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What specific regimen changes do you need to make when you want to be physically active and have diabetes?  It varies by the exercise type, your normal diet, and the medications that you use.
 

In general, people who require insulin will have to be more vigilant about managing their food intake and insulin doses to exercise to avoid ending up with blood glucose levels that too low (hypoglycemia) or too high (hyperglycemia), which means using a blood glucose monitor or continuous glucose monitor to keep on top of blood glucose changes.  

 

Some other web sites have attempted to create exercise "calculators" to estimate how many carbs you'll need or how to adjust your insulin, but in our experience, they don't give accurate recommendations, given all of the factors that can impact your blood glucose when you're active--and sometimes getting a bad recommendation is worse than having no guidance at all!

 

Check out how much most people's blood glucose changes during exercise in the chart on the "What's Normal with Motion?" page and also the chart on the "What Affects Glucose?"page to see the many factors that can impact how your blood glucose responds to exercise, especially if you use insulin or other medications that increase your body's natural release of insulin.

 

Here are some other specific topics that will help you anticipate the blood glucose effects of your diabetes motion:

 

What's a normal blood glucose response?

What affects glucose?

Adjusting food intake

Adjusting insulin doses

Dealing with hypos

Trial-and-error tips and troubleshooting 

Exercising with diabetes complications

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