Is a hard workout possible??

[m0lsx]

I was recently diagnosed with, I think it is type 2 & was put onto tablets, but it feels as if I have been given little useful information.
The Nurse asked about exercise & I said I walk a fair amount & that I was starting to get back into going to the gym again, after a six month break due to a persistent leg injury & she said that was good & would help. But now I am wondering if she realises that some people go to the gym for something other than for some gentle exercise between sitting looking at your phone.
At the moment I am just pushing gently & just trying to get back to a good workout again. But for me going to the gym is about pushing myself as hard as I possibly can over a set time. Often just an hour, but sometimes more.
I do use loose weights & I also do some other exercises like sit up's, the plank & do some exercises on weight machines etc. But I only do that to rest & let my heart rate drop between hard pushes on things like the rowing machine, running machine, exercise bike etc, where I push for 1, 2 or 300 calories in as short a time as is possible.
I do not use the calories burnt counter on the machines as fact, simply as a measure of how I performed & for something to push for.
One issue is, or could be, that I do not eat before the gym as food sits heavy & tends to want to reappear when I am pushing myself hard & as I cannot imagine going to the gym to sit around & only burning a few hundred calories per hour, or being able to exercise pleasurably after food , I am wondering if the gym is going to work for me now.

 

[ElyDave]

I'm working on the assumption here that you are on metformin, which increases insulin sensitivity and is not a blood glucose lowering drug like insulin itself.

If you are on insulin then ignore what I'm saying.

There is absolutely no reason why you should not be pushing yourself as hard as you like in the gym (Steve Redgrave is a famous T2 example), assuming your leg injury allows. I'd be more concerned about that than anything else. There is no reason unless you are on BG lowering meds why you'd need to eat before exercising or even during for a duration of an hour.

As a T1 myself I need to manage insulin doses and frequently test BG and eat as necessary during exercise.

If you have access to sufficient test strips and meter, you could test before and after, even at the half hour point to see what your BG is doing. If you are working hard, intensive intervals etc it may even go up, but don't worry about that as that's your liver releasing glucose. Not sure if weight loss is an issue for you or not, but you may also want to do some cardio stuff in a steady HR zone for >45mins as this can improve fat burning metabolism, rather than you just burning through available glucose and then replacing that again at the next meal.

 

[m0lsx]

Thanks, yes it is Metformin & thanks to some advice on here I have just brought myself a meter, so I will hopefully soon be able to test.