Exercise

Exercise Acts Like Insulin!

Yoga postures called asana are what most people are familiar with and use to define yoga as a whole today.  Over the last several hundred years it has grown into the diverse physical practice it is today.  ANY type of exercise is excellent for managing type 2 diabetes but yoga offers excellent extra benefits not found in other traditional exercise.

I have created the yoga4diabetes “hour2empower”© posture series to be practical, user-friendly and a complete form of exercise. This series will build strength, flexibility, balance, focus and concentration. It will work your body in the aerobic and anaerobic zone. It is low to no impact and can be modified to adapt to any fitness level. Contrary to popular belief yoga is not about flexibility! It is about union and connecting to where you are at this moment in time. As it relates to exercise it means accepting and working within the current restrictions you may have in the physical body. If you haven’t practiced yoga postures before, you’ll be amazed to find what a complete form of exercise it can be.

Exercise is essential to maintain a healthy body but if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes it is compulsory. Why? Because exercise acts like insulin! Exercise reduces blood glucose levels. There are many theories as to what happens, but in essence during exercise glucose is more effectively driven into the muscles and used as fuel. With continued moderate exercise muscles can take in 20 times the glucose they normally do. In addition exercise improves ongoing insulin sensitivity, promotes weight loss and helps remove fatty acids from the blood. As exercise builds more muscle mass it becomes a spiral of good getting better as there is more muscle to take in the glucose and less fat to impede the process.

Exercise also improves blood flow, which is very important as many of the complications of diabetes are related to impaired blood flow in the extremities. Blood pressure is reduced, LDL (bad) cholesterol is reduced and HDL (good) cholesterol is increased. But remember, yoga exercise is very different than traditional exercise. Because of the concentrated attention to the union of breath and body movement, the practice eventually becomes a “moving meditation.” A little time applying these exercises each day will act as an amazing stress buster and work in synergy with the other practices in my method!