Exercise , blood sugar levels and Freestyle libre.

[David F]

I always believed that exercise reduces your blood sugars but since I have started to use Freestyle Libre I have discovered
quite a lot about my sugars and how they react to foods and exercise.
I found that after no breakfast if my sugars were around 6 or 7 they would go up to 9 or 10 after 30 to 40 mins aerobic exercise.
I used to check my sugars about 3 times a day with the finger pricking kit. Now i can constantly monitor my sugars and guess I check about 40 times a day, The only problem is the new sensor from Freestyle is very expensive .
They are still trialing it so it's worth getting to use it for a couple of weeks just to learn more about your body and sugars.
Any feedback would be good

 

[Brunneria]

Glad you are finding it informative. I love my Libre, and it has taught me so much I feel secure enough to only run it very part time now.

Regarding the exercise, you may find things change according to to the type and duration of activity.

We've been doing some coastal walks this week (on hol) and i've found that my bg drops like a stone within minutes of starting, then cruises along below 4 for the entire walk (which can be hours long). Only rising again with food.

With me, it is probably the exercise reducing my insulin resistance. My knees don't like high impact, so these brisk dogwalks are about as intense as i get, exercisewise.

 

[PG1759]

My understanding of this, is light cardio like walking simply causes my bloods to drop. More intensive exercise makes them rise. I believe this is your body recognising the more intensive exercise and trying to feed your cells with energy (glycogen) obviously as a type 1 it can't do anything with it without insulin hence the rise in BG. I actually inject insulin before playing football

 

[qe5rt]

The effect on sugar does depend on the duration, type and intensity of the exercise. General guidelines are that aerobic drops BS, anaerobic raises. The intensity defines in what ratio you're using which energy system. Generally the higher the intensity the more it will lean towards glycogen, the lower it will lean towards fat but always a mixture of both. You could just be releasing some of the glycogen stored in your body since you had no breakfast and needed energy which could explain the rise. Though it's hard to tell without knowing all of the variables.

This all said i personally believe that the positive effects of exercising far outweigh the negative (like temporary rise in BS) and though i don't have a freestyle libre yet i think it's a great piece of kit for further controlling the post exercise effects on your BS.

 

[George71]

Pls, any comparison between Libre pads and blood drops.
I have experienced differences up to 50 mg/dl between readings (Libre pad and Accucheck strips).
Thanks

 

[MDHalstead]

I would always choose doing the exercise.

 

[Freema]

if stressed and having cronical higher levels of adrenaline then ones liver spits out even more glucose and the high intense exercises create even more adrenaline and thus more glucose production from the liver...

to some the brisk walks are better in not causing raised adrenaline

 

[Freema]

but anyway I´d choose the high intense training anyway