Yes, absolutely. In fact, regular exercise should have a predominant place in our diabetes management toolkit and be seen as a critical weapon to fight diabetes.

Exercise is associated with many health benefits in people with diabetes:

• Reduces HbA1c
• Reduces total insulin needs
• Improves cardio and respiratory fitness
• Improves blood lipid and body composition profile
• Improves blood vessels health
• Reduces rates of diabetes-related complications, such as eye and kidney issues
• Reduces risk of cardiovascular and neurological disease, and overall mortality

Although the cardiometabolic benefits vastly outweigh the risks, exercise can pose some dangers to people with diabetes like us. Because exercise causes blood sugar to fluctuate, we need to learn strategies that help us maintain blood sugar levels within a safe range both during and after exercise.

As a diabetic, the two most important goals when exercising are:

• Avoiding excursions into hypoglycemic territory;
• To keep you safe and far away from risking entering diabetic ketoacidosis.

At Dr-Dias.com you will learn the strategies that will allow you to exercise safely and within range.

Finding the right strategies to keep blood sugar levels within a safe range during and after exercise is not easy and can be extraordinarily discouraging.

I know it because I went through the same frustrating process alone myself.

My goal at Dr-Dias.com is to share with you the approaches I have developed that enables me to exercise safely and consistently within range. These approaches are based on rigorous science and on my own experience. I use them every day to reap the most out of my exercise sessions and they are the foundation of now being among the World’s Ironman best.

At Dr-Dias.com you will find that, as diabetics, we can extract the health benefits from exercising, and we can do so while maintaining safe glycemic control.

Maintaining perfect glycemic control with time in range as close to 100% as possible should not be the only thing we focus on as diabetics.

While clinically acceptable glycemic control can be achieved without exercise, scientific studies show that moderate levels of physical activity are associated with a healthier and longer life in people with diabetes even when adjusted for HbA1c levels.

This means that even among diabetics with similar glycemic control, the ones who engage in some form of physical activity tend to live a healthier and longer life than the ones who are less active.

By improving our body composition profile, building muscle mass, and increasing insulin sensitivity, exercise can be key to unlock better glycemic control. Nevertheless, scientific studies underscore that the benefits of exercise go well beyond glycemic control.

Exercise is a powerful weapon that we can use to help us focus on living a more fulfilling life. A life where eating a slice of cake doesn’t send our blood glucose levels through the roof. A life where we explore new challenges. A life where we can be more spontaneous. A life where we break down the barriers that diabetes constantly tries to impose on us.

Physical activity can be done within a wide spectrum of intensities. Even moderate levels of physical activity are associated with a healthier and longer life in people living with diabetes. It doesn’t take too much to reap the health benefits of exercising – it really is an outstanding cost-effective investment strategy in ourselves.

Coupled with the proper insulin therapy and healthy nutrition, there is no other intervention that has such a well-established positive impact both on our physical and mental health.

There are approved drugs that are indicated to assist with weight loss.

GLP-1 agonists, such as semaglutide (Ozempic/Rybelsus/Wegovy; Novo Nordisk), tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound; Eli Lilly), and liraglutide (Victoza/Saxenda; Novo Nordisk) are effective drugs at reducing body weight and improving glycemic control in people with diabetes. They are currently approved for the treatment of type 2, but not type 1 diabetes in the European Union and the United States.

Studies showed that in people with type 1 diabetes, GLP-1 agonists were effective at reducing body weight, HbA1c levels, and daily insulin doses. However, GLP-1 agonist therapy was discontinued in over 25% of type 1 diabetics because of adverse effects.

The high costs of GLP-1 agonists and the adverse reactions associated with them are significant factors for rendering these drugs a not so simple solution to improve diabetes management for most people living with diabetes. Moreover, the benefits of GLP-1 agonist treatment will likely require life-long administration of the drugs. This is because weight loss and improved metabolic control gained with GLP-1 agonist treatment reverts to pre-treatment levels after treatment suspension.

Interestingly, it was shown that weight loss in people under treatment with GLP-1 agonists can be boosted, and more strongly sustained after treatment suspension, by adding supervised exercise programs to the treatment protocol.

In fact, supervised exercise programs alone can lead to identical levels of weight loss compared to treatment with GLP-1 agonists – and crucially, while suspension of GLP-1 agonist treatment leads to the regain of lost weight, the improved body composition and weight loss achieved by people during supervised exercise programs is sustained even after termination of the program.

This indicates that people who took part in the supervised exercise program gained new healthy habits and kept exercising on their own after concluding the program. 

The incorporation of exercise in our life and making it routine requires some discipline and will take time out of your day – but studies show that for a large proportion of people, exercise becomes something they enjoy doing and an important part of their life.

If in the past, some forms of exercising were just too unpleasant for you, there are ways to find other activities that can help you achieve the levels of physical activity that you are aiming for.

Introducing exercise in your daily life is something that you can do step-by-step. Keep in mind that this is time invested in yourself. A healthier and longer life is a healthier and longer life with the people who you love. Soon enough, you will find the benefits and enjoyment of being physically active and will not want to go back.