• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

exercise

To be completely honest, for me amending what I ate was far more effective in blood glucose control than any exercise.
I would hazard a guess that the best form of exercise is the one you like most.. I walk and swim because I quite like them and I hate running so have never been motivated to do it.
 
I cannot excercise but my bg levels are still, slowly falling. So, yes, do the excercise that you enjoy. It is said that resistive excercise is best but motivation is key.
 
Agree. Do something that you enjoy and that can easily be fitted into your schedule so that you are able to keep it up. Personally I am doing lots of walking. I've gradually built up from a "baseline" (I bought a pedometer and tracked my usual number of steps on a normal working day) from an average of around 6,000 steps a day to around 14-15,000 now. I do this by getting off the train a stop earlier in the morning and returning to that station in the evening, going for a walk in the lunch hour, walking the long way round and generally looking for ways to add in a bit more exercise. I've found my energy levels increasing and was noticeably fitter on a recent holiday. Have also started attending a walking football group on Sunday mornings.
 
Hemmy said:
what is the best form of exercise to take that helped you ?
Click to expand...

I like walking, it's free, costs nothing and you can go at your own pace.

Most days I walk for around 60-90 mins, off out soon with the dog for a nice long walk :)
 
@bulkbiker is right and that diet is key. You can't out train a bad diet!!

Walking has got to be up there as one of the best in my opinion. I walk more now i.e walk to the town centre rather than drive whenever possible.

I have been known to run but had injury for a while , but with recent physio and weight loss I am getting back out and did my first 5k for a while last night.

I can highly recommend #parkrun as a great way to explore running , very supportive groups across the country.
 
Hemmy said:
what is the best form of exercise to take that helped you ?
Click to expand...

Hemmy - There has been some interesting work done on exercise in recent years..

I believe, in reality, the more we can exercise the better. And we're more likely to stick with something we enjoy, rather than think we'll sign up to do some weight-lifting/marathon running/extreme yoga, or whatever, and really for whatever reason (don't like it/lack of motivation/body can't cope with it, for example) not keep it up.

One of the most impressive pieces I have heard about was undertaken at Leicester, where they demonstrated a significant improvement by T2 diabetics merely standing up for 5 minutes every hour. It seems the impact was largely from mobilising the large muscle groups in actually standing up. Anything more being a bonus.

I have heard figures bandies around, surrounding this piece. As I know the researcher, I really should email him, and ask directly, but one lady I met who had been a subject of the research told me her blood glucose improved by 40%, but had not idea what the 40% was of.

Here's an article written when the initial stuff was done: http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/...ercise-to-reduce-your-risk-of-type-2-diabetes

The piece was called the STAND Programme. If you Google "Joe Henson, Leicester, STAND Programme", you'll probably find more.

Joe's work in recent years has been focused on lifestyle, T2, CVD and young people at risk of T2D.

The Leicester NIHR is doing masses of work relating to T2, and due to the association with the Loughborough Lifetyle Unit, there's a lot going on with exercise/moving/lifestyle too.
 
Firstly like everyone has said any exercise that we do, even if it is only walking across the room to look out of the windows every hour, is of much more benefit then exercise we are told to do, but don’t keep up.

Resistance training (does not need to be weights at the gym) have been shown to result in the best fat lose and is therefore likely to be of most benefit. This could be as simple as using resistance bands at home, or even picking up a book and holding it for a minute with your arm extended to the front of you.

If you are not mobile ask to see a physio so you can be shown the exercise you can do sitting down, otherwise the better gyms have instructors that can help.
 
Agree with the "do something you enjoy" message
I have an aversion to organised "exercise" but recently took up photography as a hobby. I have days slowly Walking around london taking photos of architecture / landscapes / parks / street photography etc ( or photo mooching as I like to call it) I recently got a pedometer & found I was walking 8 - 10 miles at a time.- no wonder my legs were aching!
 
Hemmy said:
what is the best form of exercise to take that helped you ?
Click to expand...


food is the most important in the short run, but it is actually possible for most to lower insuline resistance with up till 30 % by becomming optimally fit.. I do go for that as well, I think it is worth doing all the efforts that one can do... to help one from being increasingly more and more ill from diabetes, and I do have a hope that doing all kinds of effort will end up curing me...

so I did loose weight, did go very low calories, did go lower carbs , did go to a fitness to get in maximum shape over time of cause used to be totally a couch potato not moving hardly at all... extremely obese a BMI of over 40 maybe even 42.. I could have had a blood cloth at any minute...

I think you should start where it is most enjoyable for you... both endurance exercise and resistance exercise is beneficial ... very much exercise can actually raise blood glucose initially because of raised adrenaline... but ignore that in the longer run your physical state do matter so keep an eye on the long sight goal and go for it...

If you want to become fit then do go for at least 3 times in a week then you will be fit very fast and very soon feel much better...

the treadmill has been one of my favorites,,, the first weeks I could only do like 10 minutes and only a little uphill but forcing myself to do more and more along the way has made it possible for me to now only in 1 year to be able to burn 1500 calories in 90 minutes now on the treadmill... so keep on and do what you can each day you go...weight lifting /resistance exercise is also very good , the muscles that are doing maximum effort do burn many hours after the actual exercise so do that if you have the energy to do that.. but most of all do begin with what gives you the most joy..good luck and please do report in the forum how you go along with it all
 
Last edited:
Any exercise you do helps as said .Find somthing you enjoy and can do think in a different,way walk to the local shops . park further away from your destination get a bike and explore the local area . You just need to get your muscles working as they burn glucose from the blood .
 
If you are doing walking for example, try to walk as fast as you can for about 3 minutes, then walk slowly for 5 minutes as you recover. This has been shown to be of a lot more benefit then walking at the same speed. Where I live, I can get the same effect from walking at a constant speed due to the many hills.

One good method is to walk as far down the road as you can in 3 minutes, record the house number you got to, then walk slowly back to your home. Repeat this 3 times. By recording the house number you can get to in 3 minutes you can track your progress and therefore motive yourself.
 
When I started this process I was quite fit - for someone with a BMI of 41 ie I still swam a mile quite reguarly and could happily do 20 km on a bicycle even if uphill was a struggle. My BMI is now down to 31 and if I'm going to be completely honest I don't think I swim or cycle any faster - though maybe I'm less bright red with effort on a bike. I've recently taken up jogging in a bid to move things forward and jogged 2 km non stop today which is a bit of a first. I did try a spin class a couple of weeks ago and surprised myself and the instructor by actually completing it without throwing up - which is apparently quite usual for a newbie!

In the end its important to do stuff you enjoy that keeps you motivated it doesn't really matter what, and diet will do far more for your blood sugars than exercise.
 
Definitely do something you enjoy - it won't be sustainable long-term otherwise! I love walking with my earphones in, listening to my favourite music. Now that summer is (apparently) here I'm going to try to get out and walk more often :)
 
For me static cycling has been amazing, I have varied this up to 40 minutes at 90 rpm and up to 10 minutes doing HIIT - 3 minute warm up followed by 3 or 4 times 30 seconds at full pelt with a minute rest inbetween - this is a killer, but improves cardiovascular markers.

HIIT walking for between 12 and 50 minutes.

Taebo for 20 minutes, I edited the original version 1 workout to have minimal rest.

Circuits and weight training. I focus more on weights now with dumbells in the main doing compound exercises.
 
badcat said:
I have days slowly Walking around london taking photos of architecture / landscapes / parks / street photography etc ( or photo mooching as I like to call it)
Click to expand...

I love doing that too @badcat great way to get some exercise in without really noticing!
 
The nutritionist i've been working with over the last year told me that it's important to excercise for a few minutes first thing in the morning to wake up your system, and also to build in regular exercise that involves irregular movement, e..g. dancing, running on rough ground, or using a hula hoop. his reasoning for this is that doing something that involves non-repetitive movement helps your sugar absorption mechanism to recalibrate over time so that it starts behaving normally again, which he says doesn't happen with exercise only involving repetitive movement - has anyone else heard of this idea? i have followed all his advice about diet and exercise (i dance for 3 x 10-min bursts daily), and my hba1c was 36 when it was last tested in april, down from 62 the year before - currently my sugar levels average just under 6mmol, measured 3-4 times a fortnight.
 
KathyCP said:
The nutritionist i've been working with over the last year told me that it's important to excercise for a few minutes first thing in the morning to wake up your system, and also to build in regular exercise that involves irregular movement, e..g. dancing, running on rough ground, or using a hula hoop. his reasoning for this is that doing something that involves non-repetitive movement helps your sugar absorption mechanism to recalibrate over time so that it starts behaving normally again, which he says doesn't happen with exercise only involving repetitive movement - has anyone else heard of this idea? i have followed all his advice about diet and exercise (i dance for 3 x 10-min bursts daily), and my hba1c was 36 when it was last tested in april, down from 62 the year before - currently my sugar levels average just under 6mmol, measured 3-4 times a fortnight.
Click to expand...

no but an interesting theory... my trainers says that the body need to change to other exercising regimen after a few month to keep pushing the devellopment of the body...
 
Back
Top