Alter your paradigm -The type 2 diabetic and EXERCISE

by Arshaad Hoosen

It is 2012; the year has already ticked over, again and by now you have probably had another encounter with the legendary New-Year’s Resolution. If you that is a distant memory like the holidays then perhaps this article is for you, read on. Keep reading. Excellent. In my experience, the word exercise has the connotation that is surrounded by the dramatic shock of the nemesis of most people. People see exercise as a means of torture where; people wear barley enough clothes and they head off for miles as if the devil himself were cracking the whip.

You probably have seen some man or woman with red agony etched all over their faces with perspiration profusely pouring down their faces. The alternative to the runner is the gym gorillas who grunts and growls as he lifts what looks like enough weight to shift the earth of its axis, while we’re at it let us not forget the gym bunny, you know the one who no matter what weird exercises was being done always seemed to have the perfect make up that did not run or smudge. Well if you have been thinking something similar, yes, read on.

Copernicus said that the world was round and not flat and we locked him up in a tower. Why? Was it because we cannot have ranting lunatics destroying all sense of decorum? Whatever the case is, the norms were being challenged. So it must be raving lunacy to believe that exercise somehow must help. That is where my madness ends, sadly. Exercise is not, running after grandkids, or walking up lots of stairs everyday in your double storey, or walking to the office from the car park with brief case in hand. Grandchildren can be tiring, stairs challenging and even lugging that heavy brief case a burden, bear with me that is NOT exercise.

Exercise is something that is performed on a regular basis with the aim to improve aspects of one’s health. This does not confine exercise to fitness clubs (Gyms) or subjecting your body to gruelling hours of grinding out miles on the road. These are just some avenues that are available to us.

Let us examine the various types of fitness which can be positively influenced by exercise for the Type2 diabetic;

·         Aerobic fitness (walking/jogging/swimming/cycling),

·         Muscular strength (lifting or pushing against resistance eg. Body weight or metal weights),

·         Muscular endurance (the number of times a movement can be repeated till fatigue),

·         Flexibility (the amount of movement about a joint)

·         Body composition (amount of; muscle, fat, bone, connective tissue in the body)

All of this is fantastic but what does this mean to you? Why am I diabetic and what can I do? The why I am diabetic, the actual answer is debated by scientists but the general trends appears to be a relationship between adiposity around the stomach area and various mechanisms that lead to insulin resistance (the inability of your body to recognise the signal of insulin which indicates an increase blood sugar levels) and eventually diabetes.

So what ways can I reduce my adiposity? Where does the adiposity come from? Many individuals claim “it runs in the family”. This may be true, but what we look like can be altered by how we behave, for example; fair skinned people, go to the beach, use the appropriate clothing and body creams, and depending on the frequency and duration of their visit(s) develop a fabulous tan or burn. So where does my adiposity come from? Well more often than no t, It is how you behave in terms of frequency and duration of eating and exercise. The more frequent and longer one spends eating and the less frequent one engages in exercise the better developed one’s adiposity. Take home message: Improve how you eat, Improve how much you exercise, results in lowering adiposity and improving ones blood sugar control.

A word to the wise: Exercising intensely does not justify you eating cake afterward. By “misbehaving” and incorrectly eating you “undo” all your hard work!

What exercises can I do?

Back to the types of fitness one needs to address all the elements mentioned before, aerobic fitness, muscle strength, muscle endurance and flexibility in combination with a good eating plan can help to promote improved body composition. Aerobic fitness helps to keep your lungs, heart and blood vessels in good shape, and activities that have continuous prolonged rhythmical movements which involve the entire body moving are ideal. If running the rubber off a pair of shoes is not your cup of tea, then perhaps dancing for an hour maybe your kettle of fish, and if you are challenged to dance, walk around the garden for 30minutes at a brisk pace.

Muscle endurance and muscle strength are closely related. Muscle strength has got to do with the maximum resistance that one can move, however what we must consider is that as we get older, strength decreases, and the ability for one to perform repeated resisted movements also decreases with the decline in strength, therefore some form of resistance training is important to maintain strength. Again if you prefer not go to a gym, then in the comfort of your own home one can perform body weight exercises like push-ups, wall slides, crunches and squats.

Of course after exercise, stretching is vital not only to keep you supple but also to wring the excess fluids out of the muscle and speed up recovery post exercise.

How often do I exercise?

The minimum goal is for exercise is 150min a week, which roughly equates to 30minutes of exercise 5 days a week. 30minutes sounds like a lot of time but if you remember that there are 1440minutes in a day and 30minutes only accounts for 2% of your day and 1.49% in a week! 1.49%, if that was an interest rate banks were lending money at, you would be interested, so why not take interest in your body and do the right thing for your body and invest in exercise. After all what do you have to lose?

If you haven’t figured out what you are going to lose (hint: excess pounds)

Challenge your thoughts, Challenge your mind, Challenge your body!