Exercise is a great way for people with diabetes to help manage their weight and control their blood sugar. Moderate- to vigorous-intensity exercise is especially beneficial. Read on to learn more about moderate- to vigorous- intensity exercise.
How much and what kind of exercise?
According to the Diabetes Canada clinical practice guidelines, people with diabetes should accumulate a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise each week. This exercise should be spread over at least 3 days of the week, with no more than 2 days in a row without exercise.
What qualifies as moderate- or vigorous-intensity exercise?
It is important to understand that intensity is a very personal measure. Walking around the block may feel like nothing to an endurance athlete. Yet, for someone with diabetes complications, this activity may seem impossible to achieve. In other words, the fitness level and capability of a person determine the intensity of exercise, not the type of exercise.
The best way to determine the intensity level of exercise is to keep track of your heart rate. To do that, you need to know your maximum heart rate (MHR). Here’s an easy way to find it: subtract your age from 220, and that is your maximum number of beats per minute (BPM). So, a 50-year-old’s MHR would be 170. While this is a general estimate, it works well for most people.
Light-intensity exercise
If you keep your heart rate below 65% of your MHR, you are in the light-intensity zone, also known as zone 1 exercise. For the 50-year-old example from above, this would mean keeping the heart rate around 110 BPM. Contrary to popular belief, there are tons of benefits to zone 1 exercise! For one, you can do it for a longer period of time. Your overall caloric burn may be higher than performing more vigorous exercise for a shorter period of time.
Light exercise is also effective at building mitochondria, which power all human movement. It also boosts recovery from more intense forms of exercise. Plus, it is great for mental health. I love taking walks in the forest to relax and clear my mind.
So, what qualifies as light-intensity exercise?
- Easy bike rides
- Walking
- Housework
- Gardening
- Light yoga
- Pilates
- Doubles tennis
- Pickle ball
- Tai chi
Just make sure your average heart rate stays below 65% of your MHR! Starting in this zone is a good way for people with diabetes to prepare for harder exercise. It helps you understand how your insulin and blood sugar react. Exercising at this level should be easy enough that you can carry on a conversation. You should feel warm, but not tired at the end, unless you are going for over an hour.
Moderate-intensity exercise
To do moderate-intensity workouts, increase your heart rate to 65 to 75% of your MHR. This is known as zone 2 exercise. Spend lots of your exercise time in this zone! The benefits are incredible and it is easy enough that you can do it for a longer time period (20 minutes at least).
Exercise at this level increases your endurance. You’ll improve fat burning, boost your heart’s ability to pump blood, and enhance insulin sensitivity and glucose response. If you need more convincing proof that moderate exercise is important, look no further than endurance athletes. They spend the majority of their time in this zone, not at higher difficulty levels!
Lots of different exercises can be done at zone 2 level:
- Cycling
- Fast walking, hiking and rucking
- Swimming
- Skating
- Singles tennis
- Lifting weights
- More intense yoga
- Elliptical machine
Remember to keep your heart rate between 65 and 75% of your MHR.
At this level, you should be breathing harder than normal. You will also work up a bit of sweat and feel some muscles work, especially if you are close to the 75% MHR mark.
Vigorous-intensity exercise
If your heart rate exceeds 75% of MHR, you are working very hard indeed! 75 to 85% of your MHR is zone 3, 85 to 95% is zone 4 and above 95% is zone 5, the toughest form of exercise. If you are just starting out or haven’t exercised much recently, I recommend sticking to zone 3 or lower. Very intense exercise can make your blood sugar and blood pressure levels change unexpectedly.
At this difficulty level, you should be breathing hard, sweating a good bit and feeling fatigue start to build. When you start out, even zone 3 exercise will feel challenging. But, if you do 1 or 2 10- to 15-minute zone 3 sessions each week, you’ll quickly get better at handling these workouts. The benefits will be vast. Your resting heart rate improves, blood flows better and more tiny blood vessels form, providing great heart benefits. In addition, you will burn more carbohydrates, use oxygen more efficiently and build stronger muscles.
With vigorous exercise, more is not better. It is hard to recover from intense exercise, and you don’t need to do it for more than 40 minutes total per week.
How do you complete all these different intensities on a weekly basis?
It might sound complicated to try to do all these different types of exercise in a week. It really isn’t!
Try this 3-step regimen:
- Start a nice and easy walk for 20 minutes. Keep your heart rate low.
- Now increase your pace to a point where you feel you are working harder. You should still be able to hold a conversation, but with more difficulty. You should be between 65 to 75% of your MHR. Do this for 15 minutes, or as long as you can comfortably.
- Increase your pace again to get into the vigorous intensity zone. You will likely only spend a few minutes here before you become quite tired and that’s okay! That is all the time you need in this zone.
There you go! You just exercised in all 3 zones in 1 workout, in less than 45 minutes.
