What I can say, however, is that walking after meals definitely lowered my insulin requirements. I originally had hoped to test the effects of walking after meals but found it hard to do a thoroughly scientific job of it. I found it liberating that something as simple and easy as walking could be a replacement for (or augment to) taking insulin. With a blood sugar of 170 mg/dl, I could either take two units of insulin and wait well over an hour for my blood glucose to really drop, or I could walk for a little more than 30-40 minutes. My rapid-acting insulin (Novolog) takes about 60-90 minutes to peak and three hours to completely finish working, meaning any drop in blood glucose takes a while. One unit of insulin tends to drop my blood glucose by 25 mg/dl (morning) and 35 mg/dl (afternoon and evening). Some might argue that one mg/dl per minute is not very impressive, but the key for me is reducing my insulin intake. Those interested can see the complete table of my walking endeavors at the end of this article. There were only two times where I did not see a drop in blood sugar in these instances, I suspect it was either blood glucose meter inaccuracy or a delayed blood glucose rise from meals (e.g., fiber, fat) that contributed to the increase. Walking was also surprisingly effective: my blood sugar dropped in 83% of my tests. The largest drop I saw was 46 mg/dl in 20 minutes, more than two mg/dl per minute. On average, walking dropped my blood sugar by approximately one mg/dl per minute. I timed each walk with a stopwatch, always made sure I had less than one unit of insulin-on-board, and tried to go at a normal speed. In an effort to test it objectively, I performed a dozen periods of walking, and measured my blood glucose immediately before and immediately after finishing. So when I approached the question of how much walking could really drop my blood sugars, I was skeptical. If you find this article useful, check out my upcoming book, Bright Spots & Landmines! Walking with diabetes – my own experienceĪs a fitness fiend my whole life, I tend to think of “exercise” with a very intense, all-or-nothing frame of reference: cycling, strength training, and playing basketball. What follows is my personal diabetes experience testing the blood sugar benefits of walking, a brief review of studies on diabetes and walking, and five tips to incorporate walking into your daily routine. And because the barriers to doing it are so low, it also helps address that very basic New Year’s Resolution conundrum outlined above. It can be done anywhere, does not cost anything, and requires no equipment. And it gets worse: a sizeable percentage of people (11%) in one survey actually broke their resolution one week in!Īs I pondered this depressing data, I thought about scientifically testing the simplest, most fundamental exercise possible: walking. A 15,000-person survey found that four out of five people who make New Year’s resolutions eventually break them. Unfortunately, making resolutions is easy, but sticking to them is hard. If you’re like me, you might have a health-focused New Year’s resolution posted on your wall: "lose weight," "exercise more, "be less stressed."
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