I have a friend who I always thought was a bit mad. Diagnosed early on in life with Diabetes I she seemed to be an exercise fanatic. Early morning rises. early morning runs. Full on stuff.
But now I recognise her superb wisdom.
I considered that i was no slouch when it came to 'exercise' as I've always tried to be within standard health guidelines and would at least walk for 40 minutes each day, dogs on leash. But I never really worked at it, never really worked up a sweat.
Even when I took up scootering and kickbiking.
We had put in a round dixie cup swimming pool 2.5 metres wide/chest level depth and I spent years jumping in and pulling myself around and around it for kilometres at a time -- October to late April. I'd even do this a couple of times a day in Summer.
Nonetheless, these two elements were never enough to roll back or halt my symptom creep. I mean my Fibromyalgia stuff. It was only when I got myself a personal trainer (Yey Robert, right, from Northside Boxing) that I began to register with a different effect.
So I began to 'train' at a different level and expend more effort on my workouts. En route I began to learn a lot more about my body.
But that was a slow learning curve. Coincidentally I was upping my activity and tightening up my exercise activities when the diabetes missive came a callin'.
Walking the walk
The last time I tried to go intensive was a spate of power walking a few years back where I was notching up high figures each day. I took on the Walking a 10,000 steps challenge.
On that I clocked some impressive figures:
Total steps 5,214,452Daily average: 13,135
But I had to set aside a lot of time for walking. However because i used trekking poles I weaned myself off the walking cane I was using to walk around and pulled myself upright in contrast to the way the cane, like any little old man, caused me to bend over.
Only when I started gym work with trainer -- despite my continued scootering and kickbiking -- did I cease to use a trekking pole to get around.
Such achievements gives you confidence but not such that you cannot be humbled by the next workout.
So now I do the kickbiking, weight lifting, kettlebells and boxing more or less every day in separate sharp bursts. And I'm working really hard for what has been, let's be frank, little gain.
It has only been since I switched to a low carb diet that I have begun to register some identifiable weight shift which in turn expands my exercise possibilities as when you carry weight into a session you have to carry it through the session.
The only draw back has been that the more I do this program the less the dogs get a look in. So I'm going to finally teach them (a Jack Russell and a mini mongrel) dogscootering.
Mush!
Tags:Diabetes, Exercise