Diabetes and Exercises – Workout Tips for Type 2 Diabetics

Diabetes Exercises

Besides getting the right nutrition, exercising is undeniably very important in controlling and even reversing type 2 diabetes.

Unfortunately, when it comes to exercising a lot of people are still reluctant to practice it, and one of the reasons is that they think they don’t have enough time. Even for those who exercise regularly, many are still practicing the wrong type 2 diabetes exercises so they will keep being in a diabetic state.

The Benefits of Exercises for Diabetics

Exercising on a regular basis is beneficial to your health in general, whether you are diabetic or not, such as:

1. Reducing biological age 10 – 15 years

2. Stimulating the process of absorption, digestion, elimination, and metabolism.

3. Strengthening the heart, lungs, and blood vessels.

4. Relieving stress, etc.

However, for diabetics specifically, exercising is important in helping your body’s cells accept insulin better and lowering blood sugar levels. Exercising can literally save your life. Another advantage include preventing cardiovascular disease, because people with diabetes can develop coronary disease as a result of insulin resistance syndrome.

What Diabetics Often Do Wrong When Exercising

According to DeWayne McCulley, those with diabetes often focus on losing weight when exercising. The truth is, you should be focusing on getting healthy instead. If you focus too much your attention on dropping pounds, you may only get a temporary solution as you may not be aware that the body still actually produces too much insulin.

Another mistake that people often do is to spend their time too much doing cardio exercises. Performing exercises such as aerobics is of course beneficial for cardiovascular health, but doing it too much will cause you to lose your lean muscle tissue. As a result, your metabolism rate will decrease and losing weight plus getting healthy can be difficult instead.

A Couple Precautions Before Exercising

You should discuss with your doctor before exercising, especially if complications such as heart disease and neuropathy have already developed. Also, don’t forget to drink enough water before starting to exercise so that dehydration can be prevented. If dehydration occurs, your blood sugar levels can get higher.

3 Types of Exercises That Diabetics Should Practice

As what we’ve discussed before, many diabetes patients practice cardio exercises too much while there are actually 3 types of exercises that should be practiced in order to get the desired result, which is reversing type 2 diabetes.

1. Strength Training

Strength training involves the use of the resistance to muscular contraction to build the strength, anaerobic endurance, as well as size of skeletal muscles. You can perform strength training safely at home by lifting light weights. Other exercises include benchpress and abdominal crunch.

2. Aerobic Exercises

Basically, they are exercises that will increase your heart rate as well as raise your rate of breathing. Aerobic exercises include walking, running, dancing, playing tennis, swimming, stair climbing, bicycling,and many more.

3. Anaerobic Exercises

If you practice anaerobic exercises, your working muscle will use up oxygen faster (than what can be supplied by the body). They give lower effect on your cardiovascular system. The exercises include weight lifting, sprints, jumping, sit-ups, squats, and push-ups.

The Proper Exercises for Those with Diabetes

Research has proven that a combination of aerobic exercises and strength training will bring the most optimum results for diabetics.

Instead of focusing too much on aerobic exercises, you should have a consistent exercise regiment with the components below:

1. Cardio warm-up / stretching: including light stretching, Pilates, and yoga

The warm-up should be 5 to 10 minutes of of aerobics (walking, etc). It should be done at a low intensity level.

2. Strength training: including weight lifting and water exercise (anaerobics)

3. Cardio training / cool-down – aerobics ( walking, running, bicycling) / anaerobics

The cool-down is meant to slow down your heart rate gradually. Do this about 5 to 10 minutes.

Tips to Optimize Your Exercises:

1. Increase your day-to-day physical activities (walking instead of driving when possible, taking the stairs, gardening, etc)

2. Begin your exercises with a low duration, about 10 to 15 minutes. Then, little by little work up to 30 to 60 minutes.

2. Exercise on alternate days for 4 times / week, instead of just 2 hours every weekend.

3. Gradually, increase your exercise frequency to 5 to 6 times per week.

4. Monitor your blood glucose prior to and after exercising. Stop exercising when it is more than 300. When it is less than 90, eat some snacks prior to exercising.

5. Get enough fluids as well as foods so you can do the exercises well.

6. For type 2 diabetics who are over 70 years old, more strength training is recommended to build muscle.