Walking after eating to reduce BS?

[NewbieHelp]

Hi
I read somewhere (not sure if here or elsewhere), that walking for 20 mins after eating will help reduce BS.

Bit of an experiment for me this week … walked for 20 mins after main meal and tested 2 hours after eating and very little rise in BS

Today ate identical dinner but didn’t walk and 2 hours later my BS had gone up by almost 2

So obviously a good thing my BS doesn’t spike but is it just masking the fact my dinner contained something my body can’t handle?

Is it ok to eat what I did but make sure I walk afterwards or else better to avoid the food in the first place?

Maybe I’m just overthinking it …… x

 

[Melgar]

Hi there @NewbieHelp . I find post meal exercise beneficial. I walk after my meals and for me it helps reduce my post prandial blood sugars. It is part of my daily routine. I believe a few members here also use exercise following a meal. I am very pro exercise.

I'm not on a low carb diet, but I do watch my carbs and I eat a lot of veggies, chicken and fish. I'm not particularly knowledgeable on diets, I just know what works for me.

Here is a quote from a paper entitled ' Exercise after You Eat: Hitting the Postprandial Glucose Target' :

"Improving the treatment of type 2 diabetes is a major health care need. Taming postprandial glucose excursions can be accomplished by exercising after meals. The effectiveness of an exercise bout for lowering glucose will be dependent upon the size (peak and duration) of the postprandial glucose excursion. Larger excursions necessitate more aggressive intervention, while smaller excursions are easier targets for attenuation. Glucose monitoring techniques, such as glucometers and CGM technology, may have an important role in quantifying the effectiveness of exercise bouts."

I have attached the link to the full research paper that looks at post prandial exercise and blood sugars.


https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2017.00228/full

 

[PeterDC]

Hi
I read somewhere (not sure if here or elsewhere), that walking for 20 mins after eating will help reduce BS.

Bit of an experiment for me this week … walked for 20 mins after main meal and tested 2 hours after eating and very little rise in BS

Today ate identical dinner but didn’t walk and 2 hours later my BS had gone up by almost 2

So obviously a good thing my BS doesn’t spike but is it just masking the fact my dinner contained something my body can’t handle?

Is it ok to eat what I did but make sure I walk afterwards or else better to avoid the food in the first place?

Maybe I’m just overthinking it …… x

I was first aware that my blood sugar control was poor in 2014. I started exercising to reduce my sugars, particularly before and after meals, leading to me passing the glucose tolerance test in April 2015 and not being officially diagnosed as type 2 until March 2019. My sugar control has been managed by exercise, diet and Metformin with the level of Metformin I take increasing as the years have progressed. The exercise level has taken a dive after various injuries I have suffered during exercising and illness (3 versions of Covid) and recovery to previous levels of control after each bout has proved more difficult. Like you I have found a greater benefit from exercising soon after a meal, as it reduces the spike in and duration of my sugar high (area under the sugar graph curve is reduced), than exercising an hour or two after meals. More recentlty, long and intense exercise has appeared counter productive. Last weekend, at 69 years old, I completed the Brighton Marathon in a time of 3:56:27 and getting my sugars back in order is proving tricky … I am convinced that exercise has helped reduce the rate at which my insulin resistance has increased although moderation is required, something I am not very good at. I hope exercise does the same for you. If you look elsewhere in this forum you will find strong anecdotal evidence supporting your experience. In my view you are not overthinking this and the longer you can delay the natural progression of the disease the better.

 

[KennyA]

Hi
I read somewhere (not sure if here or elsewhere), that walking for 20 mins after eating will help reduce BS.

Bit of an experiment for me this week … walked for 20 mins after main meal and tested 2 hours after eating and very little rise in BS

Today ate identical dinner but didn’t walk and 2 hours later my BS had gone up by almost 2

So obviously a good thing my BS doesn’t spike but is it just masking the fact my dinner contained something my body can’t handle?

Is it ok to eat what I did but make sure I walk afterwards or else better to avoid the food in the first place?

Maybe I’m just overthinking it …… x

I think it's any exercise, not just walking. I've seen a bit of research in the past few days that indicates that even fidgeting has some impact on BG:

(https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8231734/

I guess any physical activity (walking, cycling, fidgeting etc ), whatever it is, will deplete your glycogen stores (which is how glucose is stored) and result in the available glucose post-meal being used to refill stores (there's about a day's worth of energy available if full) rather than being converted to fat or staying around raising BG levels in the body.

The usual advice is that at the 2 hour mark, if your system has reduced your BG to within 2 mmol/l of the baseline reading, then you can currently handle that level of carb. So exercise or not, the meal is probably still OK for you. It's your choice about what you do - what works for one person won't necessarily work the same way for anyone else. My preference would always be not to stress my system by having the carb. Also because I tend to eat late and after exercise, rather than before.

Although many people think that type 2 is always progressive, and many healthcare systems take the same very pessimistic view, you'll see (have a look at the "Success Stories" section) that many people on this forum (and I'm one of them) have been able to establish normal blood glucose levels through change in diet, and to maintain that indefinitely. I've never had any glucose-lowering medication.

I restarted exercise once I'd lost enough weight to do so, but exercise didn't feature in that weight loss or my BG reduction. I'm a big fan of exercise - I do about four extended strenuous sessions each week these days, and it's great for physical fitness and wellbeing.

 

[Outlier]

Aaaand just to underline the importance of "we are all different" - exercise does not reduce my BG - it raises it, albeit temporarily. So if it doesn't work for you, don't think of it as failure - it is simply a different type of physical response. I still exercise because it's Good For Me - I walk for around 2 hours a day and am inefficient around the house in that I go up and down stairs for each item that needs to be taken there instead of saving it for taking all in one go, and get as much extra walking into my day as I can by doing similarly.

 

[PeterDC]

Aaaand just to underline the importance of "we are all different" - exercise does not reduce my BG - it raises it, albeit temporarily. So if it doesn't work for you, don't think of it as failure - it is simply a different type of physical response. I still exercise because it's Good For Me - I walk for around 2 hours a day and am inefficient around the house in that I go up and down stairs for each item that needs to be taken there instead of saving it for taking all in one go, and get as much extra walking into my day as I can by doing similarly.

Interesting: As you say we are all different and sometimes one’s reaction to events is confusing and appears inconsistent . If I go walking after a meal my sugar levels will continue to go up but not as far up as if I didn’t go for a walk. Generally, if I exercise hard e.g. running for 45 minutes after my walk they go down. If I exercise hard for more than two hours they generally go up at the end of the exercise, particularly if I exercise more vigorously at the end of the session.

 

[Juicyj]

I think it also depends on what you eat - if you eat fat or large portion of protein with your meal then this can delay the carb spike and it can hit a while later, I use exercise to curtail a rising arrow on my sensor and can get myself back down into range around 1-2 hours later without the high spike. Apart from the fact it's also excellent for mental health, not advisable straight after a large meal tho ! I walk and use gym for this reason.

 

[PeterDC]

Hi Kenny, your regime seems to have been very effective and the relationship between your losing weight and your Hb1ac staying low appears quite strong. The requirement to start medication (metformin) and steadily increase it came after I had lost any excess weight I had getting down to about 65kg and I was 64 years old. Now that I am in the region 61-64kg and 5 years older it is a bit trickier to manage my sugar levels (I am on maximum dose of metformin taken twice daily) and even 2-3 hours of exercise does not seem enough.

Before starting my marathon training I was exercising both before and after meals and varying the quantity of exercise I did according to my sugar levels, which at that time proved effective. Nevertheless, I have found that I have required more exercise for the same effect over the years which supports the general feeling of the disease (in my case) being progressive. Maybe it is a fitness problem (burning less calories for the same effort). My Garmin watch assures me that I exercise more than 99% of other users in my age group and that my VO2 max (53) is better than 99% of other users in my age group.

I avoid refined sugars and restrict the carbs I have in meals. I hope that your regime continues to work well for you as the years go by.

 

[KennyA]

Hi Kenny, your regime seems to have been very effective and the relationship between your losing weight and your Hb1ac staying low appears quite strong. The requirement to start medication (metformin) and steadily increase it came after I had lost any excess weight I had getting down to about 65kg and I was 64 years old. Now that I am in the region 61-64kg and 5 years older it is a bit trickier to manage my sugar levels (I am on maximum dose of metformin taken twice daily) and even 2-3 hours of exercise does not seem enough.

Before starting my marathon training I was exercising both before and after meals and varying the quantity of exercise I did according to my sugar levels, which at that time proved effective. Nevertheless, I have found that I have required more exercise for the same effect over the years which supports the general feeling of the disease (in my case) being progressive. Maybe it is a fitness problem (burning less calories for the same effort). My Garmin watch assures me that I exercise more than 99% of other users in my age group and that my VO2 max (53) is better than 99% of other users in my age group.

I avoid refined sugars and restrict the carbs I have in meals. I hope that your regime continues to work well for you as the years go by.

My regime is simple. Eat around 20g carb max per day. That's all it's ever been.

I don't think the subsequent fat loss had or has any influence on my BG level, which was normal long before I'd lost any significant amount, and has stayed around the same figure for five years now while my weight fell. I'm not about to give up my football three times a week, because I enjoy it too much, but exercise also has had no discernable effect on my BG in the mid or long term.

I have no experience of metformin, but Bilous and Donnelly point out (Handbook of Diabetes) that its main effect is to stop the liver producing glucose, and to improve insulin sensitivity. It doesn't otherwise affect glucose in eaten food.

 

[Outlier]

Similarly with me. I had my blood glucose into non-diabetic readings pretty quickly by going keto, but the weight loss took a lot longer, and I still have 3 or 4 pounds I'd like to lose. I am still keto/very low carb by choice, but I suspect I could reintroduce a few more carbs if I really wanted.

 

[NewbieHelp]

Some interesting reading here … thanks for all the replies

When I was first diagnosed, it was with a Hba1c of around 50 around 7 years ago… went on a healthy eating plan … walking every day usually in evening … wasn’t particularly low carb as in still eating brown bread, potato's, pasta etc along with one sweet treat a day …. On that regime I managed to keep my Hba1c down in the 30’s … used to walk a significant amount … upwards on 5k a day …. Lost approx 5 stone

Fast forward to now, after a major operation, had to avoid healthy fibre rich food, an ongoing foot pain no after a fracture , weight creeping back up and by ignoring my steadily rising Hba1c I hit 75 in October, 67 in October and 59 in march.

Since starting to test in February I’ve discovered I can’t tolerate all those carbs I used to eat so have gone low carb … haven’t had bread, pasta or potato or sweet stuff months …. Yes I know there are carbs in other stuff but really hoping for a Hba1c of below 50 next month …. I guess my body can’t handle all those carbs after a few years of me falling off the wagon, as they say

I am walking most days … maybe 30 mins in morning and 30 mins after dinner but find my figures are better on the days I’ve walked in the evening….

Ive lost nearly 2 stone since January so am definitely going to continue walking as much as I can as I really missed it …. As much for my mental health and my physical health

Thanks again