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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Melgar" data-source="post: 2754518" data-attributes="member: 520626">[USER=31514]@jones_48[/USER] I’m going to jump in here, as I was a competitive long distance runner I learnt a bit about energy management. I can’t talk about how you manage your insulin as I’m on oral meds not insulin. But here is my take on what is going on.[USER=556474]@SimonP78[/USER] already mentioned increased insulin sensitivity. Exercise promotes increased insulin sensitivity in your muscles. Along with increased insulin sensitivity, I think another consideration is your glycogen storage. I think you are decreasing your glycogen storage levels. So glycogen is the name given to the stored form of glucose. Glycogen is found in both the liver and muscles, it’s what your body primarily uses for energy during exercise. So when you are exercising, you are drawing from stored glycogen in your muscles and liver. Once this stored form of glycogen decreases your body must replenish these glycogen stores during exercise. To do this your body will draw it from blood glucose in your blood stream. Hypo risk.As mentioned, exercise increases insulin sensitivity. So the rate at which you use insulin increases during exercise. That is also a consideration.Different forms of exercise utilizes muscle glycogen at different rates. So a short sprint would draw glycogen from your muscles very quickly. Sprinting is energy intensive. Where a longer run, which by its very nature, would draw glycogen more slowly but for a longer period of time thereby the body would utilize muscle glycogen and it would utilize stored  liver glycogen.So over a longer run I am thinking you are depleting both your muscle glycogen stores and your liver glycogen stores. As I said earlier, this situation forces your body to draw glucose from your blood Stream to replenish the diminishing glycogen stores. This in my opinion is why your blood sugar is dropping. It means it can drop during your exercise as well as for several hours after.Athletes in general have a much more efficient energy system. For instance , I could run a 5 k in less than 18 mins. However, another runner can run a 5 k in 30 minutes. That 30 minute runner’s body is working twice as hard as my body and using a lot more energy than I used. So if you are still gaining fitness, your body is working very hard and using energy ie glycogen at a faster rate.That is as far as I can go as I am in oral meds not insulin. I hope that helps you to understand why your blood sugars are dropping very quickly during exercise and possibly several hours after.ed spelling</blockquote>

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