High bs after morning exercise

[sklane11]

Just wondering if anyone has tips re why this kind of thing happens - wake up at 6am on a bs of around 8/9 (not great I know), had bacon for breakfast (so no carbs) and my 28 units of lantus. Then went for the gym for half an hour and bs soars up to around 14? Trying to exercise more to help my numbers but not really having that effect at the moment! Thanks

 

[Auckland Canary]

This is not an uncommon response to exercise believe it or not. What happens is the exercise can encourage your liver to release stored glucose in response to the activity which can increase your levels.
Strangely for me this can happen when I exercise in the morning but not in the afternoon. Go figure!
So really although it sounds counter intuitive you may need to take a unit or 2 of insulin before you exercise. Just take it easy to start with as you don't want to hypo by taking too much and make sure as well that this is a regular pattern and not just a one off event.
As well you don't say if you bolus for your breakfast if you are only having bacon however just because there are no carbs does not mean you can get away without injecting I'm afraid. Protein will also eventually turn into glucose in your blood and you will generally need about a third of the amount of insulin for protein that you do for carbs. However it tends to only work like this if you just eat protein with no carbs. If you have a bacon sandwich then don't calculate the protein in your bolus dose, just use the carbs in the bread.
It's a bloody nightmare I know but hopefully this may help you out a bit. Keep exercising and let me know how you get on.

 

[Juicyj]

@sklane11

It's so frustrating doing exercise and this happens, almost seems counter productive to what we are trying to do, as we all know exercise is great for our well being. I get this too, depending on the exercise, if I do high intensity then it releases adrenaline which stimulates the liver to dump glucose causing BG to raise, it really depends on the intensity of what you are doing. I find if I do a Pilates class that I will drop slightly but if I do a 45 min hard ride on my bike then my BG will go up. It's a case of you will have to correct for it but also keep a watchful eye on your BG 1-2 hours afterwards as your body may still be burning glucose whilst repairing muscle tissue so this could cause hypo.

My best suggestion is to keep an exercise diary - my fitness pal and track your results, we are all different so you can respond differently to exercise to say me, but knowing how your body responds will help you manage this better.

 

[Juicyj]

Agree with @Auckland Canary if you're not injecting already for protein then you should think about doing this, I always bolus for protein as I will spike otherwise.

Also have you tried testing your basal rates ? Waking around 8/9 means an adjustment is required to get you in range when you wake, what are your night time readings like ?

 

[TorqPenderloin]

The blood sugar spike is a basic human survival response and probably was necessarily several thousand years ago. Unfortunately, in 2016, it's nothing more than a pain in the a**.

As mentioned, what's likely happening is your liver is releasing glucose into your blood to make sure you have enough usable energy. It's part of the fight or flight instinct. That was probably important if you needed to run away from a lion or predator....it's not so important if you're running on a treadmill. It is a temporary response as your liver can only hold so much glucose (about 500-600 calories worth). Most people find that after about an hour, your blood sugar will start to stabilize as you use up all your glucose/glycogen.

The best answer I've heard to avoid this is to gradually build up your intensity when beginning exercise and gradually wind down when finishing exercise. The idea is to minimize the "shock" to your body so it doesn't feel a need to dump energy into your blood.

 

[sklane11]

Thanks all, really interesting stuff! Yeh my bloods were perfect at lower bass last week but are being a nightmare this week (nooo clue why) so am upping it everyday but still waking up much higher than I'd like and can even see it creeping up over night. Interesting about the protein shots - I was only eating bacon to try and prevent this rise as before I'd usually have around 10g of carbs for breakfast, but yep will have to start injecting. This rise happened today and yesterday and both were 30 min circuit sessions so fairly high intensity. Thanks for your help!

 

[JRW]

It's worth noting that some exercise will raise BG, very high intensity exercise will do that. For more regular cardio it will rise a bit for about 40 minutes and then lower afterwards.