Diabetes and Weight Loss!
By Chris Walker Fitness Professional
100% Hardcore Truth
If you’ve been recently diagnosed with diabetes, don’t worry your life is not over. Diabetes affects over 1 million North Americans, unfortunately there’s no cure but we know diet and exercise play a significant role in controlling this disease. Ok, so you’ve seen your doctor, dietician and a team of diabetic counselors. At this point you’ve probably learned to check your blood sugar and understand the basics of this disease. Before we address fitness we have to address your diet because diabetes affects your blood sugar levels and blood sugar levels affect your energy. So lets take a look a the basics of this disease.
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is diagnosed when you’re pancreas no longer has the ability to produce insulin. Also known as insulin dependant diabetes. In this condition one has to take insulin in the form of injections to replace insulin deficiencies. Type 1 is not as common as Type 2. I’ll explain more below about insulin and cells, read on.
Type 2
Type 2 diabetes is a little more common and is diagnosed when the cells are lacking receptors which are needed for the up-take of insulin. We need energy for are bodies to function. Energy comes from the food we ingest; the food we ingest is then turned into blood sugar or glucose. Blood sugar or glucose then enters the cells and is used to make energy. Our body is made up of millions of cells, for example, we have fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells. The cells have little receptors we could call doors. To unlock these doors we need a key and that key is insulin. In type 2 diabetes the receptors or doors are broken or missing. Insulin cannot unlock the doors, as a result your body is unable to transport glucose into cells needed for energy. Without energy cells die. You know have what is known as high blood sugar because cells could not uptake glucose. In response your body will crank out more insulin to encourage cell uptake. This puts additional stress on your pancreas. Type 2 diabetes is also known as Insulin resistant diabetes.
Insulin and Glucagon
If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes your probably very familiar with Insulin but you rarely hear about glucagon. Ok, lets define some things, lets start with your pancreas. Your pancreas is an organ that secretes digestive enzymes, bicarbonate ions and the hormones insulin and glucagon. For our purposes we’re going to look at glucagon and insulin. Insulin can be considered your storage hormone and glucagon can be considered your release hormone. High insulin production traps fat, such as when you have high blood sugar. The pancreas produces two hormones glucagon (release) and insulin (storage). The pancreas produces insulin in order to store glucose into cells. The pancreas produces glucagon in order to release glycogen and or fat into the blood stream. The pancreas cannot produce insulin and glucagon at the same time. It is important that we keep a balance between the two hormones. It is also important to consume a diet that will not allow frequent blood sugar spikes. Frequent blood sugar spikes will cause excess insulin production. Excess insulin production means fat is trapped. Something we don’t want to do when we’re exercising to maintain an ideal body weight. I’ll talk more about that later. The main goal when managing diabetes is to avoid hyperglycemia and/or hypoglycemia. In other words normal blood sugar. Long periods in either state is damaging to the body.
Diet and Exercise
Now that I’ve layed some foundation I’m liberated to discuss diet and exercise. I’m going to say something that perhaps is contrary from what you made have heard from your diabetic team. “The soup effect”. When it comes to eating I find too many diabetics hostage to the glycemic index, a number system assigned to single foods in relation to the effect it has on blood sugar. The soup effect is a phrase I’ve coined when referring to a complete meal ingested every 3-31/2 hrs. When you ingest a protein a starchy carbohydrate and a fibrous carbohydrate at every meal. The glycemic index ratings become of none effect. For example, when you have a chicken breast, a potato and some broccoli, although the potato is high on the glycemic index and most diabetics cringe at the mention; the protein in the chicken breast and the fiber in the broccoli will slow the glycemic response of the potato. The soup effect simply means when you have complete meals a single nutrient is of no effect. That being said, I do not wish to contradict your doctor or diabetic care team, simply run this information by them before making any changes in your diet. From experience, eating in such manner will stabilize blood sugar. Now let’s move on to exercise.
Exercise
Since everybody has different needs this is going to be generic. One of the key components to managing diabetes is exercise. In controlling diabetes as with any other fitness or health result. The key is what I call the dynamic 3 or synergy. Eating right (soup effect), a concern for muscle and moderate aerobics is the key to obtaining a fitness result. Are body is a group of systems that work together as a unit. When resistance training
work your body as an entire unit, we want to develop as much muscle sites as possible so we have multiple places to consume fat. This should be done minimum three times a week. We also want to strengthen our cardiovascular and respiratory system. This will make our bodies more efficient at transporting oxygen, nutrients, waste...etc. We can start with any aerobic activity for 10 min, three to five times a week; depending on our cardiovascular fitness we can increase the duration to 15 min and beyond. Many people live with diabetes with almost no symptoms at all, it’s like they don’t even have it. I want you to be one of those people, take control of your life and stay fit.
Chris Walker is the founder of fitnesstrainingformenandwomen.com located in Kitchener, Ontario. Chris is a certified fitness trainer, (CFT) and actively works with medical doctors and health care professionals in helping their patients to reduce bodyfat restore musculoskeletal strength and gain control over their blood sugar readings, good and bad blood fats and blood pressure readings, among other critical fitness issues. Chris is a member of International Sports Sciences Association, (ISSA) and Canfitpro Organization. Chris has made TV appearances on Global Television and is a published author. Chris produces a book that he gives to all readers titled, "New Body", everything you need to transform your body.
Thanks for reading.
Diabetes & Weight Loss!
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