Once I daydream a couple of cure for type 1 diabetes (T1D), I dream concerning the potential of just going for a jog without much planning beyond ensuring my AirPods are fully charged. With T1D, it’s so way more complicated.

But slightly ol’ hobby of mine is making exercise with T1D simpler. The more you understand the science of exercise, the more likely you’ll actually enjoy your next workout.

Listed here are three things you have to find out about exercise with T1D. (Discover a deeper dive on the following tips — and more — in my latest book, Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes on Amazon!) 

• Learn the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise

Here’s the nutshell version: Aerobic (cardio) exercise tends to cause low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) because your body cycles oxygen to your cells where it burns glucose for fuel. The more insulin you might have lively in your system during aerobic exercise, the more likely you’ll experience hypoglycemia.

Anaerobic exercise, however, includes things like strength training, sprinting, and intense spinning intervals — and sometimes it spikes blood sugar levels. Anaerobic exercise is usually defined as short intense bursts of exercise that you may only maintain for a few minutes at most. 

Your body is working so hard that it could possibly’t actually use glucose in your cells for fuel because it could possibly’t cycle oxygen to those cells quickly enough. As an alternative, your body produces its own source glucose by converting lactic acid into glucose and releasing glucose from the glycogen stores in your muscle tissue and liver. 

2. Your basal insulin definitely needs fine-tuning

Second, it’s all about that basal insulin! If you might have an excessive amount of basal insulin in your system before, during, and after exercising, you’re very likely gonna go low. But too often, I hear from individuals who say, “Well, I reduced my basal by 25 percent about 20 minutes before exercising! I still went low during … and 12 hours later!” 

Most individuals who say they plummet during a 15-minute walk are probably taking way an excessive amount of basal insulin all day long, let alone throughout the dog walk. 

In case you use a pump: a 20-minute temp basal with only a 25 percent reduction isn’t often enough. Most individuals will likely need anywhere from 50 to 70 percent less basal insulin starting not less than one hour before they start aerobic exercise.

However the basal adjusting doesn’t stop there. In case you’re going low within the hours after exercise, this tells you something very clearly: You’re still getting an excessive amount of insulin. You may need to cut back your basal rate after exercise, too. And chances are high, your basal rates are too high across the board. 

In case you’re on multiple day by day injections (MDI): There’s an excellent probability your total long-acting insulin dose is just too darn high in case you’re going low when the one insulin lively in your bloodstream during exercise is your basal insulin. You can be taking 5, 10, or 20 percent an excessive amount of basal. 

When you make that reduction, though, it not only applies to the day you exercise but potentially the following day, too. In an excellent world, you’d make exercise a part of day by day so this latest basal dose works well for many days. The more consistent your exercise habits are, the more predictable the impact might be in your blood sugars and insulin needs!

It’s a careful balancing act — reducing your basal could mean you find yourself needing more mealtime insulin. The place to begin though is to fine-tune your basal insulin so you’ll be able to go for a walk (with none rapid-acting insulin on board) without hypoglycemia. In case you go low, you might be using an excessive amount of basal. 

3. Consider exercising before you eat

The moment you eat a meal, you’re adding several complicated variables to your blood sugar management during exercise. Variables like:

• Deciding whether to cut back meal bolus by 10, 25, 50, 75 percent
• How quickly or slowly that meal digests
• Low carb vs. high carb quantity, which impacts insulin needs
• The timing of the meal vs. once you plan to exercise — immediately after vs. one hour after eating, etc.
• The length of your workout — anything over 1 hour might require refueling with more food

“Fasted” exercise is the act of exercising before a meal. In individuals with T1D, it also implies exercising when it’s been not less than 4 hours because you took a full bolus of rapid-acting insulin for a meal or correction.

In case you plan your exercise for when you find yourself in a fasted state, you might be eliminating several huge variables that lower or raise your blood sugar during exercise. 

For instance, every morning before breakfast, I walk my dog 2.5 miles and run anywhere from 1.5 to three miles. My blood sugar doesn’t drop because I haven’t taken any rapid-acting insulin for a meal. I’m on MDI and I’ve fine-tuned my long-acting insulin dose to make sure my blood sugar doesn’t drop during exercise in a fasted state.

Look, there’s so way more to this! And I can teach it to you — but not in a single article! Find my 100-page book — Exercise with Type 1 Diabetes — on Amazon!