With the new job I am finding that I stay busy all day and am just not hungry during the day. Just a small lunch is enough to keep my mind off of eating in between meals. The problem is that at dinner time I am hungry. Eating just a little bit more at the dinner table at night is enough to push my blood sugar up overnight leaving me with high numbers in the morning when I test. I am going to have to remember to eat a protein bar around 3:00 in the afternoon each day to try to balance this. I should also make sure that I am eating more in the morning.
The big difference is that if my blood sugar goes up early in the day I am still active and working to bring it back down. Eating large late at night means that I will soon be going to sleep and will be basically still while the sugar is moving around my blood stream for 8 hours before I wake up and start moving again.
I have been thinking a great deal about the development of my new workout routine next week and whether or not I should even keep the bowflex in the garage. I was thinking that If I got rid of it all together I would be less inspired to use it. Basically I have two choices, use the bowflex with low weights or go to a complete calisthenic workout. I believe that I can manage to workout on the bowflex with limited routines while also working with the treadmill each day.
Just 15 minutes on the treadmill each day combined with maybe just two workout plans, say arms and chest each day. Of course I will just be conducting 1 set of each exercise and will be working with enough weight to create a challenge, but not something that will bring me into a “Beast Mode” arena. I know this will be hard for me but the benefits of working with the bowflex over calisthenics is based on safety. The bowflex was designed and built with body form in mind and it is certainly more adaptive to certain exercises.
Keeping the Beast under control is just about as hard as not working out at all and I have to learn to always think about that word “balance”. A balanced approach to working out is the only way I will find success while trying to keep my blood sugars at a healthy range. It is no different than the marathon runner believing that running long distances will make the body healthier. Most people now understand that elevating your pulse for times greater than 30 minute intervals is both dangerous and damaging to the body. I too have to take the same approach with weight lifting. The beast should still be able to come out of his cage each day but he must be tamed.
Blood Sugar- 131, Weight- 184.4
I believe that your new approach will be good for you, your weight, and your blood sugar. Hope it works.
Thank You. I am sure it will. It is the ego I have to keep in check. If some is good then more must be better does not work in all cases.
My husband has that very issue. He does not eat very much during the day while at work but when he comes home he eats like a horse. He went the Dr the other day though and found out his bp is up along with his weight. He’s going to try portioning out his dinner before sitting down and eating. He loves to eat…lol
As far as your beast, you just have to keep it in control. There’s nothing wrong with exercise just don’t push yourself to the point you’re hurting yourself. Good luck!
Thanks. I have to learn moderation. It just seems so natural to take exercise to the max.
It’s so easy to…especially when you feel good as you’re doing it.
You might want to do some research on the question whether elevating the heart rate for more than 30 minutes is really bad for you. Yes, there were a couple of studies that suggested that intense or long-duration running could be harmful to the heart — but these studies have been discredited (even ridiculed) for poor sample design and lack of statistical significance, and I don’t believe they were ever published, although the media made a big deal about them at the time. When my folks read the headlines, they insisted I visit a cardiologist, who not only gave me a clean bill of health, but suggested the studies may have been funded by manufacturers of cardiac MRI machines who would like to frighten aging baby boomers into getting expensive tests. When I looked around on the web, I found studies that indicated that increased duration and intensity of exercise led to reduced mortality, albeit with diminishing marginal returns. One study pointed out that Olympic athletes live longer than the average population because of better cardiac health. As for myself, I’m roughly your age, routinely train intensely with heart rate above age-predicted max, and two weeks ago ran my 67th marathon, beating a lot of young people. Doesn’t mean this path is right for you, but to the extent you want to explore more cardio, I would not want to see you diverted from your goals by misinformation.
Like I said, it’s all a matter of balance. What works for some doesn’t work for all. 67 marathons? Wow! I know many folks who had to reduce their cardio by age 40. Keep on trucking.
I know people who are older than you and I and have run 200 or 700 races and still moving strong. Why would someone reduce their cardio by age 40? As you get older, you should do more.
A bad heart
too bad for them. if your heart’s good, you can run in the heat, in the cold, through the woods and desert and up into mountains as fast and far as your legs will take you, and they’ll take you farther than you think, a lot farther
OK
Love reading about your journey with experimentation. You have a higher than average interest in what works for you. Kudos!!!
I have honestly never heard that about elevated heart rate and was very surprised by your comment: “Most people now understand that elevating your pulse for times greater than 30 minute intervals is both dangerous and damaging to the body”. I’m a runner and am constantly reading about running too. I consider 30 min to be a “short” run. A marathon would take a person 3-6 hours to complete, and training for one would be countless runs over the 30 min mark. Yet there are millions of healthy marathoners. But like you said, we’re all different and you have to control your blood sugar in a way that works for you. I’m just saying that I have never heard that it’s damaging to raise your heart rate for longer than 30 min.
Yes I am speaking about those with T2D
It is doable for sure Bill. It takes a little self restraint but increasing the reps and lowering the weight works for definite!