Diabetes exercise | Diabetic exercise

Diabetes exercise - increase physical exercise in your daily activity lower your blood glucose level and you feel pleasant physical and mental well being.

Diabetes exercise - Physical Activity

Physical activity plays an important part in treating and preventing diabetes. When you care for your diabetes with physical activity, diet management and proper medication, you will feel difference. Also it reduces your risk for problems with your kidneys, eyes, nerves, feet & legs and teeth. You’ll also lower your risk for a heart attack or a stroke.

Benefits of Diabetes exercise - physical activity

lower your blood glucose & blood pressure
lower your bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol
reduce your body fat and improve your body’s ability to use insulin
lower your risk for heart disease and stroke
keep your heart and bones strong
keep your joints flexible
help you lose weight
give you more energy
reduce your stress levels

Be active in your daily activities

Diabetes exercise - active in daily activities

Walk around while you talk on the phone.
Play with the kids; take your dog for a walk.
Clean the house, do gardening, watering plants or rake leaves, washing vehicle.
Take stairs instead of the elevator or lift.
Walk the most instead of using vehicles.
At work, walk over to see your co-worker instead of calling or emailing.

Do some diabetes aerobic exercises

Aerobic exercise makes your heart beat faster and you will also breathe harder, thus you burn high calories and your lung expand and energize whole body. Doing aerobic exercise for 30 minutes a day at least 5 days a week provides many benefits. You can even split up those 30 minutes into several parts, example, you can take three brisk 10-minute each.

Do some warm up and stretch before you start exercising and make cool down after you finished your exercise. If you are new to exercise, then start slowly with 5 to 10 minutes a day. Add a little more time each week, aiming for at least 2 to 3 hours per week.

Some aerobic exercises to try:

Brisk walk
climbing stairs
swimming or taking a water-aerobics class
dancing
riding bicycle (outdoors or indoors)
taking an aerobics class
playing (basketball, volleyball, tennis or other sports)
in-line skating, ice skating, or skate boarding
cross-country skiing

Do strength diabetic exercise

Doing diabetic exercises with weights, elastic bands, or weight machines three times a week builds your muscles and bones healthy and make you overall healthy, flexible and balanced. When you have more muscle and less fat, you’ll burn more calories because muscle burns more calories, even between exercise sessions.

Important when doing diabetes exercises

Physical activity for some may cause low blood glucose or hypoglycemia, so please have glucose tablet or gel with you, if you are type 2 diabetes. And if you are type 1 diabetes keep a glucagon kit at your easy reach. Glucagon is given as an injection with a syringe and quickly raises blood glucose.

If you have type 1 diabetes, avoid strenuous exercise when you have ketones in your blood or urine. Ketones are chemicals your body might make when your blood glucose level is too high and your insulin level is too low. Too many ketones can make you sick. If you exercise when you have ketones in your blood or urine, your blood glucose level may go even higher.

If you have high blood pressure or eye problems then avoid heavy weight lifting or hard exercise. This may worsen your problems, consult your doctor.

If nerve damage from diabetes has made your feet numb, your doctor may suggest that you try swimming instead of walking for aerobic exercise.

Next: Monitor blood glucose level