Weights=Hyperglycemia?

I've been doing weights for the past week & usually cardio after I lower my insulin needs and so far I've been ok no highs no lows(I'm on a pump). But today I did weights 35 mins total, 30mins later I checked my bg thinking I may be going low since I worked out, and I was at 265! anyone else ever had this issue before? I think its time to re-read think like a pancreas lol!!

I have run into that too, not quite that high but it gets up there fast. The highs seem to go away very easily.

I find my blood sugar can rise significantly from weightlifting. I believe it is the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that occur. I bolus for weightlifting. If I didn't bolus, I would normally rise more than 100 mg/dl. So yes, I bolus for the activity. I usually have a small snack (protein shake with milk) before workout. I bolus for the snack and then I bolus a correction for the rise that I anticipate from working out.

In most cases, a high from working out will drop to normal within an hour, but if you work out in a fasted state with only basal on board, you may find that the high takes some time to come down.

Ginger Vieira is member of TuDiabetes. She set 15 records in powerlifting and wrote the book "Your Diabetes Science Experiment". In this book she is categorizing weightlifting as an anaerobic exercise. This means the muscles will consume a lot of energy while oxygen can not be utilized efficiently. With sufficient supply of oxygen your blood glucose would just go lower from the exercise. But in this anaerobic state the muscles will use strategies to utilize more energy. Thus they will release their local glucagon stores and the liver will also release glucagon. This glucagon will be converted in the liver to glucose. As a result you will see a huge spike because you have no insulin on board to work against this glucose. Ginger does recommend to adjust your eating and dosing behaviour to the type of exercise. If you know that this exercise will be anaerobic you should have insulin on board to compensate for the glucagon effect. At first this sounds counter-intuitive but with time you will learn how you body reacts. Maybe a mix of anaerobic and aerobic exercises can also work. The anaerobic part will increase your BG (20mins lifting). The following aerobic part will utilize the released glucose and will hopefully revert to normal levels (40mins crosstrainer etc).

Thanks, Holger. I mix weights with aerobics for 45-60 mins at a time and I find it can drop my blood sugar significantly. I check my blood sugar ever 15-20 minutes during that workout and watch it go down (and make sure I don't suffer from the dreaded Somogyi Phenomenon.) Your information explained why I (and many others) get the results I do.

This is not that uncommon after doing serious exercise. When you exercise hard enough to get a "fight or flight" adrenaline response from your body, your liver will dump glycogen into your blood stream and your blood sugar will spike. This is a notorious problem with Type 1 athletes who do CrossFit (among other things).

I have been training with weights for almost 20 years and I never experienced an arise in my blood sugar. Probably because I usually train with a lot of weight but fast. I only rest 30 sec between each of 10 - 12 reps. The result is that I am doing aerobics - anaerobic workout at the same time.

awesome info thanks a lot everyone makes a lot of sense what everyone is saying. Today I'm doing cardio but I go back to weights tomorrow wont mess with my pump and I'll make sure & place a cgm sensor today to see what my bg does while I'm pumping iron lol!! and I'll start doing weights then cardio/aerobic exercise to hopefully help with the spike of doing weights?

Another thing last week I went to a spin class it was 1hr long and pretty intense I was high after also in the 240's, we were simulating going uphill and what not then after we did and hour of zumba, I lowered my insulin & I was drinking gatorade. I workout from home so I usually dont drink gatorade, but when I go to the gym I do because I'm so afraid of going low. Anyway I'm thinking that all the gatorade and the intensity of the spin class made me go high, but when I do zumba I always go low, its so confusing sometimes.. but I love working out so its worth doing all this research to try and stay more stable during my exercises :)

hey Edgar I do a lot of weight but super slow maybe thats why I'm having that spike? last week I was doing cardio right after so my sugars were staying stable because of it I'm assuming. I'm sure I'll figure out how to stay within range :)

Be aware that the weights will kindle your metabolism. After training with weights for 2 days in a row, I need to cut my insulin intake dramatically. I experience lows even 48 hours after my training sesion. Training cardio I dont have this collateral effect, unless I trained for more than 40 min. Trial and mistake :-)

Ah ha! This is what I needed to know. Thank you!!!

I knew it!! I had a low the next morning like 24hrs later!!! I had a feeling it was cause of lifting weights… Thanks again for all the info :slight_smile:

This was after lifting two days in a row, I did weights 2 days a go and cardio yesterday & didn’t have the lows today, all I had was really awesome numbers :smiley:

You don't get strong from lifting weights, you get strong recovering from lifting weights. It is always good to rest for at least 24-48 hours between workouts. Some people get around this by splitting their workouts, upper body on one day, lower body on the next.

And Edgar is definitely right, you will be more insulin sensitive for up to 48 hours after a workout. You should also be careful for sudden lows after workouts, mine occur about 2 hours after my workout. These are called Post-Exercise Hypoglycemia. Some think that they are a result of your body suddenly refilling your depleted glycogen stores.

I usually train with weights at 5 pm and for sure I will have lows at 3 am and 10 am. At this moment my muscles need sugar.

One tip: try to take 1 day off every 2 -3 days of training. With this you give your body a break. When I train more than 3 days straight my body becomes very efficient and even inject 0.5 units of insulin becomes a problem due to low sugar.

Yes that’s what I do I have 2 rest days and do upper body one day and lower body the next… I experienced the lows about 24hrs after lifting and had really good numbers about 2hrs after lifting. I’m afraid of lowering my basal at night because I don’t want to go high but I might just have to try it out so I don’t go low cause I go into the low 30’s!!!

Oh wow only .5 huh!? Thats crazy but understandable thanks for all the awesome info :slight_smile: