Exercise is an important part of managing diabetes.
But people who’ve been living with diabetes long-term develop complications related to diabetes that make some activities less safe than others.
Get started the right way
Remember to talk to your doctor or an exercise expert experienced with working with people with diabetes before you start an exercise regime. Also, test your blood sugar levels before and after activity.
Here are a few exercise tips based on your diabetes diagnosis:
Proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR)
Avoid activities that require heavy lifting, harsh, high-impact activities and anything that requires you to invert the head for extended periods of time. Retinopathy occurs when the blood vessels feeding the retina in the eye are damaged by diabetes. As the disease advances to the proliferative stage, fragile new blood vessels begin to form, but strenuous activity can cause those blood vessels to burst or leak, damaging the eye and your vision further.
Diabetic peripheral neuropathy
As this disease can lead to numbness or loss of sensation in the feet, avoid repetitive, weight-bearing activities like running and other high-impact aerobic exercises. The impact on your feet could cause sores or ulcers to form, leading to infection and other complications.
Advanced kidney disease
Stick to a moderate-intensity workout, but avoid strenuous exercise. For a healthy adult, moderate exercise would mean walking at three to four miles per hour, as opposed to running a marathon or hiking a hilly trail.
What your blood sugar means
If you have Type 1 diabetes, your blood sugar is over 250 and ketones are present, or if you’re a Type 2 diabetic and your blood sugar is over 300, don’t exercise.
The problem is, when you exercise, your body produces more glucose to help fuel activity. But diabetics either don’t make the insulin needed to metabolize that glucose or can’t use the insulin they have properly, so the glucose builds up, which causes blood sugar to climb even higher. Since the cells aren’t getting the glucose they need for fuel, the body starts breaking down fat cells for fuel, which leads to the formation of ketones. Ketones can be toxic if they reach high enough levels, and in extreme cases, can lead to coma and even death.
