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Exercise not affecting BG levels

Sirzy

Sirzy

Well-Known Member
Messages
266
Location
Glasgow
Type of diabetes
Other
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi everybody,

I've been lurking here for a few months, ever since my 'non-official diagnosis' by my doctor (long story), and this site has been an amazing help and reassurance. Just a quick intro, I'm a slim to skinny 36 year old woman, with what looks like type 2, and I'm currently controlling it fairly successfully with a very low carb diet.

I was wondering if anybody could help me with something strange that seems to be happening (or not happening) at the moment. Everything I've read so far has suggested that moderate exercise will decrease BG levels, and intensive exercise may cause an increase. So I've been trying some easy to moderate exercise, walking and the Wii fit, but my BG doesn't shift up or down (it will go slightly up if I do it first thing in the morning, half an hour or so after breakfast, so I tend to do it in the afternoon or evening). Is this unusual? As I said, everything else seems to suggest that it should go down :?

It's really frustrating me, as I feel as if I'm missing an essential 'tool' to manage my BG levels, the only thing that seems to affect it in anyway is what I eat, but if I'm a bit high, I feel like there's nothing I can do to bring it down except to wait it out. Hot showers/baths aren't much use to me here either, as they make my BG go up a fair bit. I'd be really grateful if anyone else could shed some light on this, it seems a bit weird to me.

Sorry for the long post :)
 
There is some suggestion that very high intensity exercise can raise your blood sugars immediately following the exercise but it will have a lowering effect for some time afterwards, as it sensitises your tissues to your insulin. For me, 45-60 mins exercise will give me lower results for about one to two days, depending on how hard I push myself. Even when I've gone up straight afterwards, I come down by about two hours later. The temporary rise is more than balanced by the effects afterwards.

As Ill3st said, Runsweet is a very good place to start, particularly the section about heart rate. unless your heart rate goes above a certain percentage of max, you are not going to have a significant effect on BG.

It may be you are not working hard your body hard enough. I have found walking doesn't do much unless I am carrying some weight (e.g. my son), walking up hills or doing it for a couple of hours.

http://www.runsweet.com/HeartRate.html
 
Thanks for your replies, I'll have a look at the website you recommended, thanks for the link. I've been testing immediately after the exercise and as I've not been seeing an increase or decrease in my BG I've been thinking it's not been having any effect. Does this mean that exercise has more of a prolonged rather than immediate effect on BG?

I've been avoiding anything too high intensity as I've been worried about the spike afterwards, I love snowboarding, but I've avoided it lately because of this. Maybe I should try it and test afterwards. Is the spike not something to worry about though, even if it is balanced out by being lower for the following day or two?
 
Essentially yes - forget worrying about any spike as the longer term benefits are greater and it may not cause a rise any way.
 
RussG said:
Essentially yes - forget worrying about any spike as the longer term benefits are greater and it may not cause a rise any way.
Click to expand...

Never a truer word spoke :)

All exercise is good for us and if it raises the BG a tad initally, that's fine with me :thumbup:
 
Hi Sirzy, I'm a type 2 on diet & exercise only. I was a bit puzzled with the whole exercise thing like you, as it didn't seem to have the required effect. Now, after lots of testing different things, I've found the following suits me.
I do ten minutes very strenuous exercise about 45 minutes after each main meal just when my sugar levels would be peaking. I then test at the 2 hour stage. I find that after the same meals, the 2 hour reading is lower when I've exercised (at the 45 min stage) than when I haven't. So the exercise is pulling the peak down quicker.
I also found that sustained exercise does lower my BG if it's hard enough. I play golf, which is a lot harder than non-golfers think, walking about 6 miles dragging a heavy trolley around and whacking a ball as hard as you can about 120 times (I didn't say I was a GOOD golfer!). I had lunch before a round, then tested at the 2 hour stage after 9 hard holes of golf. My BG was 3.8! Normally it would have been between 6 and 7. So it does work, but not neccessarily immediately.
I don't worry about liver dumps now. I might be wrong, but I think that unless you really overdo it, they don't occur in T2s on diet only very often as our BG is never that low so as To generate one. We just get the dawn effect dump. Might be wrong, just my theory.
 
I've also found that exercising 45 minutes - 1 hour after eating brings my levels down. I do 45 minutes - 1 hour of exercise after eating every meal on the days that I am not working. I either walk or do aerobic exercise on the Wii.
 
When I run (3 miles at race pace, or 6 miles at more leisurely pace) I find that it has little immediate effect, but helps keep my BG lower for the rest of the day, greatly reducing my sensitivity to any carbohydrates that I eat.
 
Hello All,

Exercise is the saviour to all Diabetics, weather Type 1 or 2, as the shorter term benefits are that it lowers BS levels and the longer term benefits are that is get you mobile, gets your blood pumping around your body, builds cardio fitness and tones and builds muscle, which in turn burns sugar.. Which is fab around.

Cheers
Simply_h
 
Thanks for all the great advice everybody :D

I do generally wait about an hour after eating before exercising, but it seems like I've been testing too soon, and expecting immediate results, I'll try waiting two hours after eating and testing then instead. I've been putting off my snowboarding too because I've been really worried that I'll push my BG through the roof, but I should really just give it a go a see what happens. Hopefully, as you say grazer, sustained exercise will end up decreasing it rather than causing it to rise.

As time goes by, I'm slowly realising that diabetes really does affect different people in different ways, and there's no easy or straight forward answer to any of it, it's just a matter of lots and lots of testing!
 
One more thing Sirzy - it's a bit like Aspirin. I've taken Aspirin and my headache's gone. Did it cure it, or would it have gone anyway? My headaches not gone - has the Aspirin failed, or would it have been worse if I hadn't taken it? So exercise and BG doesn't go down - would it have gone up more if you hadn't exercised? You see the dilemma? You need to do a few experiments with and without exercise on the same meal to draw conclusions.
 
Good point Grazer, I've been keeping track of all my meals and testing religiously, (I've used up a small fortune in strips so far!) so I have a good idea what my levels are before and 1, 2 and 3 hours after eating most things, so I should hopefully pick up any effect the exercise has on my BG.
 
Hey Reidpj,

I do buy my strips from ebay, but as I'm going through about 100+ strips a month at the mo, it's still a bit expensive (I'm a mature student, so money is always tight). I now have a good idea about what I can and can't eat from previous testing, so I don't think I'll use quite as many strips as I have been in the future.
 
Sirzy said:
I now have a good idea about what I can and can't eat from previous testing, so I don't think I'll use quite as many strips as I have been in the future.
Click to expand...

That's the way I went. Loads to start with while I worked things out, now I only test when I try something new; Either cooked differently, different foodstuff, different time of day, etc; or now and again just to check things aren't changing.
 
Yeah, I'm getting to that stage too, I only really need to test if I eat something new, and just while I get an idea of what exercise is doing to my BG levels.

I know this is a bit off topic, but I really think GPs and the NHS are missing an opportunity to save money in the long run by not issuing diet controlled type 2s with strips, initially it's expensive, but after a few months of intensive testing, I'd say most people probably test less often after that. Surely testing alot during the first few months after diagnosis is invaluable in terms of people knowing what they can and can't eat, and letting people feel more in control of what is a really scary disease. I know that I feel much more confident about it all after all the testing I've been doing these past few months. And surely test strips are cheaper than test stips, insulin, needles and any costs inccured from future complications due to inadequate control. But then it does seem that our health care system is more atuned to treating symptoms rather than the prevention of health problems.

Oops, gone off on a bit of a rant there, sorry about that!! :oops:
 
Yeah, I've signed this and passed the link on too.

Thanks for all your help with the exercise question, hopefully I'll get a handle on it all pretty soon :)
 
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