Exercise and type 2 ....

bonzodog

Member
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21
Got diagnosed a few weeks ago and decided to do something about it: lose weight and exercise. So far lost about 8kg (from 84 to 76) and have invested in a rowing machine. I am on metformin - 2 * 500mg a day. Simple question: how does everybody plan their exercise so that they don't screw themselves up like I did today! I did 2k on the machine and my glucose levels dropped to 2.6 mM . Oooops! (Interestingly I felt just knackered rather than hypo - which surprised me)

Anyway ... ideas please?
 

theblokefromstoke

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Hi Bonzodog. I was diagnosed 3years ago at 40 with a BG level of 26. I needed to lose a lot of weight & get more active. I now run around 50miles per week, registered as an athlete with UKA & English athletics & represent 2 clubs & my local town in the veterans V40 league nationally. The turn around in my life has been incredible & I've never felt so fit or well:) I still take 2 metformin & self test & have to plan all my food & meds around my excercise. On race or big training days, I will not take metformin before excercise. I will always have a banana half hour before the excercise & take snacks along to eat during the excercise. For training I usually cut up an orange & munch probably hourly. On a long race I take jelly babies & eat as & when I feel my sugar levels dropping. I find after a demanding workout or long race over about 10miles or so I don't need metformin at all. It really is all about learning yourself in the early stages to find what suits you. I lost 7 stone all in all. Good luck
 

theblokefromstoke

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177
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Pizza (makes my BG go through the roof), Pasta & potatoes.
Ps, forgot to say, you've done all the right things so far & made a great start. Please stick at it. I can't stress how much diabetes 'loves' excercise & how good it makes you feel. Im hoping to live a long & healthy life & on a mission to see 100 lol.
 

bonzodog

Member
Messages
21
Excellent and very encouraging reply. Thank you very much indeed.....

Update. Just repeated the exercise and took two meter reading - one almost immediately after the 2k and one about 5 mins later. The former was 3.1 and the latter 4.1 (which is why I didn't go hypo).

I guess that I had used up all the muscle glycogen and calls were being made upon liver storage - which had a bit of a time lag.

Need to mug up on this again ....
 

mau

Member
Messages
23
Hi Bonzo,

im in a similar situation, i intend to do some 2 hr badminton sessions after the evening meal, but im not sure whether to take my metformin or not after the meal. Maybe i should just try it out and see! Still waiting for my meter to arrive...

David
 

desidiabulum

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Messages
704
Hi -- I think the key is just to juggle with the variables (what times of day are your sugars highest, when do you take your meds and in what quantities, etc) until you find the combination that works best for you. Exercise in the afternoon flattens me, but 1 hr after breakfast brings down my sugars nicely for the day and no hypos (but that is only after I switched type and amount of pre-breakfast meds). Everyone is different -- experiment and see!
 

Defren

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3,106
desidiabulum said:
Hi -- I think the key is just to juggle with the variables (what times of day are your sugars highest, when do you take your meds and in what quantities, etc) until you find the combination that works best for you. Exercise in the afternoon flattens me, but 1 hr after breakfast brings down my sugars nicely for the day and no hypos (but that is only after I switched type and amount of pre-breakfast meds). Everyone is different -- experiment and see!

I agree. When I was doing regular exercise and the ND (I've slipped a little on the exercise and finished the ND) I exercised in small burst through the day (I work from home so it's easier for me). I found that if I exercised after a meal, then my BG was always a good bit lower than when I didn't. It really is exactly as desidiabulum states, horses for courses, trial and error. I'm sure you'll find an exercise regime that works for you once you fiddle around with times and amounts. Good luck.