How often have you heard things about physical activity that sounded right, but that you didn’t know whether to believe or not? If you go hang out at a gym, you’ll hear about everything, including contradictory statements about what will give you the best results. Should you work out in …

  By Sheri Colberg, PhD   In updating a chapter on exercise and diabetes for the American College of Sports Medicine, I came across a recently published article about the benefits of lifestyle modification for diabetes prevention. In this study by Djoussé and colleagues at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital …

By Sheri Colberg, PhD   Before the advent of blood glucose meters, discovering how much of an effect female hormones have on insulin action was impossible. If you’re female, past puberty, and still young enough to be menstruating, then you’ll want to find out more about factoring your time of …

By Sheri Colberg, PhD   People with diabetes are constantly being inundated with news about new supplements that supposedly they should be taking to improve blood sugar control and prevent complications, including chromium, vitamin D, alpha-lipoic acid, vinegar, cinnamon, and more….

  By Sheri Colberg, PhD   Most of the focus of diabetes management and prevention is on losing weight. However, I think that the emphasis on weight loss alone is misguided for several reasons, and we need to find a way to focus on beneficial changes in body composition instead …

By Sheri Colberg, PhD     It used to be common knowledge that you should stretch before and after physical activities for a variety of reasons.

A lot of people with type 2 diabetes delay going on insulin for as long as possible because they’ve heard horror stories about how much weight it can make them gain (or maybe they just don’t like shots), but people with type 1 don’t have a choice. While it is …

  By Sheri Colberg, Ph.D., FACSM   Now that you know the basics of aerobic training, it’s time to learn some tricks to get even more fit while doing these activities. For starters, during any activity, simply increase the intensity of your exercise for short periods of time (so-called interval …

  By Sheri Colberg, PhD     The physical activity debate is raging. How much activity should you do each day? How hard do you have to work out? Is walking enough? Can you get fit and lose weight simply by moving more? How much activity is enough?

If you take insulin or another blood glucose-lowering medication, you are at risk for low blood sugar (usually defined as blood glucose < 65 mg/dl), or hypoglycemia, which can occur during or following physical activity. Low blood sugar can cause trembling, sweating, dizziness, blurred vision, impaired thinking, and even seizures …