I am wondering what others experience when they exercise in terms of blood sugars? I work out two - three times per week and take a good walk at least one or two times per week. EVERYTIME I exercise at all, my BS drops 25 to 50 or more. I have tried everything. I set my temp basal at 0.05 about one hour before exercise and keep it at that throughout the exercise and I raise my carb:insulin ratio so that I take less insulin at the meal preceding exercise. Still I drop BS. My endo and I have done basal testing and we believe that my rates are accurate. Her latest suggestion is to turn the pump off completely during exercise, which I will try. When I suggested this about six months ago, she said, "absolutely not - never turn it off b/c you will likely rebound..."
Does anyone have this experience and any suggestions as to what to do about it? I have heart problems so I need to exercise.
Thanks in advance.
I exercise every day - one to 2 miles and more if BS/BG starts climbing up. My BS stays in target ranges when I do this.
Insulin does not burn off glucose. Exercise does and helps keep local glucose stores of the skeletal muscles from topping off and turning on Insulin resistance. I am serious type 2. I get occasional serious liver dumps that really can whack up blood sugar. Exercise is most effective of getting rid of this excess glucose fast.
I don't usually mess with my basal. I just eat 10 grams of carbs before exercising. That seems to work better for me.
I try to exercise about 3-5 times per week. I do about 30 min cardio and an hour or more of machines. My BG also drops, so an hour before working out I set my temp basal rate to 10% for 4.5 hours. I make sure my blood sugar is at least 100 before I start. I always drink a bottle of gatorade during my workout to keep my sugar up. Afterwards sometimes my sugar is a little high due to the gatorade, but then drops alot so I will sometimes eat a snack without insulin. This system has worked pretty good for me so far.
I think that T1 and T2 work a bit differently in this regard.
I agree with Jim that 10G of carbs will "cover" a moderate amount of exercise, 30-60 minutes. I've gotten to the point where I'll skip the carbs entirely if my BG is in the right spot but I've been at the exercising for a few years, know my route and how I feel pretty well. I usually have some jelly beans with me but haven't gotten into too many sticky spots on the shorter runs. To calculate it precisely, if 1U of insulin would drop your bg say 40 points (around the middle of the 25-50 point drop...), you could eat what 1U of insulin would cover and see how it goes? It seems pretty close?
Exercise has always been one of those tricky things for me as well. I haven't quite managed to get the temp basals down for exercise yet, but I usually just keep a bottle of gatorade with me in case I start feeling low.
I agree with AcidRock, and Jim though - having a snack proportional to what you normally lose a little while before you exercise might help you out. That way you're giving yourself the extra bit that you normally drop due to the exercise.