Physical Activity

Older adults with diabetes may be able to benefit from specific exercise recommendations.

By Sheri R. Colberg, PhD, FACSM
At each dawn of a new year, many people make resolutions to be more physically active—only to fail in changing their lifestyle habits in a sustained manner. Don’t be one of the many who start exercising only to stop again a few months later. Read more about why daily release of feel-good brain hormones is so important and why you should learn how to relax more as well.

In mid-November 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finally released new physical activity guidelines (as a 2nd edition) to update their previous set from a decade before. Various activity guidelines for adults with diabetes have been updated several times in the interim, including a 2010 position statement on exercising with type 2 diabetes published jointly by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Diabetes Association; a 2016 ADA position statement on exercise and physical activity for all types of diabetes; and a consensus statement on being active with type 1 diabetes published in The Lancet in 2017.

Small but frequent activity helps improve insulin concentrations and sensitivity in children with excess weight and obesity.

A 60-year-old woman with type 2 diabetes and no serious health complications began an exercise program as part of a research study. It involved doing an hour of moderate aerobic exercise three days per week in a supervised setting (at a local Y). She showed up to all the training sessions, stating about a month into the 12-week training program that she was so happy to be active again, that she felt so much better physically and mentally and felt like she had “found herself” again.

By Sheri R. Colberg, PhD, FACSM As discussed in an earlier column this year (June 2018), many insulin users have chosen to go “low-carb” to better manage diabetes, which may or may not impact how well they perform in athletic events. How do many athletes with diabetes who swear by …

Exercise can lengthen remission after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

By Sheri R. Colberg, PhD, FACSM
It's known that lack of exercise, poor eating habits, genetics, and lifestyle factors can all contribute to the onset of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes. I have spent many years touting the benefits of lifestyle change to prevent and manage these health conditions—and in some cases reverse them. Exercise is a particularly important lifestyle management tool because of its ability to lower inflammation (the underlying cause of insulin resistance) naturally.

Two weeks of inactivity found to cause impaired glycemic control; may progress patients to type 2 diabetes

By Sheri R. Colberg, PhD, FACSM

If you’re like a lot of other people, you may get bored doing the same physical activities day after day. More than half of people who start exercise training programs drop out in the first six months. So, what you do to keep your workouts fresh sometimes matters more for getting the most out of training and staying with it. For these reasons (and more), you may want to consider doing cross-training.