How does exercise affect your BS?

EPhantom

Active Member
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Type of diabetes
Other
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So... I decided to eat a bowl full of multigrain cherrios before walking only like... 4 blocks away to walgreens for some vitamins to test... and when I get back about an hour has passed and my BS was only 158! I expected it to be more around like... 180-200! I understand that there can be error in these meters... but +- twenty percent from 160ish is much better than +- from 200.

It's like the only reason why I have insulin resistance is because I don't have enough muscle... not enough muscle makes my BS go high cause the glucose just can't get absorbed, then that makes insulin levels stay too high, which then makes the cells resistant... maybe all we really need is more muscle!
 

douglas99

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Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
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A small amount of hard exercise can bring my BS down quite remarkably.
 

EPhantom

Active Member
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Type of diabetes
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So I was talking with an old friend from school, a type 1. Gave him a little info that I found after my BS went crazy and decided to try to look something up... I think I figured something out...

I've heard of insulin being like... nicotine, or alcohol, having a little when you haven't in a long time or ever affects you greatly. But if you've been having a lot lately then it takes SO much more to affect you the way it did originally, so you take more and more to get the same effect. Well, if you start to get off it then you don't need as much to affect you the same way. By what I understand insulin is the EXACT same way! Just like nicotine or any other such drug.

http://www.kines.umich.edu/sites/we...sprod/files/resource_files/1arias-jgeront.pdf

http://www.iub.edu/~k562/articles/diabetes/ex review Hawley 2008.pdf

So basically what these to articles are saying (or by what I understand) is that insulin sensitivity (in one form or an other) increases over time when one exercises for a long period of time, and glucose uptake increases temporarily when one exercises short term.

I'm guessing what's going on is that the glucose uptake that occurs during and after exercise (can't remember the molecule associated with the action) makes it so insulin simply isn't needed, so the pancreas doesn't release much at all. The lack of insulin over time makes the cells feel they can have more receptors, just like with nicotine. This would make insulin "sensitivity" increase.

Now what I'm wondering is... Why wasn't I explained this when my blood sugar levels went crazy... being told what's going on would make me want to exercise MUCH more, and put more importance in exercise than simply being told that I should exercise 30 minutes of day, as for example a "walk". We NEED more muscle training, stuff to build muscle to make ourselves sensitive again! ... we need emphasis in our pre-diabetic conversations with doctors!
 

NoCrbs4Me

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I reversed my Type 2
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Interestingly, when I have done some running my blood sugar usually heads towards about 5.6 mmol/L, no matter if it starts lower than that or above that. One thing to keep in mind is that we have about 5 g of glucose in our blood (5 L total blood x 100 mg/dL x 10 dL/L = 5000 mg), which has about 20 calories, which is a bout 15 minutes worth of energy if you use 2000 calories a day.