Physical Activity

By Sheri Colberg, PhD 
Diabetes is a complex metabolic condition, and your blood glucose levels can impact you not only physically but also emotionally and mentally. Often, feeling depressed or anxious about diabetes management can be demotivating for taking better care of yourself. Whether that care involves getting more physically active or making more healthful food choices, getting and staying more motivated can only benefit you and your blood glucose. 

A new study followed patients who used exercise videogames (EVG) to help lower their HbA1c rather than traditional means of exercise. 

By Sheri Colberg, PhD
This time of year, all of the fitness clubs and gyms run specials to bring in new members, and they know—and even count on the fact that—most of those people will no longer be regularly attending classes or doing workouts by the time spring hits. How do you help your patients avoid joining those exercise dropouts? Here are some tips from our diabetes exercise expert that you can download in PDF format to hand out to your patients.

By Sheri Colberg, PhD
What is a better topic to discuss after the gluttony most of us experience over the Thanksgiving and other fall/winter holidays than carbohydrate loading? (Actually, it probably should be excess calorie consumption in general, but you get the idea.) The following is excerpted from The Athlete’s Guide to Diabetes (2019) and gives you a better understanding of the topic from an exercise physiology (and diabetes) point of view.

By Sheri Colberg, PhD
I often get asked, “What is the best time of day to exercise?” Like most things related to physical activity—especially with diabetes as an added variable—the answer often is, “It depends.” What is your goal for being active? Are you trying to better balance your blood glucose, or is weight loss your goal? Do you take insulin? What is your normal diet? How much time do you have? Which activities? There are so many questions that likely need answering before you may be able to ascertain the best time for you personally to be active.

Can depression affect the individual’s ability to perform any physical activity?

Regular lifestyle counseling can have positive long term clinical outcomes in patients with diabetes. 

When using monitored glucose values to alter treatment plans, patients with type 1 diabetes may need to change their monitoring regimen. 

Can resistance training improve beta-cell function in patients with prediabetes?

By Sheri Colberg, PhD

For all the time that I spend praising the “miracle” of being physically active to help better manage diabetes and health, there are times when exercising does lead to better managed blood glucose and times when it does not. It is not always possible to predict the glycemic outcomes in all cases either, although individual patterns and responses can be determined over time. It is helpful to know the main factors that are predictive of outcomes.