Active Living: The Basics of Physical Activity and Diabetes

Physical activity plays an important role in managing your diabetes. That’s because the cells in your body require more blood sugar for energy when you’re physically active than when you're at rest. By finding ways to be physically active each day, you may help:

• Improve your blood sugar

• Reduce your risk for heart disease, including high blood pressure

• Feel good about yourself

Form a Plan

Start slowly.

If you are just starting an exercise program, the simplest exercise to try is walking. It is fairly easy to walk for 20 minutes. Increase the time you exercise a little at a time.

As a next step, mix in different aerobic activities (e.g. swimming) and strength activities (e.g. torso twists) . Aerobic exercise makes your heart and bones strong, relieves stress, helps your insulin work more effectively, and improves blood circulation. Strength training helps build strong bones and muscles, and makes doing physical chores and activities easier. You can register for a customizable exercise program on this site for a wide range of interesting aerobic and strength activities organized in a weekly plan.

Exercise Level

Try to exercise so that you are breathing noticeably but you are not out of breath. You should be able to carry on a conversation while exercising.
It’s good to break a sweat. Sweating means that your body is working hard enough to stimulate the muscles and strengthen the heart and cardiovascular system.

You should be active every day. However, activity doesn’t always have to mean going to the gym. Look for ways to be active throughout your day, like climbing a couple flights of stairs or parking farther from the store on errands. A little goes a long way.

Give yourself a warm-up before exercise and a cool down at the end of exercise.

Exercise, Weight, and Diabetes Control

Your weight is much easier to control when you’re active. For a person with diabetes, the many benefits of losing weight may include:

• Improved blood sugar

• Improved use of insulin

• Reduced need for diabetes medications

• Lower blood pressure

• Reduced risk of heart disease and other long-term problems

• Improved appearance, energy level, and self-esteem

Losing weight slowly — 1/2 to 2 lbs per week — is the healthiest and best way to lose pounds and keep them off. Diabetes Control for Life offers a diabetes-specific weight loss plan which combines diet and physical activity. The Diabetes Control for Life online weight loss program is based on clinical studies of diet and exercise programs shown to lower A1C levels, reduce weight, and lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.1,2*


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