blood sugers high after exercise

[mark1985]

Hi
I have started going to the gym again and getting into my running again. I am eating a balance diet but not easy working nights so meals are all over the place. The issue I am finding is that my bloods are always high atm. I tried the low carb diet but found that caused other issues so not practical to carry on with. feeling like I'm at the start again with no clue what to do. any advice please.

 

[three1ne]

Easier said than done but having consistency with timings of meals and exercise helps massively.

I always inject a small amount of insulin before I go to the gym. I go early morning pre breakfast. Exercise releases glucose from the liver so the inlaying injected offsets this.

 

[three1ne]

Apologies, I see you are type 2 so probably not injecting.

You should practise low internsity work outs like walking/jogging to begin with.

Eat a lot of protein to fill you up and maintain a low carb diet.

 

[JohnS]

When I go out for a run my blood glucose always goes up. If I just go for a walk it goes down. This is a well known phenomenon and (I believe) is something to do with the “flight or fight” condition. (The body produces more glucose in order to give energy when it is needed.) That is a very simple explanation to a quite complicated physiological issue!

 

[helli]

When I go out for a run my blood glucose always goes up. If I just go for a walk it goes down. This is a well known phenomenon and (I believe) is something to do with the “flight or fight” condition. (The body produces more glucose in order to give energy when it is needed.) That is a very simple explanation to a quite complicated physiological issue

First I should mention that I have no medical training and my comments are based on understanding from the forum and other reading as well as my personal experience.
While it is the case that the liver dumps more glucose when exercising, this does not always result in a higher BG as the body uses more glucose when doing some exercise although this kicks in later than the glucose dump. As with everything diabetes, there are multiple factors at play including
- how long you exercise (including whether it is continuous or stop/start like HIIT)
- how intensive the exercise is
- the type of exercise (typically, cardio lowers BG and resistance training will raise it)
- how fit you are at that type of exercise (if you are less fit, you are more likely to be stressed which will raise BG)
- is there anything else that can affect your stress levels such as weather (stress raises BG)

I am not a runner but I often cycle and I am reasonably fit. The type of cycling I do can have different affects on my BG.
- a gentle trundle along the tow path whilst chatting to my friends is probably analogous to your walking. It has very little impact on my BG.
- an intensive 45 minutes to an hour at my weekly spin class will cause my BG to go down
- an outdoor cycle ride in the wind and rain slogging up a steep hill will cause my BG to go up.
And, whatever exercise I do, my BG is lower for the next 24 to 48 hours.

@mark1985 what exercise are you doing at the gym? Are you on something like the treadmill or something like the weight rack? And how is your BG the day after the gym?

 

[JimmyBlue]

@mark1985 like you I am type 2 and currently have quite a busy exercise regime with visits to the gym up to three times a week, plus three runs a week and a game of golf. Fortunately I have been able to retire early so don't have the issues around work and meal times.
From your post it is not clear exactly what the position is, for example when you say your bloods are high, does that mean above 8 mmol/L or above 10 mmol/L or even higher? Also what exactly do you mean by 'balanced diet' as this can mean different things to different people? For example I eat a balanced diet but it is low carb and has plenty of fish, meat and fats so that my intake at around 2,500 - 3,000 calories per day aligns with the amount of activity I do each day and allows me to maintain or even add a little weight.
I have also read somewhere that doing weights before doing cardio activity can be beneficial for some people as it encourages cells to increase insulin sensitivity which can help improve BG uptake during and after the cardio exercise, thus keeping BG lower.

 

[Leadinglights]

Hi
I have started going to the gym again and getting into my running again. I am eating a balance diet but not easy working nights so meals are all over the place. The issue I am finding is that my bloods are always high atm. I tried the low carb diet but found that caused other issues so not practical to carry on with. feeling like I'm at the start again with no clue what to do. any advice please.

When you say low carb didn't work for you, it may depend on exactly how you went about it, how low, did you increase protein and healthy fats, did you reduce carbs too quickly.
Perhaps looking more carefully at your diet would be a first step to see what you may need to change. Keeping a food dairy of everything you eat and drink with an estimate of the carbs and record your before and 2 hour post meal readings you may spot foods which should be off the menu or have in reduced portions.
Maybe some ideas to approach low carb in a better way in this link https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/

 

[SimonP]

Could you walk or cycle (gently!) to/from the gym and for runs add on 10 - 15min (or longer) walk afterwards?

These gentle (low stress) exercises will tend to cause BG to drop (as the liver is no longer being asked to produce glucose but you're still burning it doing exercise) after the high stress gym/running (when the liver was actively "helping" due to stress hormones). They also serve to prolong the duration of exercise which will enhance post-exercise muscle insulin sensitivity.

 

[indigorblue]

Hi
I have started going to the gym again and getting into my running again. I am eating a balance diet but not easy working nights so meals are all over the place. The issue I am finding is that my bloods are always high atm. I tried the low carb diet but found that caused other issues so not practical to carry on with. feeling like I'm at the start again with no clue what to do. any advice please.

I'm with you on the low carb diet I had issues too so I try to pick low GI carbs as a compromise might be worth considering?

 

[TrevorMorgan]

Hi
I have started going to the gym again and getting into my running again. I am eating a balance diet but not easy working nights so meals are all over the place. The issue I am finding is that my bloods are always high atm. I tried the low carb diet but found that caused other issues so not practical to carry on with. feeling like I'm at the start again with no clue what to do. any advice please.

I sympathise with you Mark as this happens to me but not drastically. It also depends on the time of day. I am on a low carb diet at around 90 to 100 gm per day. In the evening I usually eat my smallest meal of the day around 15 gm of carbohydrate. I then do a 3km walk not that fast but lots of uphill walking but I find that my BG after this is around 7.5 and sometimes it goes up further. If I did the same thing after lunch my BG would be in the mid 5s or low 6s.

Recently, I went to France with my wife and friends and ate at some odd times and my exercise routine went out of the window. I ate late every evening after 8 pm which is usually the time I start a 12 hour fast when I am at home, after finishing food at around 9 30 to 10 pm I would go for a leisurely 1.5 Km walk, and low and behold my BG was slightly lower than when I was at home. I can't really explain it, neither can my colleagues at my local diabetes group. I can only speak for myself but in my case I believe that my liver is producing extra glucose in the evenings during and after exercise, but in all cases when I wake up next day my BG is always well below 7.

This morning I did my usual exercises which used up 100 plus calories measured by my "fitbit" type device; I didn't do my usual stepping. After a 30 gm carb breakfast of porridge( before exercising) I then ate an apple before going for a 6km run. After about 2.5km of running I started to slow down but 30 seconds later I was back up to speed again. I surmised that, in my case, I had used up all the carbs I ate for breakfast and was now running on glucose produced by the liver from gluconeogenesis. i could feel this happening. I can't explain this in any other way. In the evenings I could probably lower my BG by not walking so fast and so far, but I enjoy my evening walks with my wife. I find it so difficult to balance the BG consumption versus exercise that I have given up trying. Luckily, my BG only goes to 9 on the very odd occasion when I eat something I shouldn't like chocolate or I do heavy exercise with HIIT.

I am no longer taking medication for my T2DM but when I was initially diagnosed on Humulin, I had to be very careful, the only sound advice I got from an NHS doctor was to either reduce the dose of insulin before going for a run or to eat more and to take dextrose tablets with me - in case of a hypo.. All this was a pain in the neck, I find that off the medication I can go for a run without taking dextrose with me. However, I have not attempted to do a run on an empty stomach which I could easily do before I was diagnosed with type 2 as I don't think I would have the stamina to run 10k without having a snack.
All I can suggest is keep on testing and try to find the best formula for you - diet v exercise. Everybody's body and reactions are different but sometimes our bodies play tricks on us - well mine does. However, I always listen to my body and slow down when I think I have done too much .
Post script:
I have just thought about how difficult it is to regulate my blood glucose. There are so many variables to consider. Someone on this forum said there are 42 variables. The main ones are diet, the glycaemic index of food you eat, exercise and its intensity, the insulin resistance of your organs and muscles , the performance of your liver and pancreas. There as lesser ones such as the state of hydration of your body, your stress, how much sleep you have had etc. it is therefore difficult to isolate which variable is affecting the the regulation of your blood sugar. There are also timing issues and the level of your blood before you exercise. Also your body is not a robot and it does not perform with complete predictability.

I have found that reducing my weight to around 61 to 62 kg helps my body perform better and since I have reduced my weight from around 76 kg, when I was first diagnosed, my pancreas performs better and it's started to reduce the time to get blood glucose levels down when they became higher than I like. For me weight was such an important factor.

I have found that short burst of activity such as a couple of minutes indoor walking every 30 minutes or so helps to regulate my BG. I have to trust my judgement that I am doing the right amount and quality of exercise to keep things under control. I am just hoping that I can maintain my so called" remission" for years to come, but this might be difficult owing to my age -74.I hope some of this helps and that you do not blame yourself when you think things are going wrong.