How Can I Treat High Blood Sugar
Talk to your doctor about how to keep your blood sugar levels within your target range. Your doctor may suggest the following:
- Be more active. Regular exercise can help keep your blood sugar levels on track. Important: dont exercise if ketones are present in your urine. This can make your blood sugar go even higher.
- Take medicine as instructed. If your blood sugar is often high, your doctor may change how much medicine you take or when you take it.
- Follow your diabetes meal plan. Ask your doctor or dietitian for help if youre having trouble sticking to it.
- Check your blood sugar as directed by your doctor. Check more often if youre sick or if youre concerned about high or low blood sugar.
- Talk to your doctor about adjusting how much insulin you take and what types of insulin to use.
First Off How Does Exercise Affect My Blood Sugar
Exercise helps control blood sugar levels in two key ways:
Not only is exercise good for controlling your blood sugar, moderate to high levels of physical activity have been linked to substantially lower rates of mortality in people with diabetes. All the more reason to get moving!
How Can I Check My Blood Sugar
Use a blood sugar meter or a continuous glucose monitor to check your blood sugar. A blood sugar meter measures the amount of sugar in a small sample of blood, usually from your fingertip. A CGM uses a sensor inserted under the skin to measure your blood sugar every few minutes. If you use a CGM, youll still need to test daily with a blood sugar meter to make sure your CGM readings are accurate.
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How Do I Manage My Sugars
People with type 2 diabetes do not need to do anything to manage the short-term high blood sugar that might happen with intense exercise. Overall, the exercise will have a positive impact on blood sugar control.
People with type 1 diabetes might want to increase their insulin doses to manage the high sugars they see with intense exercise. However, this strategy can be risky: even though blood sugars may be high initially, there may be a chance of low blood sugar later on, so be sure to speak to your diabetes healthcare team before trying this.
Remember that with any type of exercise program, you may need to adjust your medications. Discuss your plan with your diabetes healthcare team.
Normal Postmeal Blood Sugar Levels
Checking your blood glucose one to two hours after eating can help you understand how your blood sugar reacts to the food you consume. It can also offer insight into whether you’re taking the right dose of insulin or if you need to follow up with your doctor to discuss medication and diet or lifestyle adjustments.
There are two ways you can measure your blood glucose levels: by pricking your fingertip using a glucometer or by using continuous glucose monitoring. How often you should check your glucose levels varies from a few times per week to four to six times each day. As a general rule, the American Diabetes Association recommends keeping blood sugar below 180 mg/dL one to two hours after eating.
However, your target blood sugar range will depend on the following:
- Duration of diabetes
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Dont Forget Safety First
Always remember to stretch before and after exercising to avoid injuries. You can find some good warm up and cool down exercises here.
Because exercise lowers blood sugar to varying degrees, its a good idea to check your levels before, during and after exercising to see how your body reacts to different activities. Be sure to carry some form of fast-acting carbohydrate with you in case you have to treat low blood sugar quickly.
If you do the same exercises regularly, youll eventually become in tune with your own blood sugar patterns and can plan accordingly. Find more tips for safely exercising with diabetes.
Making exercise a regular part of your life will have a positive impact on your healthand your blood sugar levels. Its one of the best things you can do to manage and live well with diabetes.
How Exercise Lowers Blood Sugar
Blood sugar, also called glucose, is the body’s main source of energy it mainly comes from the carbohydrates in food, according to Kaiser Permanente. The body regulates blood sugar levels with the help of the hormone insulin, which moves glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells.
Exercise lowers blood sugar levels by increasing the body’s insulin sensitivity, aka its ability to use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association . This helps the muscles get more glucose. Additionally, physical activity allows the cells to take in more glucose, whether insulin is available or not. This further reduces blood sugar.
Exercise also depletes the body’s glycogen stores, according to the Joslin Diabetes Center. When you eat, your liver stores some glucose in the form of glycogen for later use. During exercise, this glycogen is converted back into glucose for fuel. After exercise, it can take the body anywhere from four to 24 hours to replenish its glycogen stores, depending on the intensity of the activity. That means even if exercise doesn’t cause low blood sugar in the moment, it can increase the risk of hypoglycemia for people with diabetes for up to 24 hours after a workout.
Dr. Hafida says that exercise doesn’t pose a risk of hypoglycemia for people without diabetes. Even though a person without diabetes may sometimes feel the symptoms of low blood sugar, their blood glucose levels will usually still be within the normal range.
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Blood Sugar And Exercise
There are a few ways that exercise lowers blood sugar:
- Insulin sensitivity is increased, so your muscle cells are better able to use any available insulin to take up glucose during and after activity.
- When your muscles contract during activity, your cells are able to take up glucose and use it for energy whether insulin is available or not.
This is how exercise can help lower blood sugar in the short term. And when you are active on a regular basis, it can also lower your A1C.
Know Your Blood Sugar
Blood sugar is the amount of sugar in your blood at a given time. It’s important to check your blood sugar level, because it will:
- determine if you have a high or low blood sugar level at a given time
- show you how your lifestyle and medication affect your blood sugar levels
- help you and your diabetes health-care team make lifestyle and medication changes to improve your blood sugar levels
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What Will Happen To The Blood Sugar Level During And After Exercise
Exercise is good for losing weight, good for elevating mood, and good for blood sugar level and heart too. Though it is good for the blood sugar levels, it can be tricky at times. It is well known that exercise has multi-faceted benefits and its benefits are immense of blood sugar levels. Let us see how exercise affects the blood sugar level during and after exercise.
Eating Carbs After A Workout
In the study from Nutrition Today, they highlighted the importance of eating carbs after a workout. They recommend eating large amounts of carbs after intense resistance training. Since candy has such high levels of carbs, it makes sense you might turn to chocolate after a workout. But working out doesn’t make sweets healthy, and there are better carbs out there for you to eat.
If you’re wondering how much is a large amount of carbs, the study recommended that a 160-pound athlete eat 150 calories of carbs after working out. But they also pointed out that you only gain the benefits via easily digested carbs. So, they suggest that you turn to things like potatoes and pasta.
Overall, when making dieting decisions, it’s best to get the nutrients you need from healthy whole food choices. And while it’s perfectly okay to enjoy sugary foods in moderation, they shouldn’t be thought of as a nutritional workout snack.
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Levels In The Morning
The best time to check blood sugar levels in the morning is right when you wake up and before you eat anything. This gives you a glimpse of what may be happening overnight, and it gives you a baseline for the day.
These are goal levels, according to The Joslin Diabetes Center:
- Under 70 mg/dl if you do not have diabetes.
- 70 to 130 mg/dl if you have diabetes.
The dawn effect can often lead to a high morning measurement in diabetes. This is your bodys tendency to get ready for the day by raising blood sugar by increasing levels of counter-regulatory hormones the ones that counteract insulin as in normal blood sugar. For people with diabetes, you do not have the capacity to counterbalance this rise in blood sugar, so levels can be dangerously high.
Ways to lower your morning blood sugar value include:
- Eating dinner earlier
- Checking your medications making sure you are taking them properly and asking your doctor if they are correct
- Going for a walk after dinner
- Including protein with your dinner
Fasting Plasma Glucose Test
A fasting plasma glucose test is taken after at least eight hours of fasting and is therefore usually taken in the morning.
The NICE guidelines regard a fasting plasma glucose result of 5.5 to 6.9 mmol/l as putting someone at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, particularly when accompanied by other risk factors for type 2 diabetes.
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Why It Is That Blood Sugar Level Increases After You Exercise
If your body triggers low amount of insulin, then the presence of other hormones like epinephrine, norepinephrine, cortisol, glucagon will collectively trigger the liver to release the glucose into the blood and thereby increases the blood sugar. The hormones influence the breakdown of fat into smaller and simpler particles.
The other thought process says that the hormones trigger the liver to release glucose into the bloodstream while exercising. The level of hormones in the bloodstream may result from glucose to enter the blood.
For people who are not athletes, high-intensity exercise is not required for controlling blood glucose level. In fact, more easy and light exercise will work if preferred. The high-level activity might result in muscle injury and other fatal consequences.
How Carbs Relate To Workouts
So why would you want to eat sugar after a workout anyways? It turns out that carbohydrates are crucial for workouts, according to a study in the January 2018 issue of Nutrition Today. The energy provided by carbs is quicker and therefore more readily available than what’s offered by protein and fats. And when you’re working out, your body needs energy that is quickly available.
Carbs also provide your body with a backup supply of energy called glycogen. When doing exercises like running or weight lifting, your body needs this reserve of energy to sustain the workout. It’s common for athletes to eat high-carb diets because of this fact. In contrast, low-carb diets can be problematic for working out.
While low-carb diets can help you lose weight, they can also leave you without the energy your body needs for exercise. They can even cause loss of muscle mass, according to a study in the May 2014 issue of the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. The same study found that carbs help increase muscle mass, protecting them from breaking down, particularly when eaten after a workout.
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Constantly Check For Foot Sores
Exercising regularly means youd be making use of your feet more actively. This is why it’s important to always check your foot for sores or blisters. Diabetes may reduce your foot sensitivity to pain, so relying on whether you feel any pain may not work. Instead, you need to check your foot visually to ascertain that its in great condition. This is important to prevent the risk of a foot ulcer or infected foot.
What Are The Common Types Of Exercises That I Must Practice To Get Rid Of Diabetes
- Exercise is the most efficient way to beat off diabetes. Might be going to the gym or regular yoga is not possible for each and everybody. But owing to your hectic schedule, you must be doing something that will boost your health forever.
- Walk some distance for getting your daily ration especially if itâs a walking distance, then avail on foot and avoid traveling by car.
- Walk the stairs to your office. It will boost some energy, burn calories and thereby make you feel fresh.
- Cycle some distance in the morning and evening. You will enjoy the cool breeze, and it will be your mood buster.
- Whenever you are in your garden, try to use a skipping rope. It will initiate and trigger your hormones efficiently.
- Do some gardening. It is a light activity and will boost your mood and enhance insulin levels to work
- Practice yoga day and night. There are various postures in yoga that cure diabetes like Pashchimottasana and sitting pose of Vajrasana. Dhanurashana and tree pose is good for a steady weight and also triggering insulin from the pancreas. Light aerobics is suitable for cutting down those extra kilos.
- Jump the trampoline to enhance your mood and make use of the extra glucose in your body.
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Do I Opt For Weight Training If I Have Diabetes
Undergoing weight training is essential part if you have diabetes. Weight training increases your strength. Start with light weight and then jump to higher ones, but with the prior consultation of the gym instructor. You may use light dumbles each day and then go to heavier ones. Working on your muscles, back and butts will improve your posture.
You must take care of your diet in case you want to go for that six pack figure. Opting for a proper protein diet along with exercising and avoiding carbohydrates are essential.
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People who have type2 diabetes must start with slow walking and then gradually speeded up. You should always keep in mind that unnecessary speeding up at the treadmill or cross trainer might hurt the joints. So, a slow and steady policy is a better one. Regular and efficient exercises will help to keep away from diabetes. Moreover, you will gain confidence, good posture, and a healthy body when you exercise.
What Causes Low Blood Sugar
Low blood sugar has many causes, including missing a meal, taking too much insulin, taking other diabetes medicines, exercising more than normal, and drinking alcohol. Blood sugar below 70 mg/dL is considered low.
Signs of low blood sugar are different for everyone. Common symptoms include:
- Shaking.
- Dizziness.
- Hunger.
Know what your individual symptoms are so you can catch low blood sugar early and treat it. If you think you may have low blood sugar, check it even if you dont have symptoms. Low blood sugar can be dangerous and should be treated as soon as possible.
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Different Workouts Different Carb Doses
In the Nutrition Today study, they provided a general recommendation for carb intake for a 160-pound person. Their recommendation was for 150 calories of rapidly absorbed carbs post workout, to be able to sustain regular intense exercise.
To determine your post-workout carbs, the authors of the Nutrition Today study recommended aiming for 0.5 to 0.6 grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight, which translates into 36 to 43 grams of carbs for a 160-pound person.
It should be noted, however, that you need to consume different amounts of carbs for different types of workouts. Since carbs are essential post-workout to replenish the energy that was lost during exercise, the kind of training done will determine the energy loss, and therefore, the number of carbs that you need to consume.
The amount of carbs you eat directly relates to your weight but the intensity of the workout helps determine how many grams of carbs you’ll eat. If you went to the gym for an average workout, you’d want to consume 3 to 5 grams of carbs for every kilogram you weigh per day according to the Mayo Clinic.
A kilogram is roughly 2.2 pounds, so you can divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to determine your weight in kilograms, or use an online conversion calculator. If you weigh 150 pounds you would eat 200 to 340 grams of carbs a day.
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How Can I Pay For Tests And Diabetes Supplies
Medicareexternal icon, Medicaid, and most private insurance plans pay for the A1C test and fasting blood sugar test as well as some diabetes supplies. Check your plan or ask your health care team for help finding low-cost or free supplies, and see How to Save Money on Diabetes Care for more resources.
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