Running
- Thread starter Jonlennon
- Start Date
Check your BG.
Put hypo treatment in your pocket.
Tell someone where you're going.
Don't overdo it.
Afterwards, take your bg and keep your hypo treatment nearby for the next 24 hours.
Put hypo treatment in your pocket.
Tell someone where you're going.
Don't overdo it.
Afterwards, take your bg and keep your hypo treatment nearby for the next 24 hours.
One of the important things to learn about T1 is the time pattern of insulin. It's not "fire and forget". With Novorapid, a commonly used fast acting, it'll, generally speaking start working after about 20 mins, peak an hour or two later, and tail off after three to five hours. It varies between individuals and can vary in the same person at different times of day.
When you go running, muscle contractions bring a protein in muscle cells called GLUT4, glucose transporter, to the cell surface. It provides a pathway to let glucose into the cell to be used as energy.
So, putting 2 and 2 together, if you go running an hour or two after an injection for a meal, you can get a double whammy of both peaking insulin and glut4 acting together to really drop bg levels fast.
Doesn't mean you can't go for a run an hour after a meal. Just means that when you're injecting for the meal, think about what you'll be doing in the next few hours and consider whether you should shave a few units off the dose if you're going to be active later.
It's probably too early to be thinking in those terms at the moment, you're maybe on set doses just now till the docs get a better handle on your ratios, but bear it in mind - you'll learn more about it when you get into carb counting.
For now, probably safest to time the run for before an injection.
GLUT4 can stay activated for a fair bit of time after a run, so keep an eye on levels afterwards. There's a thing called "afterdrop", where levels can drop a few hours after exercise. A good excuse for a kit-kat.
When you go running, muscle contractions bring a protein in muscle cells called GLUT4, glucose transporter, to the cell surface. It provides a pathway to let glucose into the cell to be used as energy.
So, putting 2 and 2 together, if you go running an hour or two after an injection for a meal, you can get a double whammy of both peaking insulin and glut4 acting together to really drop bg levels fast.
Doesn't mean you can't go for a run an hour after a meal. Just means that when you're injecting for the meal, think about what you'll be doing in the next few hours and consider whether you should shave a few units off the dose if you're going to be active later.
It's probably too early to be thinking in those terms at the moment, you're maybe on set doses just now till the docs get a better handle on your ratios, but bear it in mind - you'll learn more about it when you get into carb counting.
For now, probably safest to time the run for before an injection.
GLUT4 can stay activated for a fair bit of time after a run, so keep an eye on levels afterwards. There's a thing called "afterdrop", where levels can drop a few hours after exercise. A good excuse for a kit-kat.
Hi Jon, I know it all sounds as if it's a lot of effort just to go for a mile run and might make you think why bother! After a while though, you will get to know how your body works and reacts to all of this and you will become more confident in your runs. When I was diagnosed I thought about stopping running and then I thought boll..... to that, now I continue my running and the only thing I have had to adjust to is thinking about it more in advance rather than spur of the moment. I no longer have to plan it on the same scale as an invasion, I just test beforehand, take glucose tablets with me in case and then test afterwards.
You can run as many miles as you want and just like normal individual you start of small. Get yourself some trainers first off you dont have to go all technical to begin with any old cushioned trainers.
Test before you set off and reduce insulin if necessary or have some carbs to carry you through session and test after you get back to understand what happens when you run and for me train at same time till you are experienced.
I started years ago running when rocky films were at movies and continued till i got to around 50, even in winter i had shorts and vest doing 6 miles late at night with just dog with me, later I joined club and some nights did half marathon your body gets used to it.
So start slowly have some sort of glucose tabs with you and possibly lucozade sport and walk and run think of yourself like a car it wont go without petrol and same with you pump some carbs in.
There are always errors my biggest one was setting of with no glucose tabs in pocket one run only to realise this 3 miles into run and it was rare occasion I weny hypo,out in the wilds, I did make it to a corner shop with no money and dripping in sweat, hypo,the shopkeepers thought I was about to rob the place and met my demands that I spokein jibberish and handed me a mars for free. Always remember to have glucose tabs on you I have never passed out but many a close call like the one mentioned another was stuck in a lift for over an hour which was close call.
Test before you set off and reduce insulin if necessary or have some carbs to carry you through session and test after you get back to understand what happens when you run and for me train at same time till you are experienced.
I started years ago running when rocky films were at movies and continued till i got to around 50, even in winter i had shorts and vest doing 6 miles late at night with just dog with me, later I joined club and some nights did half marathon your body gets used to it.
So start slowly have some sort of glucose tabs with you and possibly lucozade sport and walk and run think of yourself like a car it wont go without petrol and same with you pump some carbs in.
There are always errors my biggest one was setting of with no glucose tabs in pocket one run only to realise this 3 miles into run and it was rare occasion I weny hypo,out in the wilds, I did make it to a corner shop with no money and dripping in sweat, hypo,the shopkeepers thought I was about to rob the place and met my demands that I spokein jibberish and handed me a mars for free. Always remember to have glucose tabs on you I have never passed out but many a close call like the one mentioned another was stuck in a lift for over an hour which was close call.
ElyDave
Well-Known Member
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- Type of diabetes
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- Insulin
For one mile, about 10 minutes of exercise at the most, do nothing.
Test your BG before hand, if <6.0 have a small snack, a biscuit or something similar.
Test BG afterwards, have another small snack if needed.
I completely understand where you are coming from, massive diagnosis out of nowhere, adn thinking how do you keep exercising. I had the same issue, with a planned 40 mile race < 2 months after diagnosis. Think short term first and then longer term, break it down into manageble chunks, get one working right adn then go onto the next.
Soem useful advice from Scott_C above. My strategy, i'm more of an endurance athlete is like this.
Anaerobic exercise - weights, yoga, swimming - I do not adjust insulin at all. I generally stay stable/slight rise for these due to glycogen release from the liver. You'll need to try it yourself, test either side of activity.
Aerobic - running, cycling, rowing, walking/hiking - tend to be BG reducing, as Scott says above. Strategies are therefore reduce insulin, increase carbs or a mixture of both. You don't say what your basal insulin is, but depending on the duration of your activity you may also need to think about reducing that as well, when I was on basal/bolus, I'd reduce my morning basal to 0.5 units before a long event, and reduce the evening dose by half to account for the increased insulin senstivity during and then after the event.
Bolus insulin - depends on timing of insulin vs exercise, if within 4 hours I definitely had to reduce dosage to avoid major hypos as I am very insulin sensitive. These days i'm on a pump and I reduce basal to 20% of normal 4 hours ahead of aerobic exercise.
You are doing the right thing wanting to maintain or start exercising as it will improve control overall and increase insulin sensitivity. What it will mean though, is that until you really understand how your body reacts, you need to 1) carry those emergency carbs and 2) test, test, test, I'd start with every half hour during exercise adn then go out from there as you gain experience, I now work on hourly on the bike, every 5km for runs over 8km. I also know through extensive trial and error that I need about 25g carbs per hour on the bike.
This is all though trial and error over the last 5 years. When you are bit more established - if you are a long term athlete, I'd look into the pump criteria, as insulin pumps can help in managing T1 with exercise.
Test your BG before hand, if <6.0 have a small snack, a biscuit or something similar.
Test BG afterwards, have another small snack if needed.
I completely understand where you are coming from, massive diagnosis out of nowhere, adn thinking how do you keep exercising. I had the same issue, with a planned 40 mile race < 2 months after diagnosis. Think short term first and then longer term, break it down into manageble chunks, get one working right adn then go onto the next.
Soem useful advice from Scott_C above. My strategy, i'm more of an endurance athlete is like this.
Anaerobic exercise - weights, yoga, swimming - I do not adjust insulin at all. I generally stay stable/slight rise for these due to glycogen release from the liver. You'll need to try it yourself, test either side of activity.
Aerobic - running, cycling, rowing, walking/hiking - tend to be BG reducing, as Scott says above. Strategies are therefore reduce insulin, increase carbs or a mixture of both. You don't say what your basal insulin is, but depending on the duration of your activity you may also need to think about reducing that as well, when I was on basal/bolus, I'd reduce my morning basal to 0.5 units before a long event, and reduce the evening dose by half to account for the increased insulin senstivity during and then after the event.
Bolus insulin - depends on timing of insulin vs exercise, if within 4 hours I definitely had to reduce dosage to avoid major hypos as I am very insulin sensitive. These days i'm on a pump and I reduce basal to 20% of normal 4 hours ahead of aerobic exercise.
You are doing the right thing wanting to maintain or start exercising as it will improve control overall and increase insulin sensitivity. What it will mean though, is that until you really understand how your body reacts, you need to 1) carry those emergency carbs and 2) test, test, test, I'd start with every half hour during exercise adn then go out from there as you gain experience, I now work on hourly on the bike, every 5km for runs over 8km. I also know through extensive trial and error that I need about 25g carbs per hour on the bike.
This is all though trial and error over the last 5 years. When you are bit more established - if you are a long term athlete, I'd look into the pump criteria, as insulin pumps can help in managing T1 with exercise.
SamJB
Well-Known Member
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My rules are:
- Don't run within 3 hours of fast acting injection, you want that out your system before you go
- To maintain BGs, I need 2 dextro tablets every 15 mins
- I test BGs every 30 mins and adjust my next dextro dose accordingly
- Always carry BG testing kit and more dextro than I would expect to use
NicoleC1971
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