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Exercise

Kingo kingsley

Active Member
Messages
37
Location
Suffolk
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Nothing really
Hi I've just started my first week back at exercising as the hospital advised me not to until live got good levels, how does any one get affected on there levels on certain exercise/ sports? Thanks
 
I'm actually at the gym as I type this!

When I was first diagnosed I was given a journal article by a Canadian researcher/T1 diabetic himself. In this article he claims that his research shows any exercise where your heart rate and VO2max are elevated above 80% will increase your sugars (so sprints, anything fast paced or really intense) and everything else will decrease your sugar levels.

I don't have a pump or CGM to test this theory but my nurse suggested that in work outs at the gym I should do all my heavy lifting and intense stuff first to get my sugars up and then finish with cardio to bring them back down.

I'll link to the paper when I get home, I'm on an exercise bike so it's not accessible lol
 
Lol mufti tasking lol, thanks I look forward to reading the link. My area I want to understand the best is squash and running.

Thanks
 
I've played both squash and run. I've found that neither has particularly pushed levels up, but after a hard game of squash, I often need a glucose boost. With running, I tend to try and start around 10mmol/l, and typically I get about 4 miles at my average pace before needing to boost and then I need 10g of carb per mile on my normal basal.

The other thing to watch out for is the part exercise insulin hangover. I've exercised late and then gone to bed, and discovered a late night hypo. I have to reduce basal in that scenario as my body becomes more insulin sensitive for four or five hours.
 
I've not found any type exercise that pushes my sugars up. Always take a 20-40g carb snack before hand (depending on length and intensity of exercise) and always find myself pretty much normal after.

I was really frustrated when starting on my pump because I decided to NOT exercise initially so I could sort my levels out. I was permanently high, despite recommended basal rates based on weight, activity levels and overall carb intake. Through desperation I started running, gym, football again and guess what... levels went right back to what they should be. My advice (this is just one person's opinion) is to live as normally as possible when embarking on any new regime; otherwise, you'll not get true results and when you do go back to your old routine you may need to adjust all the good work you've done up to then.

Sam
 
Runsweet has some excellent advice for those who are type 1 and enjoy sport:

http://www.runsweet.com/

I don't do nothing more than walking and the occasional bike ride, both have a lowering effect on my bg levels which mean I always give a reduced dose of insulin at the previous meal, if I'm out for the day walking then I reduce all my insulin doses by 50%.

The worst type of exercise for me is gardening, an afternoon in the garden can mean me taking a ridiculous small amount of insulin for my lunch and I still manage the odd hypo
 
One piece of advice that I have learnt through experience is when you just finished exercising and test the BG reading you get is different from the one 20 mins after you've stopped so be careful of the latent effects of exercise on your BG.
What I mean is that there is a downward trend so after exercise it could look normal and you'd wrongly conclude that everything was ok - when in fact you are starting to drop.
 
I totally agree with what Diamattic has written. Here's my experience:

Fast paced running or sprinting causes BG to increase or to remain stable in the short term and to gradually decrease starting after a couple of hours.
Heavy weight lifting has the same effect only the increase in BG is bigger so that I have to inject some insulin before training in order for the BG to remain stable.
Slow paced long distance (>10K) running has the biggest effects in terms of BG lowering both in the short and in the long run.
Competitive gaming (basketball in my case) makes BG go up a lot immediately after the game and to come down afterwards.
 
As has been said, be careful though. Emiliano's experience with regard to weight training doesn't match mine. My BGs remain reasonably flat when doing weights then I get a glycogen dump about an hour afterwards.

As much as we'd like to categorize, everyone's body is slightly different!
 
Tim,
what do you mean by "glycogen dump"?

thanks
 
emiliano said:
Tim,
what do you mean by "glycogen dump"?

thanks
Click to expand...
Basically, your body converts glycogen to glucose as an energy form following some trigger event. For many people the rise in bs seen with weights is this effect. For me, I seem to do it post weights, about an hour afterwards.
 
Tim- you mean your sugars drop a couple hours after weights?

I think whatever you do some time after you've finished it your body will drop your sugars because that when those muscles will start refuelling on glucose and would pull it from the blood right, causing a drop after the workout.
 
My swim at 10:00 today caused my blood sugar to rise immediately after, but levels from midday onwards were noticeably lower than a no-swim day. Same as for @noblehead, I find gardening always lowers sugars which can be a useful side effect!
 
For myself Im t1 I found when hitting the gym and doing my normal 3 hours of high impact weight training and then doing high impact cardio my glucose levels will drop like a stone forcing me to constantly keep taking in glucose to keep them up even if I take a protean drink it doesn't help to keep them up, its the same with one of the seasonal jobs I have i'm active enough that my glucose levels don't stay up - even a basic walk around the block can have my numbers going down more then they should (start the 60 min walk 2.5 to 3 pace at 7 end it at 4 or lower). I can't even cross country ski anymore (use) without wearing a hydration pack because of how fast I'll drop which is blasted annoying.
 
@Diamattic My usual weights sessions take place 2-3 hours after I last ate. Typically my bs will be 5-7. Post work out it will still be 5-7, may be slightly lower, but not usually heading in to hypo territory. I normally have a whey protein shake that contains approximately 5g of carbs at this point.

About an hour afterwards, my bs starts to climb, and does so steadily for 2-4 hours, usually requiring an injection of 1-2 u of Novorapid to calm it.

I can only assume this is due to my liver dumping glycogen to help my muscles recover.
 

Could it be your whey protein shake causing your BG to go up like that? Proteins in the long run cause BG to increase just like CHO.
In my experience the glycogen dump takes place during exercise, so when I lift heavy I inject 3UI beforehand and that takes care of everything.

Evolutionwise, what sense could make a glycogen dump occurring a couple of hours after the event that requires extra energy?
 
I don't know, and I wonder whether it's the protein shake too. The thing is it feels like a glycogen dump. There is a nauseous feeling similar to that when having been injected with glucagon. I've no other way of checking it sadly (other than not taking the protein shake, which given where I'm at on the programme isn't such a good idea). Maybe I try one of line from a fast and see what happens.
 
This is very interesting. You can feel when a glycogen dump is occurring? How can you tell?

Why not changing the protein shake with something fatty?
 
Won't swap the protein shake for fat as I'm using it post weights as muscle feed. I've been doing a fat reduction diet and whilst training, I don't want to lose muscle mass so recharge with a protein shake post weights session.

I do bolus for protein, but I'll try out a test anyway with a shake from fasted.
 
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