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Exercise what do you do?

I am lucky to work regular hours and my local leisure centre stays open until 10-10.15 pm. I walk to and from work 25 min. each day (uphill in the morning) and swim 4 times a week (around 240-320 length of 25 metre pool a week). I am not on medication and my doctor checks my sugar every 3 month so I need to keep it under control. I managed to lose 3 stones in just under 5 months. and reduce Hba1c from 8.4 to 6.1 Hope to start running, but I am lazy and postponing it. Walking is a very good start, don't avoid stairs. Have you got a friend/partner who could keep you company and motivate you? I am lucky my husband joined me in swimming, even though not every session.
 
denia lol what do you mean lazy you are a super star lol
 


Hillwalking is a wonderful hobby. I started out about 4 years ago, and don't get to do as much as I'd like these days, but it's wonderful exercise and a good excuse to get out and about in the countryside.

I saw Kayaking lessons advertised locally recently, and considered it. However, living in the land-locked midlands probably limits it a little. I'm also a bit fearful of it being one activity that is wayyy above my physical capabilities... I'm sort of hobbit-sized.
 
Kayaking is good in as much as its only as hard as you want it to be, a gentle paddle along a slow moving river or canal is not very difficult at all, if you want to work a bit harder you just draw the paddle harder and go a bit faster. i'm lucky as I have a kayak accessible beach only few hundred metres from the house, depending on the state of the tide it can be very easy or a really good workout. Some of my friends use theirs for fishing.

Done a lot of hillwalking and some winter mountaineering over the years, mostly in Wales or Scotland. That's much more like hard work!


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Like you I am trying to get my fitness levels up by walking. I will usually do a morning walk of about 5 kilometers before work. I have also found that I can manage a 2 to 3 km walk over my lunch break. I walk outside as I find gyms and treadmills bore me to tears. I also do an hours tennis each week. My plan is to add some muscle building workouts in the future once I first bring my body mass index in the healthy range and improve my aerobic fitness.


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Turvell, Like you I'm in IT. Until 6months ago, I was working away from home living in a B&B Mon-Thurs and living on takeaways and microwave foods. Although I wasn't diagnosed as type2 at the time, I knew I was sugar intolerant and I was concerned about my veg out life style. So I walked about 10km a day when away from home - I had nothing else to do. Since getting working closer to home I decided to take up Paragliding. Prerequisite for that is a reasonable amount of fitness. So I started using my wife's treadmill but only used it infrequently. Since the type2 diagnosis, I have pulled my rowing machine out of the attic and have enjoyed getting back to the aerobic level I was some years back. I needed to get fitter for Paragliding anyway and this type2 thing has now given me even more incentive as I don't want it to ground me.
 
One thing I have recently discovered is that if you can do a little resistance training for say 15 minutes to get your heart rate up into 75-85% range immediately before starting cardio it increases the metabolism considerably more than just doing the cardio alone, and it also last longer.

Yesterday for instance i did 5 sets of 5 curls with a 40lb bar, 5 sets of 5 bench presses with the same weight (thats about half the weight I currently push when on pure resistance training so I could do them quite quickly), then 40 mins on the rower doing 30 mins of HIT intervals and 10 mins of low intensity warm down. The Intervals were 2mins at 90-95% max heart rate followed by 2-4mins very low effort to recover back to 60%max HR, then onto the next interval.

By my HRM I burned 660 cals while on the rower which is about 25% more than usual - I don't count cals burned while lifting. My BG was at 4.2 one hour after finishing the session and has stayed below 5 for almost 24 hours.


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I love walking when my arthritis allows I also go to aquasize I am retired but they have evening sessions and I use a wii machine.
 
Build up slowly is good advice. In my case I had no choice. I wasn't fit enough to do anything. But, you sort of do get hooked on it. Also, it gives you some time to work out what to do and discover what you enjoy and will keep up.

I am lucky because I work from home and an early form of exercise was rowing. I could do some work on my PC and then go and do 5 mins on the rower. Within a month or so I was doing 2 x 15 mins. I went on holiday to the alps and found I could walk again so when I came back to the UK I kept up with the rowing mid week and drove off to the Dales or Lakes weekends. I'd try and find a hotel with a pool too. Swimming is a great alrounder. Later I dug out my son's old bike and put it on a cheap turbo trainer in the shed. I found I liked using it whilst listening to the radio so I got oneof those turbo trainers which hooks up to a PC so you can cycle routes in other countries. That's my main form of exercise now and I do either 3 x 20 mins or 2 x 30 mins depending on how hilly the route is. There's no way I can do 30 mins in the hills but there are plenty of flatter routes available. I'm also building a bike to use on trails, from old parts found on ebay. When the weather improves, I will try out some cycleways.

What I am getting at is that for me, there has to be variety and interest. The exercises are mostly low impact on my joints. Even the walking is OK because it is done at a steady pace and I use trekking sticks for support.

However, this might all be a bit fuddy duddy for the younger members of the forum. It's old men's exercise. The younger ones want to do this sort of stuff:

 
Thommothebear said:
Kayaking is good in as much as its only as hard as you want it to be, a gentle paddle along a slow moving river or canal is not very difficult at all, if you want to work a bit harder you just draw the paddle harder and go a bit faster.
Click to expand...

Oh I am so very much tempted.

 
Yorksman said:
Oh I am so very tempted
Click to expand...

You need incredibly strong lower back and abs to do those waterfall jumps without injuring yourself, I'm not going to tempt fate, but kayaking in surf while strapped onto a sit on top kayak like mine is quite exhilarating once you know what you are doing.



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You can get a basic unit like this for £60 or £70 and they are often perfectly adequate. I got one from Halfords with 5 different magentic resistance settings which you control from thehandlebar and, together with the bike gears, you can make it as easy or hard as you want.

The type which hook up to a PC is a bit more complex. I got an IFlow made by Tacx with their TTS4 software. However, because one of the functions in the software includes virtual worlds, you need a hefty PC with a high end gaming graphics card. The Iflow brake unit, ie the bit that looks like any other turbo is their least powerful. The difficulty in turning the wheels, which is controlled by the PC, is accurate upto 5% hills. Steeper hills are simulated by the software which slows your timing down so you spend a lot of time pedalling getting nowhere

The top end brake unit is the Genius. That is a motorised unit which can represent hills with a 20% gradient. Well, I couldn't get up those so I saw no reason to spend all that money. You can also get steering frames are mats for them but these are only any good for the virtual worlds. If you are doing the real life video, turning the handlebars makes no difference because you are following prerecorded film. There is a lot you can do with the software though, including virtual racing.

Tacx Iflow without steering unit costs around £330 if you google it. That has the basic TTS 4 Software The advanced software is available online as an upgrade for about £50. It's great fun and you can buy third party video of cycle routes


The Tacx site has, somewhere, a downloadable programme to see if your PC can cope. If not, there are other systems.
 
Thanks, I think I'd need to go for the smallest possible unit, I don't think I need the virtual reality aspects, I have that on the rower but never actually use that feature. i suspect that if I bring much more fitness equipment jnto the house Mrs Bear is going to do me some harm, she hasn't got over the shock of how much space the weight training gear needs yet so I need to keep a low profile!

i shall pop into Halfords over the weekend.


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I do 3 sessions of aqua aerobics per week and I was walking in the region of 40 miles per week too, but after I mashed my ankle, I've walked very little. It's almost better now, so my dogs should be happier soon. I have noticed my bg up a bit since I had to reduce my walking!
Hana
 
Thommothebear l am so jealous we tend to use the canal as closest and always a pain in the butt getting in and out. When l used my inflatable was fine almost unturnable or sinkable would go out best time middle of the night for about 7 hrs on my own.
With the hardshell though hub and l always go out together so he can help me get in and out and he has a huge bout of hysteria at me getting in and out as it is canal side and a bit of a drop/climb *sighs* l hate work!

I swear l could have drowned all of the class when we did the rescue course he and the rest of the class didn't help me at all. I am laughing hysterically at me trying to get in and they are almost falling out of their kayaks hysterical at my efforts, no help at all.

not been out since August due to month holiday then this blasted diabetes and getting under control but now things are settled will look to getting back out.

Booked onto the white water weekend to get paperwork so we can get out and about and not worry so much about rough patches looking forward to that

MID
 
Thommo, your indoor rower is it a Concept 2 ? If so, Rowpro is very good.
 

Well, I just turned 60 so taking up extreme kayaking is a little fantastic If I took up kayaking, and it does look like a heap of fun, I might do sea fishing because you can have fun getting into coves which you couldn't otherwise fish.

 
Well I am 57 so not too extreme really.

As an aside as I typed the above my iPhone changed it to "paella 57 nanotubes really" love technology!


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