Working Out With Diabetes

Exercise is safe—and highly recommended—for most people with type 2 diabetes, including those with complications. Along with diet and medication, exercise will help you lower blood sugar and lose weight.

However, the prospect of diving into a workout routine may be intimidating. If you’re like many newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics, you may not have exercised in years.

If that’s the case, don’t worry: It’s fine to start slow and work up. These tips will help you ease back into exercise and find a workout plan that works for you.

Try quick workouts

As long as you’re totaling 30 minutes of exercise each day, several brief workouts are fine, says George Griffing, MD, professor of endocrinology at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“We need people with diabetes up and moving,” Dr. Griffing says. “If you can do your exercise in one 30 minute stretch, fine. But if not, break it up into increments you can manage that add up to at least 30 minutes each day.”

Focus on overall activity

Increase activity in general—such as walking or climbing stairs—rather than a particular type of exercise.

However, don’t rely on housework or other daily activity as your sole exercise. Too often, people overestimate the amount of exercise they get and underestimate the amount of calories they consume. (A step-counting pedometer can help.)

Get a pedometer

Stanford University researchers conducted a review of 26 studies looking at the use of pedometers as motivation for physical activity. Published in 2007, the review found that people who used a pedometer increased their activity by 27%.

Having a goal of 10,000 steps a day (about five miles) was important, even if the goal wasn’t reached. Pedometer users lost more weight, had a greater drop in blood pressure, and walked about 2,500 steps more per day than those who didn’t use a pedometer.

Work out with a friend

Working out with friends can be an important motivator, particularly for people over 60, according to Vicki Conn, PhD, the associate dean for research at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo., who has studied diabetes and exercise.

Having a friend call or setting up an exercise “contract” with a buddy may help. “One of the things we found with our meta-analysis is that behavioral strategies work better; that means setting up some sort of stimulus in the environment where you exercise,” says Conn.

Set specific, attainable goals

For example, you might set a goal of walking 10 minutes every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot, but…setting up very specific goals like that helps people a lot more than telling people, ‘Gee, you’ve got to exercise more,’ ” says Conn.

Write it all down

Write down your goals, be specific, and keep a record every time you do exercise, says Conn.

Record on your calendar every day whether you exercised for 10 or 15 minutes or more.

Join a class

A class is good because there is an exercise leader and someone to call for emergency help, if necessary, says Conn.

“There is a structured experience exercising and they will learn how their body will react and then they will grow more confident to go out and exercise on their own,” she says.

Don’t set goals too high

“It’s much better to set a lower goal and be successful at it,” says Conn. “That increases one’s sense of confidence. Then you can set a slightly higher goal the next time. You are much more likely to be successful if you start with small, easily attainable goals and gradually increase them.”

Look at the big picture

Working up to a moderate amount of exercise quickly isn’t that important in terms of your health.

“What really matters is next year, you are doing it all the time,” says Conn. “Getting there eventually in a way that you are able to stay with it is what is important because it is long-term behavior change that has health consequences.”

Change one behavior at a time

You’re more likely to be successful if you focus on changing one behavior at a time, rather than everything at once (like taking medication, checking your feet, switching your diet, and exercising).

“What we found—and this is across many studies with thousands of people—if the study focuses only on changing one behavior, namely exercise, they get twice as much of an improvement in their hemoglobin A1C,” says Conn.

Article courtesy of Health.com, edited for length.

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