Despite the recent relaxing of lockdown rules, staying active remains tougher than ever, with gyms and swimming pools still closed.
However, if you have diabetes type 2 or prediabetes, regular exercise is crucial to improve your blood sugar control.
Getting fit will also reduce your risk of suffering from further complications such as heart disease and stroke.
But you don’t have to become a marathon runner overnight – or indeed start any form of extreme workout. Instead, just increasing your activity levels by a moderate amount can make a huge difference.
Always consult your doctor before starting any new exercise plan, especially if you have diabetes or any other underlying conditions.
How does exercise help with diabetes?
When you move about more, your muscles work harder, which means they use up more of their favourite fuel – glucose (also known as blood sugar). Because exercising requires your muscles to burn off excess glucose for energy, it lowers your all-important blood sugar levels.
Dr Sarah Brewer says: “Exercise is incredibly important for diabetic patients. It lowers blood sugar and stress levels, which make it helpful in both preventing the disease and controlling it.”
How much is enough?
People with diabetes type 2 or prediabetes should get the same recommended 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week as the rest of us – but should take care not to miss more than two days of exercise in a row to maintain a healthy weight and steady blood sugar. In other words, about 30 minutes of exercise, five days a week.
Aerobic activity at moderate intensity basically means exercising at a level that raises your heart rate and gets you a little bit out of breath. This can include outdoor pursuits such as brisk walking, gentle jogging, bike riding, tennis and golf – all of which are now allowed.
Break it up
To make the 150-minute weekly target even more achievable, your daily exercise quota can be broken up into 10-minute chunks throughout the day, so it’s easier to fit in. With a bit of imagination, most days in lockdown are full of opportunities to get your body moving. Pick and mix from the following activities to help make up your 30 minutes of exercise, five days a week target.
Move to the beat
Play your favourite music loud and get moving at home. Dancing is one of the best forms of exercise and is great for losing weight, improving posture, boosting mood and beating stress. Just 30 minutes of jiving can burn nearly 200 calories. And the more energetic your moves are the better.
A good clean win
Spending so much time at home can mean we have to clean the house more than ever, so why not put in a bit of added elbow grease and make it count as exercise? For example, mopping the floor for 30 minutes burns 120 calories, while vigorous vacuuming can burn 240 calories an hour. The bonus is you’ll be left with a gleaming house!
Get the garden sorted
Gardening is great exercise that you don’t even realise you’re doing on a nice day outside.
Researchers at Kansas State University found it could help strengthen your limbs, boost your heart health and encourage flexibility. And just half an hour of proper digging will burn up to 250 calories! So get weeding, pruning and mow that early summer lawn. You could even boost your diet and save cash by growing your own veg. Spending time in the garden also has the added bonus of boosting your levels of Vitamin D – the immune-boosting nutrient made by sunlight on skin - which can become deficient if we spend long periods indoors.
Workout in your home office
It’s amazing how many calories you can burn while sat down – just by moving your limbs a bit more. If you’re at a home desk, try marching your feet up and down on the spot for a few minutes – this will work the large muscles in your legs.
For easy calf exercises, simply raise your feet up on the toes and lower them. And to tone your tummy, sit up straight and pull your stomach muscles in towards your spine. Keep breathing normally and hold this position for 30 seconds.
Count your steps
Hit the well-known 10,000 steps a day target for a full week and you will have done roughly the same level of activity as the recommended 150 weekly minutes of exercise.
However, even with the more relaxed lockdown, we’re all typically walking less at the moment.
So if you have a pedometer, a fitness tracker or even an iPhone, which all have built-in activity monitors, carry it at all times to check you’re achieving the target number of steps each day.
A few steps short today? Use the extra daylight to head outside for a brisk evening walk.
Lift some beans
You can exercise without any equipment at all – saving the cost of buying expensive gym kit.
For example, why not use a couple of cans of baked beans to strengthen your arms? Simply hold your “weights” down by your sides with your palms facing forwards. Then, without moving the upper part of your arms, slowly bend your arm at the elbow, bringing the cans up to your shoulders. Return to the starting position, keeping each movement slow. Repeat 10-15 times per arm.
Stand more, sit less
Standing often is more important now than ever with our daily life more restricted and centred indoors. A simple truth is the less time you spend sitting down each day, the better it will be for your overall health and diabetes risk.
Research has found that sitting or lying down for long periods increases your risk of weight gain and obesity, and ultimately diabetes. If you already have diabetes, sitting for long periods can worsen blood sugar control and mean a greater chance of serious complications such as heart disease.
If you’re working from home now, take breaks every hour to get up, move around and perform some gentle stretches – such as lifting your arms as if you’re trying to touch the ceiling, and folding forward to touch your toes, keeping your knees slightly bent to protect your spine.
