Why Exercising is Important if You Have Diabetes?

In this video, I am going to be talking about a topic that I think every single type two diabetic actually hears. And it’s about exercise, right? Because there’s so much information out there about different types of exercise. Should you be walking? 

Should you be running?

So I’m going to actually uncover this, and why exercise is not even a good idea. But in this video, I’m going to explain to you what I found helping people reverse their diabetes for over 20 years. What really is going on with exercise? Is it a good thing?

Is it not a good thing? And I think it will give you a frame of mind. So let’s get started.

When we look at exercise is, what is the standard of care? So when we look at the standard of care, every diabetic who gets diagnosis told basically the same thing. They’re told to go lose some weights, right? Because every diabetic is told to do that.

They’re told to watch what they eat. So eliminate the carbs, the junk food, the stuff we shouldn’t be eating, right, that we kind of are familiar with. Also, diabetics are told to exercise as long as they are on their medication and so forth. So this is what every diabetic is typically told, right? Take your bed, lose weight, go exercise, try to lose some weight.

If there’s a weight issue, however, there goes a whole different scenario if you actually want to get better, because most diabetics who do this, they try to exercise and they’re trying to lose weight and they’re trying to get themselves better, don’t really see very favorable outcomes. And what I mean by that is they don’t see that they actually get themselves off the meds and that they could actually eat food without their blood sugar level going crazy and sustain and keep their weight off for a long period of time. 

And there’s a reason for that that’s really important to identify. So the next thing we have to look at is body facts, right? The body works a certain way.

Our body is designed to heal. We have this ability to heal, but we have to look at what exactly is going on within the body. All right, so check this out. First off, there are trillions cells in the body. So your body, who you are, who I am is made up of lots of cells.

Most type two diabetics have something called insulin resistance. They have resistance to insulin. What the heck does this mean, right? Why is this important? And why is this something that we should be talking about?

And what does it have to do with exercise? Okay, so let’s look at it this way. When we look at insulin resistance, it means your body is actually fighting insulin, right? Now, most of the diabetic medication out there that you’re familiar with, right, is designed to try to give your body more insulin, kind of push this insulin into the body at a faster rate. All right, so let’s look at how this plays out.

Okay, so play along with my drawing. So I try to make this as cartoonish as it could be. So this way you understand what to do here. So we look at the cell of the human body. So obviously, your body is made of 37 trillion of these, a lot of cells.

And the goal is that insulin over here basically goes, picks up this sugar as if it’s a car, like if it’s a cab. It was funny recently we were in New York City and we saw a cab, and I said to my kids, I was like, one day you’re not going to know what that is, right? 

They don’t understand that cabs are a thing before all these Ubers and all these other things that are out there. Anyway, the goal of insulin is to go and pick up these sugars, right? We’ll say these are passengers and basically drive all of them into the cell.

And that’s the goal of what insulin is supposed to do, right? So insulin in this scenario is basically the calf and your sugar that’s in your bloodstream from food you eat or your body making sugar so you have energy, is supposed to go into the cell. Now, the goal is if the cell is alive, you’re alive. That is a good thing. All right, so now let’s look at the next scenario.

So what insulin resistance is a little different. And what we’re seeing here, let me draw this out, is we have a blockage, right? 

So this cell has some defense to it, we’ll say. So when we look at this, right, the sugar comes over inside of the insulin and they all come together, but they get blocked and they can’t get into the cell. And that’s why when you actually go and check your blood sugar levels, your numbers are higher, right?

So when you prick your finger or you have a continuous glucose monitor, your numbers are actually higher. And the reason for that is a lot of this resistance. So what does that have to do with exercise? 

Well, with exercise, what you’re trying to do is quickly jam more and more sugar into the cell, right? So you’re kind of going here, you’re getting all the cells and the taxi and all this other stuff trying to get into the cell.

It doesn’t want to do that. And what will happen, which really bites most diabetics or shoots them in the foot or bites them in the butt, is it creates more resistance. 

So now you have more resistance when you try to fight and push that sugar into the cell when it doesn’t want to be there. And this is one of the biggest problems with exercise. So you probably know this and maybe you don’t, but patients in my office.

They’re lessening medication, they’re losing weight without exercise, they’re doing all these amazing things. And it’s because we’re not trying to fight the body. We’re trying to get the body to function better. And when it functions better, obviously this whole mechanism gets fixed. What is the solution?

Right, so what I tell patients is the following. You got to go and actually go and get to the root and balances of what’s causing this. So let me clear away my drawing here. So the solution is the following. You have to open up your body’s ability to get rid of that insulin resistance, okay?

And there are a lot of different ways to do that. And insulin resistance gets formed by different components. Diet tends to not be the issue, believe it or not, but there are other things that could be causing it. But for patients in my office, typically I tell them not to exercise for more than 20 minutes a day. And that’s just walking, right?

Something really light, wood, aerobics, maybe swimming in the pool a little bit. Walking is good. Anything beyond that usually actually causes more issues as opposed to less issues. 

And the real solution, honestly, is by reversing the disease process, by really getting things working correctly. That’s how really you’ll see your biggest change in results.

Okay? So I hope you understand now that exercise is not designed really for all diabetics. Now, as someone gets themselves better and as someone is improving their quality of life, that’s obviously it’s a lot easier to get exercise in. But for most cases, diabetics should not be exercising, and in the long haul, it will cause more problems. All right?

So if you have any questions, please leave us a comment.