Everything we do is an experiment, EVERYTHING.
Where you are today physically and mentally is the result of all of the inputs… what you read, feel, think, eat and how you ‘play’. In other words, how you have lived up to today has produced what and who you are.
For 47 years my ‘inputs’ or how I lived ….. created an obese, chronically sick diabetic who nearly died. Since my diagnosis I have changed those ‘inputs’ to heal my mind and body. I am a work in progress and I am always looking for ways to improve …
We are all experiments! Which reminds me of this quote by Adam Savage of MythBusters.
“Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science… is writing it down.”
At least in the eyes of Adam Savage, through the years I’ve done a lot of science. I guess that makes me a … scientist … :)
Now… on to the experiment!
Preliminaries
I’ve done many experiments testing blood sugars and intense exercise, you can read the ones I tagged properly here. :)
In the past I’ve done many intense workouts … from 15 minutes to an hour plus.
Recently I began doing something a little different… I’ll explain why in a minute.
First:
I ‘reset’ my blood sugar targets in this post. “My Blood Sugar Targets and Why“.
To achieve these goals on a daily basis I may need to change what I was doing.
Sometimes when I exercise intensely my blood sugar will exceed 100 mg/dl … even 120 mg/dl and on a few occasions even 130 mg/dl. Under my new targets… I want to stay below 100 mg/dl most of the time and below 120 mg/dl all of the time.
Second:
I am a fan of intense workouts… I believe long term they are net beneficial. To continue intense workouts and to maintain my new blood sugar targets I am experimenting with …
- shorter workouts – one of the workouts I do is 100 push ups in 4 minutes or less.
- more workouts – I have also interspersed brief workout ‘sets’ throughout the day. For example, I’ll do maximum kettle bell swings to failure, numerous times during the day.
The intent is to still accrue the benefits of intense exercise, without the huge spikes of my blood sugar. (or to at least reduce the spikes)
I know…it’s brilliant… :)
Note: I will still do extended intense workouts, just not in the frequency I used to do them… 4-5 per week.
This is the first post in this series of experiments…
The Scientific Experiment
And yes I get a kick out of saying this is science. :)
I started off with reading my blood sugar, it’s the first picture top right. 83/80 mg/dl absolutely perfect.
Note: The readings were actually at 11:45 AM on 11/15/14. I was procrastinating on changing the time… this post made me do it… finally.
Next at @ 12:30 I performed 100 push ups in 4 minutes. A very intense but brief workout.
One Hour Post Exercise Reading
As you can see, the brief intense exercise bumped me 10-15 points. And at this point I was within my desired targets! Success! … so far. :)
You never really know what your blood sugar is doing unless you test almost continuously. At this point, I needed to test again at a later time to determine if my blood sugar is rising or falling. I believe it’s falling due to all the tests I’ve done. Blood sugar spikes due to exercise are typically similar to eating sugar or starch, they go up quickly and come down quickly.
Within a few minutes after testing (above) I decided to eat this meal below, it consisted of 9 eggs, a tsp of Sriracha and about a cup of dandelion greens. That is about 4 carbs from the eggs, 1 gram from the Sriracha and 5 grams from the greens for a total of 10 grams of carbs, approximately.
The next reading (below) is two hours after the workout and one hour after the meal.
I was hoping it would be lower … but then again, I am always hoping it would be lower. :)
The last reading below was 3 hours after my workout and 2 hours after the meal.
I was happy… back in TRULY normal ranges. :)
Post Summary
I am a firm believer that intense exercise is at least partly responsible for my lack of ‘dawn phenomena’ (elevated morning blood sugars). It will be interesting to see how the changes in exercise affects me physically … and mentally.
All in all I was happy with this experiment. As in all things, further testing will confirm these results.
I was happy that I apparently stayed right around the 100 mg/dl mark, which was my goal.
Diabetic or not… everything you do is an experiment.
If you are diabetic, you should know how ‘living’ affects your blood sugars including foods, exercises and activities… I do. :)
AND … if you write them down you will be performing science!!! :)
I will assume you will heed my advice … so from one scientist to another…
PEACE, LOVE AND NORMAL BLOOD SUGARS! :)
*** I am now testing with a Freedom Freestyle Lite and Accu-Chek Nano. These and the testing supplies are thanks to “TotalDiabetesSupply.com“!!
Note: Interesting how the Freedom Freestyle Lite was a few points higher on each test. And also interesting how close they were on each reading… hmmmm an interesting science experiment. :)