3 Exercise Tips to Control Your Diabetes

Exercising is a powerful way to manage your diabetes. It ensures your blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and insulin levels stay on track, and work effectively.

Exercising safely requires you to take some precautions. Here are some helpful tips to follow:

1. Start Slow and Increase Gradually

When exercising, your body needs extra energy from glucose. As such, regular exercises work to lower your blood sugar levels.

If you’re on insulin or diabetes meds, increasing your exercise routine might require you to adjust your snacks, medication, or both. Seek advice from your doctor on what is good for you.

Exercising pays off when you take moderate exercises over an extended period. Doing so allows your body to consume much more glucose thus reducing your blood sugar levels.

It’s worth noting that aggressive exercises make it harder for your muscles to use insulin. So, take time and build your intensity slowly as you adapt to the new routine.

2. Avoid Injuries

Do you know that long-term diabetes affects your joints? As the disease advances, blood sugar starts to build up in the joints in a process known as glycation.

Glycation makes your joints stiff and brittle. With this, you’re more susceptible to joint injuries. A stiff joint also takes a toll on your balance, setting you up for a fall.

But what do you do to prevent or slow the glycation process?

As people grow old, there are susceptible to many disorders like renal, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative diseases. Diabetes exacerbates these conditions through the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). The formation of AGEs is initiated by glycation reactions between free amine groups and reducing sugars.

The good thing is, carnosine from a high meat diet affects non-enzymatic glycations and the reactions leading to AGEs formation. The only problem is; meat diet could pose more risks to your health. For this reason, the beta-alanine supplement would be the ideal option to boost carnosine levels in your body.

3. Manage Diabetes-Related Complications

Diabetes makes you prone to several health problems. Such health problems increase your chances of getting injured depending on the exercise you undertake.

Some of these conditions include:

• Nerve damage: it makes you numb in your feet and toes. It affects your balance leading to falls. People with this condition should avoid exercises like running or jumping that impact their joints.

Autonomic neuropathy might make you faint especially if you engage in rigorous activity.

• Eye problems: diabetes results in the growth of new blood vessels in your eyes. These vessels are weak and leaky. When you lift heavy weights, jump or make jarring moves, the fragile vessels can bleed. Diabetic patients are advised to take a dilated eye exam before starting any workout.

Conclusion

Exercising helps reduce the amount of blood sugar in the system of a diabetic patient. While this is beneficial, the patient should take several precautions to avoid suffering any injury. If possible, the patient should move from moderate to intense workouts without a medical check-up. With this, the doctor can advise whether it is safe or not to take up the new exercises.