What Is The Best Type Of Exercise? You've probably heard it said that cardio is the best exercise for diabetes.
This means spending 30-40 min 3-5 times a week on a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill.
Yawn! I could think of nothing worse.
I mean if you like watching paint dry, it might just be your thing, but really? Anyway, it's a bit true.
There are studies that show that doing this kind of cardio helps with diabetes.
Hmm.
But then there are other studies that show that strength exercises are good for diabetes and then there are heaps of anecdotal reports from people who have improved their diabetes doing yoga and more recently, even scientific studies supporting this.
So what should you do? Let's step back for a bit.
There are essentially 4 different kinds of exercise: 1.
Strength 2.
Cardio 3.
Flexibility 4.
Balance and coordination Of course, most forms of exercise combine these in some way.
So which is best for diabetes? Did you guess "all of the above"? That's right.
They are all good so I suggest you do a bit of all of them and do a bit more of the ones you find you actually like.
(Did I just suggest you might actually like exercise? Oops.
Yes, it is just possible...
) In fact, exercise is so good for improving your blood glucose that you will get far better improvements with exercise than with any drug in existence.
How Long Do You Need To Exercise? By now though I can hear you thinking, "Hang on! I've gotta do 40 min 5 times per week of cardio and then how much strength, flexibility and balance/coordination??" Slow down! It turns out that when it comes to exercise, every bit helps - in fact, the least exercise helps the most and the most exercise helps the least.
Huh? It works like this.
When you do no exercise at all, even doing one minute a day is a huge improvement.
You know, what do you need to multiply zero by to get one? Doing one minute of exercise is a zillion times better than doing none at all.
And then doing two minutes is twice as good as one but doing 40 minutes is not twice as good as doing 20 minutes.
It's the law of diminishing returns.
Up to a point, the more exercise you do the better.
But you get the most benefit from the first minutes.
So having said that, how much do you really need to do? If your exercise is efficient even one minute will help but I recommend you start with 4 minutes a day.
Work your way up to 8 or 12 minutes a day.
You will get huge benefit from this.
If you want to do more, you could do up to 30 minutes a day but it's probably not necessary.
But note that I said, "If you exercise is efficient".
If it isn't, you won't get the benefit in such a short time.
I'm gonna make sure you know how to make your exercise maximally efficient.
Where Is The Best Place To Do Your Exercise? You can exercise at home, in the street, at a gym or at a sports club.
If you are going to do just 4 minutes, it doesn't make much sense to me to be going to a gym or sports club.
Really, it'll take you that long to get into your car and back out of the driveway.
I reckon when you start, you are best to exercise at home.
I'll give you a set of exercises you can easily do at home without any expensive equipment.
Many of the days you won't even need to put on your shoes which takes best part of 4 minutes in itself!
This means spending 30-40 min 3-5 times a week on a stationary bike or walking on a treadmill.
Yawn! I could think of nothing worse.
I mean if you like watching paint dry, it might just be your thing, but really? Anyway, it's a bit true.
There are studies that show that doing this kind of cardio helps with diabetes.
Hmm.
But then there are other studies that show that strength exercises are good for diabetes and then there are heaps of anecdotal reports from people who have improved their diabetes doing yoga and more recently, even scientific studies supporting this.
So what should you do? Let's step back for a bit.
There are essentially 4 different kinds of exercise: 1.
Strength 2.
Cardio 3.
Flexibility 4.
Balance and coordination Of course, most forms of exercise combine these in some way.
So which is best for diabetes? Did you guess "all of the above"? That's right.
They are all good so I suggest you do a bit of all of them and do a bit more of the ones you find you actually like.
(Did I just suggest you might actually like exercise? Oops.
Yes, it is just possible...
) In fact, exercise is so good for improving your blood glucose that you will get far better improvements with exercise than with any drug in existence.
How Long Do You Need To Exercise? By now though I can hear you thinking, "Hang on! I've gotta do 40 min 5 times per week of cardio and then how much strength, flexibility and balance/coordination??" Slow down! It turns out that when it comes to exercise, every bit helps - in fact, the least exercise helps the most and the most exercise helps the least.
Huh? It works like this.
When you do no exercise at all, even doing one minute a day is a huge improvement.
You know, what do you need to multiply zero by to get one? Doing one minute of exercise is a zillion times better than doing none at all.
And then doing two minutes is twice as good as one but doing 40 minutes is not twice as good as doing 20 minutes.
It's the law of diminishing returns.
Up to a point, the more exercise you do the better.
But you get the most benefit from the first minutes.
So having said that, how much do you really need to do? If your exercise is efficient even one minute will help but I recommend you start with 4 minutes a day.
Work your way up to 8 or 12 minutes a day.
You will get huge benefit from this.
If you want to do more, you could do up to 30 minutes a day but it's probably not necessary.
But note that I said, "If you exercise is efficient".
If it isn't, you won't get the benefit in such a short time.
I'm gonna make sure you know how to make your exercise maximally efficient.
Where Is The Best Place To Do Your Exercise? You can exercise at home, in the street, at a gym or at a sports club.
If you are going to do just 4 minutes, it doesn't make much sense to me to be going to a gym or sports club.
Really, it'll take you that long to get into your car and back out of the driveway.
I reckon when you start, you are best to exercise at home.
I'll give you a set of exercises you can easily do at home without any expensive equipment.
Many of the days you won't even need to put on your shoes which takes best part of 4 minutes in itself!
Source...