Doris, glad to hear you’re moving around. I chase my terriers when I’m not at the gym lifting! The lows you’re dealing with can be dealt with if you want to incorporate exercise. I got that down right away! Turn your basal rate down. I turn it down 40 or 50% during workouts to keep the lows away. And, don’t forget, your metabolism continues to run at an increased rate for several hours after exercise (you get to eat more, yeah!!!). Talk to your medical team to figure out how to incorporate it if you really want to!
I used to walk 6 days a week, but started having blisters, no matter what I did. I was walking about 6 miles a day. Now, I have started riding my bike pushing a high gear on flat roads for 7 or 8 miles a day. For me, if I keep my weight in a certain zone, my BG and A1C are stable and I feel good. If I get even a pound or two heavy, I feel it and my BG goes up. I don’t know if that is normal, but it keeps my motivated to exercise.
I feel so much better when I exercise daily even if my bgs are not great. Dreading the winter months as my motivation to exercise will dwindle and so will my diabetic control.
I walk for 30 minutes every day, 7 days a week. On the days I don’t go to the gym, I walk outside and listen to podcasts on my iPod. At least two days a week (I try for three), I will go to the gym and walk on the treadmill or elliptical, usually for 40+ minutes, with hills. Then I do weight machines (they are actually the machines from Curves gym, even though my gym is not a Curves). I do the entire circuit with the most resistance I can take, for 30 reps each (the resistance is based on the speed you use because the machines are all hydraulic). It takes me about 20 minutes.
I used to be a runner but have put on too much weight for that. I have a lot of pain in my feet, and walking doesn’t aggravate it. I am hoping to start losing weight by controlling my blood sugar, and maybe I can start running again. It’s just so much more efficient than walking!
I’d say yes, that definitely counts. I was a ton healthier when I was at home running after my 2 kids than I have been at my desk job the past few years…although I’m making the effort to change that.
My workout routine is 5 days per week, for at least 30 minutes. (My backup plan, if the morning routine needs to be shorter, is to add some walking at lunch, my workplace doesn’t have facilities for showering after an intense workout.) My usual routine is 4 days’ running, one riding my bike, but I’m not sure how the fall and winter time change is going to affect the bike ride. Every other day I also do some upper body strength training with hand weights and some abdominal exercises. Lots of stretching after both workouts, too!
Weekends, I do something active each day: gardening, bike rides, walks with the kids.
I was very sedentary before diagnosis, but I’m hooked on being active now, and I even feel a little cranky on the weekends if we’re not active enough. When diagnosed, I started with three days/30 minutes (per the doctor), but the diabetes educator told me 5 days/30 minutes was better, so I started working out every weekday. (She also said that it’s not the intensity of the workout, but the length and consistency.) I do have a busy schedule–2 kids and a full-time job outside the home–but I have come to enjoy getting up early and out into the fresh air. You have no idea what a drastic change this is, because I’d always loved sleeping in and loafing. (Which I still do a little on the weekends, but I can enjoy it with a clearer conscience now! 
Oh, someone mentioned a web site online with workouts. Netflix also has many workout videos in their immediate viewing library, if you’re already paying for that service. There’s also your public library system; many systems have an online catalog that enables you to look up a title and put a “hold” on it, so that for a small fee (75 cents for the SF Bay Area’s Peninsula Library System in my area), it’s delivered to the library of your choice.
I am reading Gretchen’s most excellent book right now, and I just read yesterday that exercise actually depletes your muscles of glycogen so that they can vacuum up extra glucose and store it as glycogen instead of fat! After reading that, it makes exercise seem so much more meaningful and important. Each day you use up your muscles’ glycogen, is another day where you are storing less glucose as fat in your body! Less fat means less insulin resistance, and that is just great news to me!
I teach swing dancing two days a week and also go social dancing. Recently a friend and I are meeting twice a month to workout at the local park and I am walk/jogging a mile everyday. My goal for now is to be able to do a lap around the park which is three miles.
I like the picture Misty has paineted about the glycogen going a way and the insulin resistence going away as well! That is a great motivator!
Now if my body would just STOP acking!
Well the glycogen isn’t bad. It’s just quick energy instead of fat being long-term energy. The glycogen gets replenished before the fat does, so if you use up your glycogen every day, your muscles have to put fresh glycogen in first every day before they can store fat!
I ride a bike instead of driving most places. I live a few miles out in the country and anywhere I go is going to be at least 20 minutes just to get into town, and 20 minutes to get back home, so on weekdays my commute to work pretty much takes care of it. I also ride on weekends, and we have two dogs so walking is also something I do a lot of.
I’ve only been diagnosed (as T2) for about a year and a half and am still figuring out how all this works, but it does seem like exercise is at least as important as diet for keeping my #s where I want them. My A1C at diagnosis was 12, and within eight months of radical diet and exercise changes I had gotten it down to 5. People told me that’s fairly common, for people to bring everything way down right after their diagnosis, but that the real challenge is to maintain those changes for the rest of your life.
That’s definitely been the case with me. I was surprised to find out how much I actually enjoy my daily exercise – and even more surprised to find out that sometimes I still resist doing it, even though I know how good it makes me feel, and how much it helps my #s. Right now I’m seeing some higher morning #s than I like (low 100s, instead of the 80s-low 90s I had been having most of last year) and even though I know those #s are not all THAT bad it still scares me to see them creeping up instead of down. You’d think this would cause me to be even more hardcore about the treadmill, or extra dog walks, or running or bike rides or or or … But so far it hasn’t. It’s hard enough just to keep doing my hour or so a day (most days). I don’t want to think about having to do even more, or coming up with new things to try – although I’ve heard that changing it up sometimes is important too.
My goal for now is to try to gently set aside the drama and just do what I need to do. Just do it! It’s really pretty simple.
I got a mini-trampoline that can be kept indoors (the outdoor ones aren’t great in Irish weather conditions!!) and it’s a life saver. I like exercise but I sometimes get bad pains in my legs, so the trampoline is great because you can jog on it and it doesn’t put the same strain on your legs as normal jogging would…and apparently it’s just as effective, so it’s great!
I have an elliptical that I use part of the time. Need to more, but just don’t take the time.
I have recently purchased a Wii and a WiiFit. That WiiFit will put you through your paces on some of the exercises. Granted, VERY low impact, most impact is walking, but most of the exercises are fun and a few of them a very addictive. Others, I really don’t care for, but that is normal. Has yoga stretches, strength stretches, aerobic exercises and balancing exercises (I love the downhill skiing). Something the whole family can use.
I am addicted to two things…coffee and exercise! I work out of a pilates workbook four days a week at home, walk 2-3 times per week, love to ride my bike but don’t get to do that much. I also love to hike in the nearby mountains. I also try to do weights 203 times per week. I tried working out at Curves but that doesn’t work as well. If I have a low at home I can treat and go ahead and get ready to go to work (I workout in the early morning) but going to a “gym” I have to wait until my BG is high enough to drive. That can take awhile. When biking (usually 18-25 miles at a time) I lower my pump basal rate by 75% with leaves me with practically nothing because my morning basal rate is only 0.25 to begin with. I still have lows and they are difficult to treat because I also take Symlin before every meal. I find that lasts about 3 hours and make coming out of a low much more difficult. Anyone have any experience with that?
Both my husband and I love the Cleveland Metroparks which, I think, connect to the National Rec. Area as well as the rest of the city. We’re less than half a mile from the trails that connect everything. Isn’t Cleveland pretty? 
I used to be much more active and then had to slow it down a bit when I started on a pump. I think I could have continued with more exercise, but I was scared of the lows. Now that I am more adjusted I am slowly starting to get back into my exercising again. Just wondering if anyone has tried Yoga? I have heard amazing things about it and am dying to try it. I have heard it not only helps with strength training, but also circulation and relaxation!
I quit exercising for a while because I would feel weak and woozy. I have my blood sugars under control (low carb) now and I am exercising again, yoga and walking, but I still don’t quite understand what is going on. My husband and I went for a hike this weekend and about half way through I started not feeling well. I tested my blood sugar, and it was 97 which was up from my starting BG of 85, and I still felt woozy. I had some water and nuts and rested for a few minutes and was able to finish the hike. I feel I have a very god handle on the eating part of diabetes, but I still don’t understand what is going on when I try to exercise. Is this happening to you too? What do you do?
Yoga helps with everything! I have been practicing for three years. It gives you strength and flexibility and reduces stress. My 92 year old Mother-in-law inspired me. She would squat down to feed her cats and stand straight up again without assistance of any kind. I was 51 and couldn’t do that. I can now.
What book are you referring to?
i walk to work and home every day (a little more than a mile each way) and i split wood. splitting wood keeps you warm twice. i like things that actually produce an end result… my hobby is stained glass, wait… thats what i do for a living…