Exercise = Blood Sugar in Range (Most of the Time)

     For those of you who know me, you know I am a bionic woman of sorts. I am the one with my daughters at the pool in the summertime that other moms look at as they catch their children staring at the same thing they were looking at with embarrassment. No, I am not a glamour girl in my bikini or some bronzed goddess (I am very Norwegian and sport my fair skin with major sunblock :), that they are checking out. Not at all! But I do proudly wear my OmniPod insulin pump as well as my DexCom sensor, which is a continuous glucose monitoring system that monitors my blood sugar and can warn me if am going up or down too quickly as well as getting too low to prevent a major catastrophe from occurring anytime, especially on a low key, all about my girls, fun in the sun sort of day! So at the pool I am sporting both of these devices on my Norwegian white body:

     In addition to my glamorous taped medical devices, usually worn on either side of my abdomen, I carry the larger than phone PDM device that lets me check my blood sugar and controls my insulin when I eat, also known as bolus, and background insulin, also known as basal rates. So yes, moms and children look at me oddly sometimes at the pool but these babies allow me to control this disease that otherwise could take me down, literally! Some moms ask and I explain and some kids think it's cool or scary, either way. It's all good! My daughters actually thought all moms had these items attached to their bodies until they went to school and met "normal" moms. But hey, only my kids can say they have a "bionic" mom! 

     So, now that you understand the basics of my day to day devices with diabetes...onto my initial idea for a post, exercise and type 1 diabetes. Yes, all of us should be exercising at least 30 minutes a day according to the latest standards. And I do completely see the difference in my blood sugars on the days I decide to skip the gym vs make the effort and go. There are so many options for people with diabetes, type 1, and especially all of the oral medications that are more for type 2 but I honestly believe that good old exercise is one of the best options for all of us!

     Case in point, I had a rough morning yesterday with blood sugars, I woke up higher than my typical 80ish and after I ate two eggs and two cups of coffee, no carbs involved, I spiked up close to 200,  which I think had to be the caffeine, caffeine just has that effect on my blood sugar, not severe but enough to irritate me!

     So I was free over lunch and headed to my intense workout at Kosama, a full hour of aggressive cardio. And yes, in case you were wondering, my bionic devices protrude from my tummy under my otherwise sleek workout wear but my peeps at the gym know me by now so it is just the newbies that are caught staring! Ha! Anhow, look what that workout did for me!

 

 

     92 with the little arrow showing my blood sugar is stable, nice and steady! Exercise alone dropped me from 180ish to 92 and steady...find me a drug that can do that in an hour! So, lesson learned and I need to be reminded of this lovely view...this is the power of activity! Now, the "most of the time" part of my title I will need to ponder another day. What I mean about most of the time is how about when you expect numbers like mine above with exercise but you end up spiking up to 180 or higher from adrenalin? Or dropping too low because you didn't cut your basal or had a little too much insulin on board. That is a whole other blog post or many blog posts, no doubt! However, that will happen in the near future I am sure so to be continued...