Going high after exercise?

I asked the doc about this a long time ago, I was shocked that my blds went up after exercise. I would be reluctant to take insulin because I would have a series of lows later.I suppose 1-2 units wouldn’t do much harm though. Dino, I would never be able to exercise at 110 it would be hypo territory straight away. I exercise after lunch which isn’t good for me, this is when I have trouble with blds, morning blds are always spot on but just don’t have time in morning to ex. It’s all very annoying and it has often put me off exercise, they worst thing ever is when I feel like I’m undoing my efforts by having to correct lows.

What are you training for and what sort of exercise do you do for that long? Your nurse is correct about the stress hormones. You may want to consider a pump so you can use temporary basals. I don’t know how I’d manage to do your sort of regimen (or mine for that matter) without them and still avoid nasty lows.

I have that same problem, my educator told me it is adrenalin related due to high intensity workout, I tend to go low later that day though. I still reduce my basal for the workout and take corrections while I am having high blood sugars, I just reduce the amount of insulin a little so I don’t go too low later on. I tried the eating right after thing, but that didn’t seem to work for me. I did find the more often I worked out that I didn’t rise as high.

This actually happened to me yesterday. Before I went into the shower I was at 135. I ‘danced’ a little and showered to try to help bring it down. When it was time to check my sugar again, it was already 180. I checked twice to make sure it was right, since I didn’t really feel high, but after taking the correction, I guess the meter was right.

hey jason i went from 1 hour workouts to 2-3 hours- and that’s when my body started tripping out- cept it took a month or so before i started getting the lows. weird??
i’m doing martial arts training- basically circuit training- kicks, punches, punches with weights, cardio, free weights, tons of pushups, abs, plyometric drills.
i’m already exhausted when i go into the gym so i’m wondering if i’m pushing my body over the edge and it’s reacting with the mega highs and then mega lows??? i have a feeling the adrenal/other hormones are jacking things up too in response to the intensity??

i’m convinced that there is a way to continue my workouts and get things leveled out. i’m going to look up diabetic professional athletes and seeing what they do. maybe they have some insight

pump is a good idea but i REALLY dont want to get one if i can help it!

careful you dont slip :slight_smile: maybe wear a helmet and bubble wrap in there next time??? LOL

hey terry where can i find more info on this so i can understand it better?

I had some trouble running high after longer workouts. I found that stopping my temp basal rate about 30 mins prior to the end of my workout helped. Of course, this was only an issue for workouts which lasted longer than an hour and a half or so.

I’m a T 2 only on metformin. I find if I exercise in the morning my bg’s will spike. I don’t know if it is the continuation of dawn phenomenom or if it is cortisol and adrenaline spiking because of stress. One yoga instructor told me that you must be careful of your breathing pattern to prevent stress. If you do shallow breathing not enough oxygen gets into your muscles. So I try to concentrate on deep belly breathing to prevent spikes. Another thing someone on another board suggested that once you start exercising intensely you use up your stored glucose in about 20 minutes, so your pancreas sends out glucogen which causes your liver to produce more glucose. Since I don’t have a lot of cirucating insulin to carry it into the cells for energy my bg spikes. It seems when I do weighlifting, this doesn’t happen as much because glucose can enter the muscles without the use of insulin.

my educator told me the same thing! i wonder if there’s a way to trick our bodies to keep from divebombing later like that!
t
hat’s pretty cool your body likes it better when you work out more often- i’m working out 5 days a week and i’m hoping my body gets used to it too.

do you have any more understanding of how the adrenalin kicks in when we do high intensity workouts?

my friend sent me this link when it was driving me batty…I would always go high after weights, aerobics, running…if I was walking I would go lower…

click here to go to the link

after getting on the pump I’m still experimenting but I went jogging for the first time in a long time the other day and came home at 130…I had my basal rate going plus bolused 1 extra unit…and had about 15g carbs at 1 mile mark…

I need to experiment more but I’m learning all those years I avoided the carbs I really did need them to avoid going high afterwards…

Are you sure you are not overtraining? With that sort of routine and considering how you feel exhausted when you walk into the gym, you may want to give it some thought. What are your fitness goals? Is there some event or competition you are training for? There are some olympic athletes that do that much work every day but it is not sustainable for a long time.

More time working out does not equal better results to an unlimited extent. You are breaking down muscle and other tissues faster than your body can repair them. And the amount of food and sleep you would need to sustain 3 hour workouts every day would leave you with nothing else to do except exercise, eat, and sleep.

Google “overtraining” and see if you might be experiencing that. I’m not trying to discourage you from intense exercise (I love it too) but there needs to be balance or you will get sick and actually retard your progress.

Why the opposition to a pump?

Another reason for high BG reading after exercise could be inadequate hydration while exercising. I always have high numbers after exercise. My Dr. told me to make sure I was replacing the water I was sweating out during my workout, since slight dehydration may increase BG. I don’t do anything to treat a higher numbers since I know within a few hours they will plummet on their own.

Bicycling more than 10 miles in one go regardless of the speed made my BG go down. Less than that it went up.

Dear andy.

If I have this straight one should bicycle at 60% to 70% of max heart rate to loose fat. I can do that on the elliptic machine not sure that my legs are quite strong enough to keep this up for one hour but I will try. I go for 40 minutes each day with the dog. there is a berm from the highway excavation so I can go up and down this elongated mound to adjust the effort to zone 2. May need some technology like a hearth rate monitor to have an online reading like at the gym would be nice.

My ten mile comment was with a heavy mountain bike at an average speed of 13 miles per hour over fairly flat terrain of course with a road bike one would go much faster.

I am happy to hear that the metformin works for you. I used to fill in an Excel stread sheet with the analysis of my food and also substract the calories expended in exercise and try to shoot for a net of 1800 on which I would loose weight. Hypocaloric diet also makes BG control much easier than eating too much.

Good bicycling and stay in touch.

Dear Andy.

It may be best to calculate the max heart rate than try to measure it in my present condition. I am not able to get it much above 135 without fading on the elliptic machine. I will go to the bike shops and see about the heart monitors.

Dear andy.

I live now in Calgary. There is Mountain Co-op in downtown Calgary that I think has an on-line store. We can order from Cabelas or LLBean if they have any appropriate heart rate meters. not sure if Costco has any but we have a store nearby or can mail order.

Dear andy.

Will go there it is a good store with helpful and knowledgeable personnel. So it should have an alarm to tell you you have changed exercise zones?

Dear andy.

I was wondering if it is a lot better to have the display on the handlebar since I need both hands on the grips and it would be hard to look at the watch.

Dear andy.

The ones at the gym have heart rate monitors so does the elliptic machine. Old fashion mountain bike like the original stumpjumper (I still have one in working order) . this is to ride around outside with the dog.