# Martial arts and excerise



## Lemonade (Apr 4, 2012)

Hi all
I'm new to the site but basically I'm a student and I've had T1 diabetes for about 7 years now. 
I do martial arts (jitsu) and I've also started running regularly. I'm not on a pump (though I'd love one - I'm not "eligible") But whenever I do the jitsu I go low. This is normally because we do alot of high intensity but short exercise at the start like push ups and sit ups. Then we move onto the actual practice but about 20 minutes after the warm up I /always/ go low. sometimes pretty low - in my 2's. 
I don't like starting with sugars that are too high like 14 or over because my sugars then go high during excericse rather than low and I find the training impossible to do. When I go low I genrealy have either some lucazade or 4 jelly babies but then I sometimes go low later - eating anything carby isn't recommended in case you throw up. Does anyone have nay suggestions? It feels really counter-productive eating during exercise and it's really disruptive to the session.Preferably I'd love to not go low at all but still have energy to do the whole workout and 2 hour session. I hate feeling weak but alot of the time I do and I think it's somehow connected to my sugars.

When I run I occasionally go low afterwards but it doesn't have a huge impact on me (I only run 2 miles atm though).

Any advice would be much appreciated thanks!


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## Northerner (Apr 6, 2012)

It's a tricky one - I have problems having to eat whilst exercising as it makes me nauseous so I can understand how difficult it must be for you. How soon after eating/injecting are you exercising? Where you are in your digestion of food and insulin absorption may be making a difference to when you go low. I try to exercise around 90mins to 2 hours after eating/injecting and find this works well for me. Ideally, you'd want to have some slow-release carbs inside you, but that wouldn't upset your stomach - have you tried Belvita biscuits?

I found the book Diabetic Athlete's Handbook really good at explaining the effects of exercise when you are insulin-dependent, with strategies for tackling different situations and types of sport, so it's worth a look.


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