-
Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »
Cycle ride
- Thread starter Phill.c
- Start Date
I use a spin bike and it helps, but I also do other work outs and depending on what exertion the exercise entails, will determine the liver dump. Swings and roundabouts for me. Everyone is different. There is a good thread on here, very interesting and although I haven't posted for a while, it keeps me motivated when I do.
Fasting Blood Sugar this morning + yesterday's food AND physical activity
Irrespective of whether you get a temporary BG high from a helpful liver (which depends on how you ride/how scary the traffic is), you'll get increased muscle insulin sensitivity afterwards, so yes it does help over the day and of course doing exercise is a good thing in general.
No worries, I have been here a while now and its a great place to be. I found out loads of things and the nutrition thingy I still make reference to now!
I do fast walking, I was a competitive long distance runner, but now suffer with bad knees. So although I don’t run anymore I do fast walking. I do between 25,000 to 30,000 steps a day. It is the only thing keeping my blood sugars in check. Splitting the type of exercise I do into three groups, light, moderate, vigorous my exercises usually falls into a mixture of moderate and vigorous. If I‘m climbing a steep elevation , then I’m in the peak zone.
So on these higher effort days, I’ll use a recent example, my total time would be say 2h 46 mins, I spend 1 hr , 37 mins in the moderate zone, 51 minutes in the vigorous zone, and the remaining 18 mins in peak. Peak means I had a heart rate between 144 - 165 bpm. The peak zone would undoubtedly raise my blood sugars. If I was running that would be me sprinting, or you racing.
I’m not concerned about this temporary rise in blood sugars, as overall it’s increasing my muscle fibre, increasing my food, energy, oxygen efficiency , and burning fats. I’m maintaining my A1C’s just under the diabetic zone.
I might add, and you may wish to check your HR and blood sugars, but a long ride may raise your blood sugars temporarily due to body stress.
So on these higher effort days, I’ll use a recent example, my total time would be say 2h 46 mins, I spend 1 hr , 37 mins in the moderate zone, 51 minutes in the vigorous zone, and the remaining 18 mins in peak. Peak means I had a heart rate between 144 - 165 bpm. The peak zone would undoubtedly raise my blood sugars. If I was running that would be me sprinting, or you racing.
I’m not concerned about this temporary rise in blood sugars, as overall it’s increasing my muscle fibre, increasing my food, energy, oxygen efficiency , and burning fats. I’m maintaining my A1C’s just under the diabetic zone.
I might add, and you may wish to check your HR and blood sugars, but a long ride may raise your blood sugars temporarily due to body stress.
Depends on your definition of long though, I certainly get a nerves/stress related BG increase when I set off on long rides, but it definitely doesn't last the duration - I find any stress-related effects and in fact almost all the "helpful" assistance provided by the liver (e.g. spikes due to riding harder) is gone or very much attenuated once you reach ~3h. It also depends what you're used to - a 5h loop will not produce much/any stress response to begin with, a 10h one definitely will. Whether this is because the longer ride is likely to contain a much greater distance on unknown roads or whether it's the distance itself I don't know - a mixture of both probably.
