Exercise can improve your health and your outlook on life. Because you have diabetes, however, it pays to be doubly careful not to injure yourself or upset your diabetes control. Follow the safe exercise basic guidelines that everyone who exercises needs to know. And you'll want to add some extra safety steps that take your diabetes into account. These 20 steps to safe exercise will help you deal with both of these needs.
1. Get a thorough medical exam before you start. Your doctor should check your:
- blood pressure
- blood fat levels
- A-1-C levels
- Health of heart and circulatory and nervous systems
- Kidney function
- Eyes
- Feet
2. Choose exercises that fit your health. Talk to your health care team about what types of exercise are best for you. Diabetes can cause health problems, such as eye or nerve disease, that make certain types of exercise poor choices. For example, if you have lost feeling in your feet, swimming may be better than walking. If you have trouble seeing, exercise indoors. If you have frequent low blood glucose reactions, you may need to check your blood glucose more often. Your health care team can help you choose fitness goals tailored to your health.
3. Take it easy. Slow and steady wins the race. Trying to do too much too soon can leave you discouraged or even injured.
One way to pace yourself is to count your heart rate and make sure it stays below a certain level. Another is to rate how difficult exercise feels and avoid too much huffing and puffing. Your health care team can teach you how to avoid pushing yourself too hard.
Step up your workout as you become more fit. Gradually increase how long and how hard you exercise. For instance, you may start out walking for just 5 or 10 minutes. Over many weeks, you may build up to 25 or 30 minutes. Work your health care team to adjust your exercise, meals, and medicines as you get in shape.
4. Warm up and stretch when you start exercising. Warm up with a low-impact exercise like walking. This gets your heart and muscles prepared to work. After you are warmed up, you may want to stretch gently. Stretching helps keep muscles and joints flexible. Tight muscles and joints are more prone to injury.
