With proper exercise, our insulin becomes more effective and decreases insulin resistance.
When it comes to long-term complications, people affected by this chronic condition may be able to reduce heart problems by exercising. In addition, they can keep their heart strong and healthy.
Moreover, exercise can help us avoid arteriosclerosis and maintain good cholesterol.
The Benefits of Exercising
- Leaner, stronger muscles
- Improved mood
- Lower blood pressure
- Stress management
- Increased level of good cholesterol (HDL)
- Better sleep
- Better control of weight
- More energy
- Stronger bones
How to Get Started?
If we decide to start exercising more, then we must be prepared and determined to achieve our goal. Who’s prepared? Excellent! This is the first step to a healthy life ready to fight against the disease.
Besides, any exercise counts, it doesn’t matter whether we choose to cycle or walk every day.
If we try to be active in any way, we can improve our blood and manage our weight. However, before we take any drastic measures and plan anything, we should consult with our doctor first. We should let a physiotherapist determine the ideal exercise plan suited for our bodies.
We should take our time. After all, small steps come first. We shouldn’t be discouraged if getting leaner takes longer than we believed it would. We can’t achieve our ideal goal in a day.
We should pick an exercise that we can do and not something that makes us uncomfortable. After we have determined what we like, the next step is to make a plan.
Exercise Plan
This plan is important for us to follow. To find out what it is and how to prepare it, use these questions:
- How often can I exercise?
- How much effort will I put into the exercise?
- How long will it last?
- What type of exercise is ideal for my body?
After answering all these questions, we are ready to initiate our exercise plan.
How Often Can We Exercise
The key to achieving our goals is not giving up. We should exercise regularly with no exceptions, and try to focus on exercising 150 minutes per week with every exercise lasting for about 10 minutes. If that is hard, we might try exercising slowly.
How Many Efforts Will We Put into the Exercise
We should start with some easy exercises to prepare our body for intensive practice; starting slowly increasing the intensity of exercises every week.
How Long Will It Last?
It may be hard at first, but we should start exercising 10 minutes per day.
Each week we should add 10 more minutes to our exercise for up to 30 minutes. Also, we can try practicing three times per day for 10 minutes to get the necessary 30 minutes of exercise.
What Type of Exercise Is Ideal for Our Body?
We should choose an exercise that we find comfortable and preferable. If we are having a hard time choosing what type of exercise we like, here is a simple guide to the three main categories of exercises:
- Strengthening exercises: make muscles strong and hard by lifting weights
- Aerobic exercises: swimming, ball games, walking, dancing, tennis, basketball, and jogging. They are good for endurance and cardiovascular exercises.
- Flexibility exercises: stretching and loosening the muscles.
Moreover, we can choose another form of exercise that might not seem like such. For example, we can try to use the stairs more often rather than the escalator, walk more from the bus to our office, and dance at a community center.
I Have Trouble Walking! What Should I Do?
If we face this problem, we can try cycling, lifting, upper-body stretching, or water aerobics.
One-Month Exercise Plan
Here is an example of how we can plan our exercise for 1 month
Safety First!
We should not forget to do the most important step before we exercise – to check our blood glucose level. If it is:
- plus 22mmol/L (370mg/dl) we shouldn’t exercise and drink a lot of water.
- under 6mmol/L (100mg/dl) we should try to eat a few low-fat snacks before exercising
- If we are more than 40 years old with heart disease, we should consult with our doctor if we want to start exercising.
- If our feet feel numb, we have to bleed in the eye, or can’t see, we should consult with our doctor first.
- Plus, if we take insulin, we might take more to prevent low blood glucose levels and consult with our doctor as well. We will need your advice if we want to continue with our exercise plan.
- If we exercise before we eat, we should consume a small snack before we start with our physical activity.
Avoid Boredom
The more we stick to one routine the more boring it gets.
That is why after a while people lose interest in coming to the gym and working out. That is why we need to pick a different exercise every time. If we are bored with the treadmill, try switching to different machines.
However, nothing is interesting without a friend. If we feel lonely, we should try inviting a friend to join us and motivate us as we try our best to get in shape.
Moreover, if we like being outdoors, we can take a hike, swim or walk around. We should try not to be couch potatoes and watch TV every day. This way we can make our exercises seem more interesting and meaningful.
Or for example, one day we are just not in the mood to go to the gym, we can try to stretch at home. This is a great way for the body to be active and exercise a little.
Conclusion
Maybe now people will be inspired to exercise a little. This way they can improve their health and get leaner. But, it doesn’t mean that it should be boring and time-consuming. They can always find a way to make exercising fun and beneficial for them.
All they have to do is create a proper exercise plan with the help of a doctor. Watch this video to see how to exercise at home.
Source: Healthline | Diabetes Care Community | WebMD | Diabetes Australia
