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Type 2 Exercise with Type 2

S

scottyjohn

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi all,
Diagnosed about 18 months ago I think, HBA1C tested at 52, no meds, just diet and exercise, and 6 months later it was down to 43, so GP has let me try to get it down without meds.
Its been going ok, I have a high reading in the morning before breakfast, about 9.5mmol but it can come down during the day, and usually swings between 6.1 and 9 dependant on what Ive been up to.
`So havent been exercising as much as I should with various life stuff happening, and I slip up here and there with what Im eating, so I know I need to tighten up on both of those things.

I went for the first longish mountain bike ride last week, and normally pre diagnosis I would have a cereal bar or something worse with me, to eat half way. Cant do that now, so only had water, and was going quite hard, but I totally bonked about 3/4 of the way round, and the last hills I had to get off and push.

Question is, for long endurance exercise what can I do to keep me from crashing?
 
Hey @scottyjohn do you know what your BG was when you "bonked"?
Exercise affects us in different ways so they way we manage it depends on the BG.
For example, if I was cycling up a long steep hill against the wind in the pouring rain, the stress would cause my BG to rise. Whereas, if I was pedalling hard along a long straight road with no wind, no rain and not too hot, my BG would fall.
 
scottyjohn said:
I totally bonked about 3/4 of the way round, and the last hills I had to get off and push.

Question is, for long endurance exercise what can I do to keep me from crashing?
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Do 3/4 of the distance?.. or get fat adapted and stop running on glucose.. run on fat instead and you can't bonk.
 
bulkbiker said:
Do 3/4 of the distance?.. or get fat adapted and stop running on glucose.. run on fat instead and you can't bonk.
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I think to state you can't bonk running on fat is mighty bold. Less likely once fat adaptred, yes, but can't I would challenge. Do you have papers supporting your can't, please?
 
DCUKMod said:
I think to state you can't bonk running on fat is mighty bold. Less likely once fat adaptred, yes, but can't I would challenge. Do you have papers supporting your can't, please?
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I just use logic... if you are accessing body fat and are carrying about 40,000 cals worth of it (as a super fit individual) then you're pretty unlikely to run out of energy unless there is a limit to how much you can access..? That may be the case but the endurance racers that follow Prof Noakes seem to get on ok?
 
I used to think that people were dying when they ran out of 'go' - sometimes quite spectacularly. I have been low carbing since the 1970s and used to go up mountains for fun.
So many people use carbs for fuel, feel their energy levels dropping regularly and eat all their food, including emergency rations don't have enough water with them and either just before the summit or half way back down, they collapse.
Racing yacht skippers used to joke about throwing raw meat to the 'tigers' - the winchmen in their crews so I think that there is certainly an association between endurance, effort and low carb/carnivory.
 

This is all true but there is a caveat: Just because you have x calories stored in fat doesn’t mean that your body wants to give them all up rather than making you eat some more. I’m super fat adapted (always 3+ mmol/L ketones and flatlined glucose) but I’m also super skinny. I can bonk just out walking if I’ve been lifting weights and haven’t eaten since. Sure it would be unusual, but I know that in my own case, my body will make me ravenously hungry for dietary fat before it gives up any more stored fat. If I had the ability to get fat I’d probably never have become diabetic in the first place. Our bodies are miraculously complex machines aren’t they? Love it!

EDIT: and in fairness you did include that caveat in the post that I just quoted but didn’t read properly.
 
lol cyclist term
looks like i need to look to get fat adapted, as i’m very big and pretty overweight, although been gradually losing since diagnosed.
Thanks for all the answers guys, lots to investigate and look into
 

haven’t had my blood meter with me, might try that next time to get some better insight. Thanks
 
scottyjohn said:
haven’t had my blood meter with me, might try that next time to get some better insight. Thanks
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I would recommend it as I can feel "bonked" when exercising with high or low BG and, obviously, the solution is different depending on why it is happening.
If you haven't been exercising as much as usual for a while, a high BG is definitely as likely as a low.
 
Physiologically I imagine you are used to running on carbs and when your body runs out of muscle gycogen at 1.5 hours in approximately depending on the size of that tank, then you will crave replenishment and find it difficult to take up all the supplies you are wearing in body fat!
You have also not trained for a while so maybe you've lost a little muscle for those hills?
To run out of juice is frustrating but if you can do some fasted exercise it will help you be a fat burning beast. There are probably studies on that e.g. Phinney and Volek but if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective then you can imagine man hunting for days, not having a cereal bar to hand and unable to crash for fear of being eaten by something or left in the wilderness. The guys that lived off their fat survived those trips and were your ancestors.
Primal Endurance was a useful book for me to get my head out of carb loading culture.
 
scottyjohn said:
that’s a hard one to understand
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Are you referring to high Bg when exercising being hard to understand?

Basically (and I mean "basic" because that is all I understand) there are two diabetes related things that happen when we exercise
- our body dumps glucose from our liver into our muscles to give them energy this causes our Bg to rise
- our body becomes more efficient at using insulin this causes our BG to fall

As a result some types of exercise will increase BG and some will decrease it.
Typically, longer constant exercise will decrease Bg whereas stop/start exercise such as weight training and team sports will increase BG.
But stressing our body will also raise BG. Hence my previous example of cycling uphill against the wind on a wet day. Although if I was cycle fit, this would stress my body less.

We are all different and the only way of working out how your body is affected by different types of exercise is trying it and measuring.

Bear in mind, most exercise for most people will result in lower BG over the next 24 to 48 hours, including exercise that raised your BG immediately. This is due to depleting glucose stores in your liver (the glucose dump I mentioned above).
 
yes sorry i didn’t realise that short and long exercise affected BG differently, thanks for the info
 
helensaramay said:
our body becomes more efficient at using insulin this causes our BG to fall
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I may be wrong, but I’m not sure that is entirely accurate. Although it’s commonly thought to be true, my understanding is that this perceived effect is brought about by muscle tissue being able to utilise glucose without the aid of insulin. In essence, any activity that requires even mildly strenuous use of skeletal muscle sucks up glucose like a sponge, irrespective of how much or how little insulin may be circulating at the time.

Obviously this would seem to materialise as increased insulin sensitivity, but in reality I think it’s just the body burning off glucose. Having said that, I guess it’s logical to argue that burning off glucose in cells does increases their ability to accept more from the blood, thus effectively increasing sensitivity. Hmmmm. Interesting.
 
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