Take the Damn Stairs!

Happy first day of Spring!

After a 1 hour So Fly class (yes, that’s the instructor…), I decided to jump on the treadmill for a mile long run.  The second I stepped off of it, I felt a few things at once: endorphin high, raging hunger, and the realization that my sugars were gonna hit the floor tonight.

So my endorphin high ran its course, I had dinner and now I’m preparing for my sleep post-late-exercise.  The only thing I really did to prepare was cut my insulin by about 20% – a substantial cut.  Instead of my normal 8 units, I took 6 instead to stay on the safe side – 5 units would have probably done the trick just fine.

Adjusting my insulin reminded me of this article I read a few weeks ago called Why It’s So Important to Keep Moving in the NYTimes Health section, reporting findings from a hot new study.

Basically, healthy patients that are normally active were told to cut their steps per day by at least half.  Using a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), researhers observed that when patients were active, there was no spike in blood sugar level after meals.  When they looked at information collected when patients had cut their steps in half, the story was quite different.  The article reports:

“during the three days of inactivity, volunteers’ blood sugar levels spiked significantly after meals, with the peaks increasing by about 26 percent compared with when the volunteers were exercising and moving more. What’s more, the peaks grew slightly with each successive day. This change in blood sugar control after meals “occurred well before we could see any changes in fitness or adiposity,” or fat buildup, due to the reduced activity, Dr. Thyfault says. So the blood sugar swings would seem to be a result, directly, of the volunteers not moving much.”

So, in conclusion, keep moving and take the damn stairs!