Physical activity refers to any movement that burns calories such as pushing a broom or vacuum cleaner, washing the car or working in the garden. Exercise involves a series of repeated movements aimed to strengthen your body. Both are needed for optimal health. Diabetics can make physical activity a part of their day by using the stairs instead of the elevator, throwing away the remote control and getting up to change the TV station, parking and walking as opposed to using the drive through and doing their own housework and gardening.
Regular exercise has many benefits for all of us. It improves our fitness level, making everyday activities easier to perform. Exercise also improves muscle tone, flexibility, and concentration.
For people with diabetes, exercise has more benefits. When muscles are contracting and relaxing as they do during exercise, they are using sugar for energy. This helps lower your glucose levels. Exercise also increases your sensitivity to insulin, which means that your body uses less insulin to direct sugar into the cells. In addition, exercise can lower your need for diabetes medication. Some diabetics can manage their glucose levels just through diet and exercise alone.
Exercise is beneficial to your cardiovascular systems. It improves blood flow and increases your heart’s pumping power. Exercise also helps lower blood pressure. Heart problems are common complications of diabetes so it is important to reduce the risk factors for heart disease.
Exercise is important not only in losing weight but also in maintaining healthy weight levels. It increases your metabolism and burns calories.
Both stretching exercises and aerobic exercises are beneficial to diabetics and everyone else. Aerobic exercises develop your heart, lungs and muscles. Most aerobic activities are also fun activities. Some examples are: walking, jogging, bicycling, dancing, hiking, skating, cross country skiing, tennis and swimming. Golfing can be an aerobic activity if you forego the cart.
In performing aerobic activities speed is not important but length of time is. You should concentrate on doing them longer not faster.
The easiest and least expensive aerobic activity is walking. It requires no special equipment. It is safe. Everyone knows how so lessons aren’t required. You can walk indoors or outdoors, alone or with a partner.
According to the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, going for a forty minute walk four times a week will lower insulin resistance and improve blood sugar control.
And researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health reported that walking briskly one hour per day lowers women’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 50 .
However, stretching exercises are also important as they help to prevent joint pain and injury. It is recommended that you perform stretching exercises just prior to and following any aerobic activity.
Stretching exercises can be done in short time spurts throughout the day. However, an aerobic activity needs to be performed for at least thirty minutes in order to accrue any benefits from it.
Diabetics also need to involve their health care providers in planning an exercise program. Some exercises may not be wise choices. For instance, diabetics with foot problems might be advised against jogging.
Age or obesity should not deter one from exercising. Research has shown that people of all ages can benefit from exercise and increased physical activity.
The extremely overweight may find exercise difficult at first and will probably need to start slowly. However, the more they do the more they will improve.
Finally, as people will learn once they start, the benefits of increased physical activity and exercise are well worth the time and effort.
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