Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Using exercise against itself

Today I got away with a few things that I normally wouldn't. It was like a triple cheat, triple win. And, I plan to keep doing it whenever I can get away with it.
  1. Normally, when I go for a walk in the AM I can skip my 1/2 unit coffee bolus. But, even then, I might dip a little low upon returning from my walk, so I have to eat a glucose tablet or have breakfast with some berries, depending on how low I go. 
  2. If I do a strength workout in the evening I normally see my glucose rise and have had to start taking a unit of insulin to keep it steady. 
  3. My usual breakfast is low-carb, normally eggs and greens. The morning is the time when I have the least leeway with starchy carbs. During the school year I don't really even eat anything till after the dawn phenomenon is over, and it's usually around 11am when I "break the fast".
So, those are my quirky limitations that I have worked out for myself through experimentation. Here's how it worked out today, a symphony of quirks with a pretty good outcome.

Today, I woke up with normal BG at 94 mg/dl. I had my coffee without a bolus, and then went for a walk. When I got back from my 20 min. walk, my BG was headed toward lowish (70 mg/dl). I did a strength training routine (pushup, pullup, plank, overhead press) which redirected my trend towards normal/steady (104 mg/dl). Both of those activities left me feeling pretty hungry, so I made breakfast. I pondered whether the extra insulin sensitivity from the exercise might allow me to get away with some starch at breakfast. I microwaved a large new potato and then crushed it in the skillet, and drizzled it with coconut oil, and fried it till crispy. I added that to my eggs and greens. It was fantastic, I love potatoes, but rarely eat them because of the fast BG rise that I normally get from them. I used Symilin with the meal, and when I saw my BG starting to go up (at about an hour) I took insulin to cover the meal. It worked out rather well.

I got the idea to combine the walk with the strength training because I had heard that circuit training was sometimes a glucose stabilizing way to exercise because it combined aerobic with anaerobic work and resulted in a balance of BG lowering and raising activities.

I only do strength work about twice a week, so this won't be a daily routine, but it's good to know it works. I wouldn't want to get sick of exercising or occasional potatoes...

1 comment:

  1. I like it! Might as well put all of those together to get what you want out of your morning and exercise routine. Plus, coffee is supposed to help you get more out of your exercise, so that probably adds yet another degree of "win" to the equation!

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