Type 2 diabetics Middlesbrough Athletic Club (Mandale)

Information about staying active to reduce significantly the risk of developing the most common form of diabetes (type 2 diabetes).

Exercising With Diabetes
Athletes with diabetes can exercise and compete at a high level. Exercise can help control blood sugars, particularly in Type 2 diabetics, but it can also worsen them if you are not in good control.

Everyone, including most people with diabetes, can benefit from exercise. Exercise can help control blood sugars, particularly in Type 2 diabetics, but it can also worsen your sugar levels if you are not in good control. It's important that you speak to your doctor before beginning any exercise program.

Exercise allows muscles to use more insulin, which can help control blood sugar, but also can increase the risk of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Hypoglycemia can occur during exercise and even up to 24 hours after exercise. It is very important that diabetics at risk know the signs of hypoglycemia, which commonly include dizziness, nausea, headache, and problems with concentration. If an athlete develops any symptoms of hypoglycemia, activity should be stopped immediately and food or drink containing sugar should be consumed. Ideally, the blood sugar level should be checked. An athlete should not return to the activity immediately after a hypoglycemic episode even if blood sugars normalize, but should seek the advice of a physician prior to returning to the activity.

Otherwise healthy athletes with well-controlled Type 2 diabetes (not on insulin), can generally exercise without restriction once they've consulted with a doctor. These athletes are generally at low risk for hypoglycemia; however, they are at an increased risk of heart and kidney disease. While most medications used in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes are safe for those who exercise, some can have serious side effects, especially dehydration occurring. Therefore, it is particularly important for diabetic athletes to maintain proper hydration, and also to discuss with their doctors the potential side effects of their specific medication.

Type 1 diabetics, and those with Type 2 who require insulin, need to closely monitor their blood sugars during exercise. It is important to have a carbohydrate rich meal 2-3 hours prior to any prolonged (30 minutes) exercise. Many doctors and nutritionists advocate that this meal should ideally consist of low glycemic index foods, which are absorbed more slowly.

In most cases, pre-exercise insulin doses need to be decreased, sometimes as much as 70-80% (this depends on several factors including planned duration of exercise, conditions, and time until exercise). For every hour of exercise, approximately 40-70g of carbohydrates should be ingested. This will vary with the conditions and intensity of training. If possible, blood sugars should be measured during activity; this is especially critical if the activity is a new one. It is imperative that diabetic athletes wear a medic alert bracelet and carry sugar, or glucose, in a form that can be rapidly absorbed (for instance, gels or boiled sweets). For longer activities, diabetics should consider having an exercise partner, or at a minimum notifying others of the planned activity and route.

Athletes with diabetes can exercise and compete at a high level, to ensure safe participation please consult a docter who has experience treating diabetes in athletes.Taken from tbeginnertriathlete.com

Be Prepared
This is good advice not just for us Diabetics but also for regular runners. Run safe and smart and be prepared to deal with a problem on the road.

1. Carry ID, seems silly to point this out, but how many of us go out running with no ID. What happens if you have a problem or accident are lying on the ground. Consider a Medic Alert bracelet if you are diabetic, or if not maybe a dog tag type identification. That way they can get in touch with someone if there is a problem.

2. Let someone know your route and how long you are going to be. Let a family member know how long you are going to be and what route your taking. If you do collapse at least someone will know where to start looking for you.

3. For us Type II's if you can carry A gel, life savers or even a packet of sugar. One never knows when you are going to bottom out and need a quick Jolt of Sugar.

4. Water, for those long runs carry a fuel belt with water bottles. It also has a pouch for those Gel's and other Treats.

5. Carry a mobile phone or at least some money. If you need a lift, you can call one.

6. Be seen, where bright colors and reflective clothing especially at night.

7. If you listen to music, keep the music down so you can still hear traffic and ambient sound. That way you can hear the car or truck coming when you are thinking of darting across the road.

8. Obey the traffic lights, even if the cars don't, anticipate those drives don't assume he has seen you.

9. Carry your test strips if you feel yourself going low, test and snack.

10. Have fun, be courtesy to other folks on the road and pavements.

Adapted from The Diabetic Runner

Getting Fit
Anyone thinking of starting an exercise programme to get fit usually has a number of questions they'd like answered. What exercise or activity should I take up to get fit? How long do I need to train for? How do I get the best benefits from exercise?

Let's look at the options! Firstly you should find an activity that you are comfortable doing and one that you think you will enjoy. Beginners should think about exercising 2-3 times a week at the most to start with. To get any benefit from exercise you need to work the body harder than normal, by increasing your heart rate, this can be done by walking or jogging, by lifting weights, by swimming, or by many other forms of activity.

As your body becomes accustomed to exercise you need to increase the number of times you exercise, the intensity of the workout and the length of time of your session, to continue to improve your fitness levels. A combination of the three types of exercise here will give you a good overall workout.

Aerobic Exercise
Mainly involves exercising the large muscle groups. Walking, aerobic dance, cycling and jogging are good examples of aerobic exercise. Rowing, swimming and other activities that combine both upper and lower body movements can help increase your aerobic capacity.

Strength Training
Involves exercises where resistance is used to build or maintain muscle. Training with weights or dumbbells is a good way to build up strength, but exercises like sit-ups, abdominal crunches, and circuit training at the gym are equally effective.

Flexibility
Is an important part of any exercise regime. Increasing flexibility can reduce the risks of strains, twists, and other injuries, especially for beginners. Stretching is an important factor in increasing flexibility, it increases blood supply to joints and muscles, can increase physical performance, reduces soreness, reduces the risk of injury and reduces stress in muscles.

Try different forms of activity, you don't need to do only one. You can combine new activities with your favourite activities to help keep your enthusiasm and motivation high. When starting to exercise it's not uncommon for you to make mistakes that cause your workout to be ineffective or even worse causing you injury.

Some of the mistakes to look out for are:

Lack of Stretching
You should try and stretch for a few minutes before exercising, concentrating on the muscles that you will use during the activity. Muscles that are warmed up and flexible are less likely to be injured. You should also stretch as part of your warm down while your muscles are still warm and supple this helps reduce stiffness and aids recovery time.

Not Warming Up for Aerobic Training
Stretching is only part of a warm up. Your body needs to be gradually warmed up to meet the added demands of aerobic training. Gradually build up your heart rate by stretching, walking, jogging, or doing a lighter version of the activity you are about to undertake. When beginning your exercise session start off slowly and gradually increase the intensity of your workout.

Not Warming Down After a Workout
Just like you need to gradually warm up the body before exercise, it also needs to gradually cool down after exercise. Light jogging and stretching is a good cool down.

Overuse/Overtraining
Doing too much too soon is the most common way of picking up an injury. Don't train every day; you need to give your body time to recover. It's not a competition! Don't try to keep up with others who may have been exercising regularly for some time. Don't try lifting weights that are too heavy, know your limitations.

Not Drinking Enough
Fluid lost through exercise needs to be replaced. Unless you are doing more than two hours exercise daily, water will be adequate to replace any lost fluid. Try and drink Eight 8oz glasses of water a day while exercising. If you are doing more than two hours of exercise your water intake can be supplemented by energy drinks.

The 10 Principles
Running is not something you can do during track and cross country seasons only, unless you can replace it with some other type of aerobic exercise.

Principle #1
You are running for your life. One of the implications of this is that you really need to avoid injuries. You can't increase your mileage as fast as a non-diabetic, because if you get a running injury, it will dramatically affect your ability to control your blood glucose levels. This means you have to train sensibly. Most of all, avoid foot and lower leg injuries. One trick I've found for avoiding blisters is Thorlo socks. You also need the correct pair of shoes. If you can get your gait analyzed at a Sports Medicine Clinic, it's worth it even if you have to pay for it out of pocket. Get your shoes at a running store if at all possible, and preferably one with a treadmill so you can take them out for a half mile to a mile to see how they are. This also means that you need to stretch and stretch properly.

Principle #2
You need carbohydrates - even sugars. As a diabetic, you've probably gotten to think that carbos are your enemy. In some ways they are, but as a runner, they're your best friend. Fortunately, as a runner, your body can deal better with them. You need them. If you are training with depleted glycogen stores, you're not going to train very well and could be injured. You need to consume carbohydrates before you run, after you run, and maybe even during a run - at least if the run is over 1 hour. I find that if I split a meal into thirds and eat 1/3 before I run and 2/3rds, carry a sports drinks during a run

Principle #3
Test strips are cheap running equipment. The only real way you're going to find out how your body is doing is to test your blood glucose levels. Usually, my BG will go down, but I've had runs where my final BG was higher than I started with. I've seen my BG go from 230 mg/dl to 70 mg/dl after 3 miles at 11 min. per mile. Other times, I've had a BG drop to 40 mg/dl and felt like nothing was wrong. This brings up an important point. After a run, since you don't know what your BG is, it could be dangerously low. Imagine what would happen if, after that run where my BG dropped to 40 mg/dl, I had tried to drive some place. Running doesn't help your health if you kill yourself in a car accident. Test every time you try something.

Principle #4
Be prepared for the worst. I really should have a running partner, but I don't. So, I carry a sports drinks in the car (I drive to where I'm going to run usually). I tell my wife how far I'm running and when she should expect me home. I run in populated areas, although I try to stay away from road traffic. I figure that if I get into trouble, someone will find me and call 999 before my brain fries, assuming I wasn't able to catch the problem. Still, a running partner would be great. Also, know what you can do if you do get injured or sick so that you can't run. You might have to modify your food intake, switch to a different aerobic exercise, or something else. Talk with your doctor about what to do during sick days and under what circumstances you shouldn't run - illness, high BG, etc.

Principle #5
Have fun. I sort of wonder if this should actually be Principle #1. If you don't like running, find something else aerobic to do. Life is too short to be miserable trying to make it longer.

Principle #6
Weight Training helps diabetics A lot of runners shy away from weight training. But muscle mass takes up glucose, and it can do it without insulin during or for a while after exercise. Use the weight training to strengthen your upper body and add support for the joints in your legs.

Principle #7
You get Two Hours and Two Days from a workout. For the first two hours after a workout, your body will be able to handle far, far more glucose than it could normally. The muscles can still take up glucose without insulin. Use this time to get as much glucose into your system as you can without putting your BG too high. For the two days after a workout, your body will still be able to handle more glucose than normal, just not as much as you can during the first two hours.

Principle #8
You need easy weeks and occasional days off and variations in your routine. If you read all the running literature, they tell you to take an easy week every once in a while. I'm convinced that this applies even more to diabetic runners. Cut back the mileage one week. Let things heal up and recover. At the very least you won't get sick of running. A day off now and then lets you heal up some. Don't do the same workout day after day. Some diabetics think this is necessary to help them maintain good BG control. If anything, it makes it worse. Your body gets used to the set distance. The same muscles get hurt. You get bored. Vary things - easy days, long slow days, fast hard days, days when you just go out and run however you feel like it.

Principle #9
You need your doctor's OK for your running program. As a diabetic, you are at far greater risk for heart disease. Just because you run doesn't mean you don't have heart disease. Talk your doctor into ordering a treadmill test with EKG and monitoring of CO2 exhaled. You can find out your VO2max from the test, and that's a useful thing to know. Far more importantly, you'll catch any heart disease early. Better you call "Roto-rooter" for clogged arteries than find out in the middle of a run that your left ventricle no longer has a blood supply. Trust me you dont ewant to be trated for a cardiac arrest at a race, or whilst trainning.

Principle #10

Don't trust anything you read on the internet - confirm it independently. Take this list to your doctor. Ask him what he thinks. Check out www.diabetes.org and see what it says about exercise. Read and learn. I believe that my advice is accurate. It's certainly what's worked for me. But I'm also not you. You are, and you may need to modify things to make them work for you. As a diabetic, you will live longer, the more you know.

What is DESMOND? How did it begin? What makes it special as a diabetes education programme? The answers begin here…

DESMOND stands for Diabetes Education and Self Management for Ongoing and Newly Diagnosed. And it's a name associated with a number of enterprises in diabetes.

DESMOND is a collaborative group working together to improve opportunities for learning and support for people with diabetes and the health care professionals involved with them. DESMOND is one of the several programmes now available to make those opportunities a reality. And DESMOND is the several research studies currently active in developing new programmes to meet specific needs. more>>

Short bursts of intense exercise every few days could dramatically cut the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to an expert.

Rather than slaving away for hours in the gym, people should focus their attention on quick "sprints" with each workout lasting just a few minutes.

James Timmons, Heriot-Watt University professor of exercise biology has studied the effects of quick exercise.

He recommends 4 x 30 second sprints on an exercise bike three times a week.

He said people could reduce their risk of diabetes and heart disease substantially with short, intense workouts - with such "time-efficient" exercising appealing to busy workers.

An intense workout for a few minutes may keep heart disease and diabetes at bay

In his study, published in the journal BMC Endocrine Disorders, 16 men exercised for three sessions a week for two weeks.

Each session was made up of 4 x 30 second sprints on an exercise bike. more>>

I asked myself "what is a diabetes diet?"
It would be nice if diabetes was more like a food allergy and you could simply avoid one type of food, stick to healthy eating, take your medication and you'd be all ok. Instead, diabetes means a 24-hour-a-day balancing act between blood sugar levels and an entire category of food (carbohydrates). Not surprisingly, one of the first questions newly diagnosed patients ask is: "What is this diabetes diet I have to follow?"

Fortunately, you quickly find out that healthy eating with diabetes is not a life sentence to some rigid, deprivation-oriented menu plan - and that the concept of a "diabetes diet" is mostly myth. Unlike a diet, nutritional management of diabetes usually involves dietary changes that balance moderation, carbohydrate control, and healthy eating choices.

Try these broad range of recipes they are delicious and worth a try, go on and continue to enjoy a wide variety of foods as part of healthy eating, to undepin principle #1 You are running for your life. more>>