I saw that too and watched it again on iplayer. The thing about exercise is that there is one thing called exercise that does everything, toning up, losing weight, improving cardio vascular health, boosting circulation, improving insulin sensitivity, boosting production of digestive hormones and enzymes and insulin production. The aspect of that programme that I found most interesting was the effect on blood fats that mild exercise could have, you may remember the big breakfast and the test tube sample.
I followed that up by looking for studies which demonstrated a link between exercise and improving insulin sensitivity and these suggest that resistance exercise amounting to 1200 to 1500 kcals per week will improve insulin sensitivity and thereby reduce blood glucose levels. Like the fats thing, the various hormones and enzymes rise to a peak at 12 hours after exercise and then drop off fairly quickly. However, the benefit is cumulative to a large extent depending on frequency. My regime therefore is 3 x 10 mins per day on a rower, usually 1 hour after a meal. Unlike HIT, I don't go flat out and I liken it to a 10 minute walk up a steepish hill. If you have a bike, it's very similar. That regime took a few days to kick in but now I often get readings where the post prandial is lower than the pre prandial reading, depending also on what I have eaten, but I do eat some carbs. Whereas porridge used to raise my BGs over 2 full points, now it's about half a point but, depending on general activity, can even go down.
Of course, you can do it before breakfast too, if you want to get your early BG levels down, but you'll become less concerned about those as generally you start to see benefits. It makes no difference to me whether I am in the 5s or 6s early mornings, I am interested in the post meal readings. It seems to be the regular short sessions that keep my hormones and enzymes nicely topped up. Lipids have improved too.
I don't know how the high intensity stuff would affect your readings though. That type of activity wasn't targetting digestion. It may even raise it as the sudden demand for energy quickly creates a response by taking it from muscle fat. Overall it would do you good, but I think you could expect some weird readings to begin with. I am losing weight in fits and starts now but whenever there is a noticeable drop on the scales, it has been preceded by the BGs bouncing around for a couple of days beforehand. After the drop, everything settles down for another week or so.
The sort of exercise I am doing is just to mimic walking off a meal. It's not for 'getting fitter' as such, though there is some of that benefit. I too can't 'go for a walk' so I got the rower. I also got one of those bike trainers for an old mountain bike and am starting to use that. Again, ten mins in the shed listening to the news isn't too much of a hassle.
