actually, I exercise 10x harder now than I ever did! Daily cycle commute to work and 4xPT sessions a week have converted me for a slacker to a much better person!

I have always followed the gospel according to diabetes of diet, medication and exercise and I think excluding any of these is detrimental to good control and my heart goes out to those who are not able to include this portion in their programme.

Unlike Chris, I exercise 10x less than I ever have, but slot in a walk each day and as my zone of Dunedin is hilly, once warmed up, thirty-minutes is enough to lower the BGs a few points up and down some of these. Actually, if I put the thirty-minutes into a tad of housework the BGs would still drop and the bonus would be a tidy dwelling.

I play a lot of sport – but find that my natural adrenalin pushes up my sugars during a game so it’s a bit of a juggling match between highs and hypos. But it’s worth the effort as I feel so much better after a game and I can’t motivate myself to do individual exercise.

From my observations as the wife of a T1 (and now a PT myself) there’s not a lot of resources out there for T1s who want to exercise beyond going for the odd flat walk around the block. And most of what’s out there seems to be personal accounts – “I do this and it works for me” rather than a ‘if you want to exercise here’s how to adjust’ guide. Exercise must make it so much harder to juggle the insulin/food equation and I tip my hat to those of you who persevere. I know from a biological pov it is worth doing, but I can certainly appreciate why it gets put in the too hard basket for many T1s.

I don’t remember doing sport without diabetes. I can see why people don’t . I will often go hypo particularly when running. I have found that for longer runs now if I put some sport hydration fluid in a camelbak at reduced strength and sip at it throughout that helps. However it is not uncommon for me to go hypo. (I often carry my tester with me to check as I don’t feel hypos and have returned on occasion in the 1’s and felt tired from running but otherwise fine). It is so different for everyone though. I find it different as well from month to month. After runs I often need to bolus insulin to stop myself going high.
However I strongly believe that with a bit of work it is possible to do anything sporting wise. I did the 100km Oxfam walk this year and ran (well a very slow run/walk) the Goat at the end of last year. I think it is important for us to show people how much effort we have to put into managing our condition but at the same time that we are able to do pretty much anything.

I do quite a bit of running and I never ever worry about the highs related to exercise when they occur (if ever). They are only due to adrenaline and your muscles process glucose a lot quicker post-exercise. I find that taking more insulin to counteract these highs will only end up in a hypo later. The more I exercise (as in, the more regularly I exercise) the less I have these (temporary) highs after finishing exercising.

Having said all that, I would never start a run with BGs less than 8-ish, even up to 13-ish if it’s going to be a long run. On runs of more than an hour, I take mini bottles of Powerade and sip them from about the 50 minute mark onwards. Touch wood, it all seems to work so far!