Importance of Exercise for Diabetes

Having diabetes, it is vital we recognize the importance of exercise for diabetics. Daily physical activity is essential, to help manage your blood glucose levels. It will also help to burn off those extra carbs and fat in the blood, from that sneaky dessert you shouldn’t have had last night, or that extra glass of wine with dinner!

Let’s face it, being a diabetic is really tough at times, but it doesn’t have to be all bad. With regular exercise, as well as making you feel great, you’ll build muscle, and overall it will improve how your insulin performs.

 Exercise for diabetics using a pedometer.

So to get started, one of the simplist methods to monitor just how active you are in an average day, is to get yourself a step counter – known as a pedometer.type 2 diabetes physical exercise

This is just a simple little low cost device that can clip easily onto your belt, or around your waistline. It’s recommended that 10’000 steps per day is a good start. If you find this a little challenging in the beginning, just do what is manageable and increase just a little every day.

Easy ways to increase this, is to make sure you start clocking the steps right from the moment you get out of bed in the mornings, all the steps count. I find that if you’re actually wearing a pedometer, you tend to make sure you increase your activity. Try these few suggestions, I find work for me:

  • When parking at the shopping centre, don’t just park at the closest car park to the stores you wish to visit. Why not park the furthest away from the entrance door (there are normally more spaces too!)
  • When doing the school drop offs, I often park a kilometre or two away (depending on how many steps I’ve already done for that day!) It’s great exercise for the kids as well.
  • Instead of jumping into the car to run up to the corner store, put on your joggers and walk there.
  • Even small things like getting the mail from the mailbox – don’t stop when you’re driving in the drive in your car, park the car and then walk back out to the mail box. You might have a nice steep driveway like mine, which also gets the heart pumping even more!

You could check out the exercise desk bike: Great exercise while sitting!

best portable pedal exercisersDiabetes Christmas Gift baskets

Or for those of you who want a little more of a challenge, it’s really not that difficult to increase that recommended 10’000 steps, to 15’000 a day.

  • If you are someone who takes public transport to work, get off the train or bus a little early and walk the rest of the way.
  • Take the stairs in your building instead of the escalator or lift.
  • Go for a walk through the park at lunchtime instead of sitting and flicking through that magazine.  Believe me, you’ll feel better for it!

Exercise for diabetics – a few safety thoughts!

Exercise for DiabeticsYou know that feeling you get when starting out on a new fitness program, you feel alive – you’ve got a fresh injection of endorphins running through your veins! Well it’s important to make sure you don’t overdo it to start and get a thorough check up with your doctor first.

–          I repeat, don’t overdo it, start out slowly and gradually build up doing a little more every day.

  •  Make sure you wear comfortable clothing, especially correctly fitting shoes is essential.
  •  Make sure you keep well hydrated, drinking ample amounts of water
  •  Try and exercise in the cooler parts of the days, either early in the mornings or after work to prevent dehydration
  •  Make sure you check your blood glucose levels both before and after you exercise.
  •  If at any time you get short of breath or experience and chest pain or dizziness at all, make certain that you visit your doctor as soon as possible.

Exercise for diabetics is a great start, to living a better life and keeping those blood glucose levels under control.

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The Dangers of Extremely High Blood Sugar Levels

There are many dangers of having an extremely high blood sugar level. When the insulin levels are low the glucose skyrockets, which can permanently damage the body. The damage that the body can sustain includes heart damage and the increased chance of getting:

extremely high blood sugarwhich can be life threatening in the end. Extremely high blood sugar symptoms include tiredness, dehydration, a very dry mouth, vomiting and nausea, excessive urination, stomach pain and other side effects.  Hypoglycemia, or extremely low blood sugar, is also very dangerous and can lead to fainting, dizziness, confusion, hunger, feeling sweaty or clammy, increased heartbeat and other serious life threatening problems that can be dealt with by adding some simple sugar to the system.

If your blood glucose levels remain too low, or too high, for a long period of time, this can cause what is called a diabetic coma.

So what happens when a person goes into a Diabetic Coma?

It is a life-threatening complication of diabetes that causes unconsciousness – if you don’t seek medical help immediately, this can be fatal. All people with diabetes are at risk of diabetic coma. The very first this you would do if faced with this situation is to call 911. This is an emergency situation.

Treatment for a diabetic coma

Hyperglycemic diabetic coma:  Which is if you have extremely high blood sugar levels, the medical professional will administer insulin and rehydrate the patient.

Hypoglycemic diabetic coma:  The patient would be injected with glucagon and give glucose.

How to Care for Extremely High Blood Sugar.

extremely high blood sugar

Monitoring your blood glucose levels constantly: helps diabetics to avoid the complications that can arise. This is done with a blood glucose meter. There are many different kinds of meters to choose from. Many of the meters available today are quite small and easy to use.

Most of the meters available have fast test times, only really require a tiny blood sample and you are able to download the results to keep good records of your levels.

Here’s some of the popular, portable and preferred pocket-sized meters you may want to look into:

  • Lifescan One Touch Ultraeasy
  • Abbott Diabetes Care Freestyle
  • Accu-Chek Mobile
  • Accu-Chek Aviva Nano
  • Truone by Home Diagnostics
  • Bayer’s contour Next USB

 Diets can easily help with your extremely high blood sugar.

The correct diet for diabetes, will certainly help to lower your high blood glucose levels and maintain them. The foods you choose to eat can be so important to your overall health and wellbeing. What you eat can make an enormous difference to your blood sugar levels,  to your cholesterol and also your blood pressure levels.

These days we are advised by our diabetes health care professionals to focus more on creating healthy eating patterns, lower in saturated fats and higher in fiber, and our overall weight control.

extremely high blood sugarHigh Fiber Foods:

High fiber foods are beneficial as they have a low glycemic index. They regulate blood sugar metabolism and improve the health of the digestive system. A fiber-rich diet is generally lower in fat and sugar and makes you feel “fuller” for longer! You can find soluble fibers in oat bran, barley, fruits, vegetables, legumes, seed husks and flaxseed.

diabetic comaPlant Foods:

All fresh, whole, unprocessed plant foods are beneficial. Below are a few of these listed, that have been shown to improve blood sugar management.

  • Green tea
  • coffee
  • cocoa
  • black rice
  • Pumpkin, beans, eggplant
  • Blueberries, black currants, raspberries and strawberries

hyperglycemia treatmentProtein Foods:

Animal proteins that contain very little carbohydrates will reduce the glycemic index of foods they are eaten with and help to stabilize your blood sugar levels. Lamb is a great option. Free range preferably organic chicken is a good source of protein – but the best you could  probably get would be fish! Make sure it’s wild fish though, as fish farming is becoming an increasing problem with all the chemicals and the antibiotics used in the farming processes.

Exercise is Vital for Extremely High Blood sugar

I’m sure we could probably all gain from a few lifestyle changes – one of the main one being exercise! Some of these changes can certainly be challenging, but if you have diabetes, you really do need to make them a priority in your life. It’s no secret that losing those extra kilos and keeping them off, will definitely help to control your blood sugar levels. Apart form losing  weight, regular exercise also increases insulin  sensitivity. It’s recommended that a diabetic perform at least two and a half hours of medium to vigorous intensity exercise in a week. some examples would be fast walking, swimming, jogging, water aerobics.

 So talk to your doctor about lowering your dangerously high blood sugar levels!.

what to do when blood sugar is high

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One Touch Blood Sugar

One Touch Blood SugarMy grandmother is a diabetic and she has been on insulin for over 16 years now. Over the years I have seen her try many different meters and always had the same looks and same experience with each one.

The idea of pain and agony and not wanting to take her blood. Around three months ago, she started using the one touch blood sugar meter or the one touch ultra mini.

This came in a large box and had the Mini Meter, a lancing device, test strips, lancets, a bottle of control solution, an owner’s manual, logbook, a quick start guide, and One Touch Management Software. She really likes the True Track system, and as she gets the test strips for free, she wanted to continue using it.

The meter is silver gray with a large display screen in the middle. To the right it has the up and down buttons. To the left is the test port, where the test strips are inserted. The meter measures four inches in length and only one inch in width. The 54 page owner’s manual explains how to set the date, time, etc., and also to ensure you have the correct code to match with the test strips. It guides you through these steps.

I love going to her house and reading the instruction manual even though I am not a diabetic myself but it allows me to gain more knowledge just about the one touch blood sugar meter but also allows me to gain more knowledge about diabetes itself so that when I am asked a question or need to help someone out then I can. Why not try the one touch blood sugar meter, one that will work for you and help you?

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Fasting blood sugar level

fasting blood sugar level
fasting blood sugar level

What are fasting blood glucose levels? For a common diabetic, fasting blood glucose levels are a very important thing to know as it affects your entire life. For those who are caretakers of common diabetics this is also very important so that they can properly care for the diabetic. Diabetes is a condition that is becoming more and more common in today’s sugar filled meals and snacks. Diabetes is also known as hyperglycemia, which stands for high blood glucose levels. When your diabetic body has diabetes the pancreas produces too little of the chemical known as Insulin, this chemical is used by the body to convert the blood sugar in the blood into energy that the body’s cells can use. When this chemical is too low the amount of sugar in the blood rises to dangerously high levels. This can cause serious damage to the diabetic body over time such as heart disease, eye failure, nerve damage, and kidney failure. But all of this can be avoided if you keep your blood sugar levels at a healthy level.

In order to keep a fasting blood glucose levels you should buy a small unit called a blood glucose meter this small unit is used to measure the amount of glucose (sugar) in your blood. The small units are small enough to be held in your hand and easy to read. The glucose units use small plastic strips with special chemicals inside them to help measure the blood sugar. First a small amount of blood is inserted to a small opening in the plastic strip. (The blood is drawn using a special needle known as a lancet) The plastic strip is inserted into the meter and the meter measures it and displays the results on a small screen on the side. These small units are very cheap and can even be gotten for free if need be. The fasting blood glucose levels amount are 64.8 mg/dl to 120 mg/dl. A person with diabetes will have their blood sugar way higher that so they must keep it in check. Also talk to your doctor about keeping fasting blood glucose levels.

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What are Diabetic Insulin Pumps?

Diabetic Insulin Pumps

What are diabetic insulin pumps? Type 1 diabetics need insulin. Insulin is a chemical used by the body that the diabetic is not creating enough of on his own. Diabetes is a very serious non-commendable condition and serious disease. This serious condition affects over 28 million people in the United States alone. The rest of our world is just as tortured with the condition.

This serious disease is very permanent and can be very life threatening to the diabetics body. The serious Diabetes condition is where the person’s body is producing small or none of vital chemical called insulin. The pancreas organ is responsible for the construction of this vital chemical. The insulin hormone is used by the diabetic’s body as a sugar bonding enzyme.

The serious chemical must bind with the body’s blood sugar before the body’s cells are able to use the fuel. Without it the blood sugar levels begin to rise and begin to damage the body’s organ systems. Type ii diabetes is where the diabetic person has had a high blood sugar level for such a longtime that their body has suffered serious damage and is no longer creating enough of this vital chemical. However with this type of serious diabetes the body is still producing enough that the diabetic body does not need insulin injections.

The serious damage with the diabetes disease is damage to major body cells. The person’s cells are most commonly seriously damaged by the diabetes are the main heart cells, the kidney cells, the eye cells, and the nerve cells. All of these serious diabetic damages are very permanent and will not be notice by the diabetic till years later in their lives.

What are Diabetic Insulin Pumps?

Diabetic insulin pumps are pumps that allow the insulin to be removed. They can then inject the insulin so that their body may use it.

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