Be realistic about your workouts.
Even if your doctor has said you can work out, you still don’t want to jump straight into an intensive, three-hour exercise routine. Patients with diabetes often haven’t had a regular workout schedule for some time, so it’s important to start slow.
If you’re particularly new to exercise, a ten-minute walk may be enough to start with. Slowly add time and intensity to your workout from there, until you’ve reached the ability to work out vigorously for half an hour to an hour without feeling like you’re going to pass out.
Strength training has been shown to help increase sensitivity to insulin and help lower blood glucose levels, so it should definitely factor into your exercise routine. However, this doesn’t mean you should aim to be a bodybuilder. Keep your goals attainable—incorporate weights slowly and never push yourself past what your body will safely allow.
Most importantly, remember your body is different from everyone else’s. And that means you have to make allowances sometimes. Only you know what your body is capable of, and if a workout doesn’t feel right, chances are that it might not be.
Did you know...
- Starting to feel claustrophobic? The smells of apples may help keep your claustrophobic feelings at bay according to a 1995 study by Dr. Alan Hirsch. Green apples, specifically, helped people change their perception of their space. Maybe they thought of expansive apple orchards? Cucumbers and barbecue made the feelings worse.
- There are many factors that contribute to your body odor, but one of the strongest links is our diet. This may be some bad news for meat-lovers because many studies have shown that those who refrained from or ate less red meat were judged as being more pleasant smelling. The meat sweats are real, and they don’t smell great!
- Does your job make you stressed? We all know that stress is psychologically bad for you, but it also has an effect on…your allergies? A Harvard Medical School study has shown that stress causes your allergies to become worse because your body's defense response loses efficacy when repeatedly triggered by stress. Then, when you really need to physically fight something off, you're less able to!
- Do you know what the strongest muscle in your body is? No, it’s not your biceps or your thighs. It’s actually in your head. The masseter is a muscle in the jaw that is used when chewing. When all of the muscles of the jaw work together, they can exert a force as strong as 200 pounds on the molars. That’s some serious pressure.
- Have you ever told your husband something and he promptly forgets it? It's not his fault, actually. It really is because he's a man. The hippocampus (the part of the brain that deals with memory) begins to shrink with age faster in men than it does in women. That's why you can remember everything, and he can't!