Gym Bunny...or Not

[AloeSvea]

Hi @rosco 2. The way I look at it is exercise, or physical movement and activity is about being fit - not necessarily about weight loss! (It depends on your body type if exercise makes a big difference to your weight or not, as far as I understand.)

Fitness for those of us with blood glucose dysregulation is about staving off the main thing that kills us too early - CVDs and strokes.

It's about keeping your body oxygenated and your muscles working well. That, alas, is not about food, but about physical activity and movement. (I say 'alas' as it is another thing someone with diabetes has to keep in mind, or should perhaps, as we go about our daily lives. Often a bore!) The muscles thing has a lovely side effect of providing a pathway for excess glucose to be taken up for energy (hence the lowered blood glucose levels seen by us after exercise, or some of us, I know this is not true for all after reading various threads in here).

I would say, as we do about ways of eating, whatever physical activity you choose to do for good health needs to be sustainable, as in you can see yourself doing it your whole life long. So it helps to enjoy it . I feel the same way as you about gyms - I don't enjoy them , just don't like the 'scene'. But people are very different indeed.

Also, for really good health and fitness, as in staving off those nasty heart attacks and strokes we are prone to getting, we should do some really full on exercise a bit, like cycling, rowing, running, for a little bit, just a few times in a week or month, as in HIIT. We are talking three minutes, 15 minutes - it isn't much but enough to really get your heart pumping and oxygen whizzing around.

And of course - strength resistance training. Making sure you lift heavy things as part of your daily/weekly/monthly routine. It can be as simple as lifting groceries and carrying them home on your arms (a fitness double positive), or park the car further away from the supermarket and lift them out to it. Lifting and carrying small children, or if you are into it - getting some weights and lift them while watching the news (or whatever). If you are using gardening as sustainable exercise make sure you do heavy lifting out there too! Load up the wheelbarrow from time to time! But it is possible to use canned goods, and well - just heavy things. You know if you are doing enough - you will have the muscles to show for it.

All part of the battle against insulin resistance, and against those nasty CVDs and strokes.

Dr Sheri Colberg is my 'go to' expert on the subject of physical fitness, exercise and diabetes.

 

[kitedoc]

My husband and I both exercise. He goes to the gym, I make the bed, vacuum the house, mow the lawn, weed, dig, clean baths, decorate, you get the general idea. You don't have to go to a gym to exercise, you can do useful and rewarding things too. It doesn't have to be the machines. Also, it's you diet that makes the really big difference. If you aren't already familiar with Aseem Malhotra, (ant-sugar campaigning cardiologist) do look him up, but one of his sayings is, "you can't out run a bad diet".
Sally

And I hope you get to keep the money you save by not having to go to the gym!

 

[kitedoc]

The best exercise to ... lose weight, reduce BG, improve bone density, etc ... is exercise that you enjoy.

If you do not enjoy the treadmill and rowing machine at the gym, it is mostly likely that you will stop going (unless you are even more stubborn that I am which is saying something).
My recommendation is to try every type of exercise you can think of (including vacuuming and gardening, like @sally and james ) until you find something you enjoy. It may be dancing, cycling, walking, walking and chatting with your mates, swimming, walking around the shops, rowing on the river, rumba, yoga, ...

Try them all and have some fun!

Having the activity(ies) one does as being meaningful is helpful I think. That is why running around a track, steps- ups and weights in a gym can lose their appeal. So walking to do some shopping, weights to carry home, choosing different ways to and fro, taking a photo of something interesting on the way. Similarly walking to a library or as happens here in Adelaide there are 'mall-walkers' persons that meet early in the morning to walk around a shopping mall together before the mall shops open, plenty of window shopping and sometimes a breakfast afterwards. Human company, companionship and laughter then form part of the meaningful activity and at least during the walk one is unlikely to be rained upon !

 

[StewartH]

Thank you for the replies. I am on very low carb diet, self imposed. The diet to control my bg, the exercise to help me lose weight. I am one of those females who loathes housework. I can tolerate dust, maybe not to Quentin Crisp levels but I cope as do visiting friends...onward and upward!

Rosco
It is very likely that the Low Carb diet will reduce your weight anyway, exercise of not. If you keep carbs to a minimum (around 50g per day) you will also find your experience of hunger will change so that you are less inclined to snack. That said, regular exercise is good news for your general health and well being so get back to the sailing. Good luck.

 

[ringi]

If you are going to use a gym remember that HIIT and resistance training have been proven to be most effective for type2.

• Therefore instead of going at a study speed on the machine, go as fast as you can for one or two minutes, the slowly for a fee minutes to recover, repeating a few times.
• Use the weight training machine. A good body on resistance training for people like us is "Body by Science".

However do not forget the large benefit of a 10 minute walk after a meal.

 

[Onerunshort]

I don’t know why but I’m reminded of a Jo Brand gag. ‘My husband was getting overweight so I encouraged him to walk 5 miles in the morning and 5 miles in the evening. It worked. By the end of the week the fat f****** was 70 miles away’

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

The way I look at it is exercise, or physical movement and activity is about being fit - not necessarily about weight loss! (It depends on your body type if exercise makes a big difference to your weight or not, as far as I understand.)

I had always believed that exercise was almost essential for weight loss, especially as I was being told by my DN and GP that exercise was needed to improve Metabolism. A six month period of swimming 1 km 5 days a week, gym work 3 days a week and a round of golf once a week, as well as eating considerably less than my RMR made me think differently. Fitter but not lighter.

This video with Dr Jason Fung is about Therapeutic Fasting but includes some interesting comments about exercise and weight loss, with references to the relevant research papers.