The Benefits of Exercise for Type 2 Diabetes

What effect does exercise have on glucose levels?

When exercising, muscles use glucose for energy. At first, the body uses glucose converted from glycogen in the muscles. Then, glucose is taken from the bloodstream. During prolonged exercise, in order prevent blood glucose levels from becoming too low, glucagon and additional hormones are released. These hormones trigger the breakdown of stored fat into components the liver can convert into more glucose. With frequent and regular exercise, the body’s sensitivity to insulin improves and better glycemic control is developed.

Why is the effect of exercise on glucose levels important to those with type 2 diabetes?

Some studies demonstrate that patients with diabetes who exercise regularly have better glycemic control compared to those who do not. As insulin sensitivity improves with exercise, patients may need less medication to control blood sugar levels.

People with type 2 diabetes are particularly at risk for exercise-induced hypoglycemia during and after exercise. However, some patients with poorly controlled diabetes are at risk for hyperglycemia.

Should patients with type 2 diabetes exercise more often or differently than otherwise healthy people?

To maintain general health, experts recommend at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 90 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity spread over 3 or more days per week. There are no separate recommendations for those with diabetes.

What type of exercise is best for type 2 diabetes patients?

The type of exercise is less important than the how long and how frequent the exercise. Some studies suggest that participating in both aerobic activity and weight training offer more benefits than one or the other.

When should patients be discouraged from exercising?

Some patients have a higher risk of developing injuries from the stress of an intense exercise program. Such patients include those with higher cardiovascular risk, those over the age of 35, and those leading sedentary lifestyles. These patients should be thoroughly evaluated before beginning a new exercise program. Patients with severely low blood sugar levels should wait until their condition improves.

How might a patient be encouraged to exercise?

Encourage patients to start with small changes to their normal routine, like taking the stairs and not the elevator. Suggest activities that the patient finds enjoyable and convenient. Participation in several different activities may keep patients from becoming bored and losing interest. Having a partner or personal trainer can also help patients stay motivated.

About the Author - Su Rollins writes for hypoglycemic diet , her personal hobby blog focused on tips to prevent and cure hypoglycemia using the right diet and nutrition.

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Discover the What and Why of the Slow Female Fat Loss Problem

By Tom Venuto of
Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle

Most women are to familiar with the difficulties of losing weight and that it's more difficult for women to lose fat than men. Many blame it on hormones, saying it must be the estrogen. The answer my be much simpler than that, a large reason may be the fact that women are usually smaller and lighter than men.

One aspect of your daily calorie needs relates to how big you are. Larger people need more calories compared to smaller people. When you have lower calorie needs, your relative deficit (20%, 30% etc) gives you a smaller absolute deficit and therefore you lose fat more slowly than someone who is larger and can create a large deficit more easily.

For example, if my TDEE is 3300 calories a day (I’m 5' 8" and moderately to very active), then a 20% deficit is 660 calories, which brings me to 2640 calories a day. On paper, that will give me about 1.3 lbs of wt loss per week, rather painlessly, I might add.

If I bumped my calorie burn up or decreased my intake by another 340 a day, that's enough to give me a 2 lbs per week wt loss.

That's hardly a starvation diet (Ahhh, the joys of being a man). For smaller women, the math equation is very different.

If your total daily energy expenditure is only 1970 calories, even at a VERY high exercise level, then a 20% deficit for you is only 394 calories which would put you at 1576 calories a day for (on paper) only 8/10th of a lb of fat loss/wk.

If you pursued your plan to take a more aggressive calorie deficit of 30%, that puts you at a 591 calorie deficit which would now drop you down to only 1382 calories/day.

That's starting to get fairly low in calories. However, you would still have a fairly small calorie deficit. In fact, I would get to eat almost twice as many calories as you and I'd still get almost twice the weekly rate of fat loss!

What this all means is that women who are petite or have a small body size are going to lose fat more slowly than larger women and much more slowly than men, so you cannot compare yourself to them.

It's great to be inspired by our success stories, but if you're looking for someone to model yourself after, choose one of our success stories of someone your body size and wt, rather than the folks who started 100 lbs overweight and were therefore easily dropping 3 lbs a week.

ONE POUND a week of fat loss is much more in line with a realistic goal for someone of a smaller body size. Overweight people can lose it faster. The best thing you can do is to be extremely consistent with your nutrition over time.

Suggestion #1: Weigh and measure all your food any time you feel you are stuck at a plateau, just to be sure. When your calorie expenditure is on the low side, you don't have much margin for error.

Suggestion #2: Take your body comp measurements with a grain of salt, especially if you are using Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) scales (they are a bit wonky) and remember that body comp testing is seldom perfect. Pay attention to your circumference measurements, how your clothes fit and how you look in the mirror and in photos as well.

Suggestion #3: You might actually want to take fewer refeeds - once a week instead of every 4th day, or even just once every 10-14 days, so you can get a larger weekly deficit.

Suggestion #4: You may want to take 2 or 3 of your long cardio sessions on the treadmill and switch them to intense intervals or ANY other type of activity that has potential to burn more than 362 calories for an hour's investment of time, or perhaps that equivalent calorie burn in less time. No need to add more days of cardio or more time - get the most out of the time you are already spending.

Suggestion #5: If you do intervals, don't make the workout too brief (ignore the advertisements for those "4 minute miracle" workouts, etc.), or you may burn fewer calories than you were before! In fact, you might even try the method where you do HIIT
for 15-20 min, then continue for another 30-40 at slow to medium intensity. Increasing total calories burned should be your focus.

Dropping only ONE pound per week (or less) may seem excruciatingly slow, but it's actually the same type of thing I do. As a bodybuilder, I go from lean to extremely lean when I diet and I don't expect more than a pound a week during contest cuts.

You are in a similar situation, even if not competing. Even if you get a half a pound a week fat loss, if you get that progress every week, that’s what you’re looking for - steady progress – even if slow.

It's entirely possible that you HAVE been making progress, only very slowly. With the way water weight and glycogen levels can fluctuate (and lean mass may increase), a half a pound or pound fat loss in a week could have been easily masked... and therefore, missed. That's one of the drawbacks of going by the scale alone.

Understand the calorie math I explained above and be patient, watching for slow and steady progress, paying special attention to the trend over time on your progress chart.

Keep after it - the persistence will pay, I promise!

Train hard and expect success,

Tom Venuto, author of
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle

PS. You can learn about more fat loss strategies, including the details about the carb cycling method inside my e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. Learn more and see some of the inspiring before and after success stories at: Burn The Fat



About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a fat loss expert, lifetime natural bodybuilder, independent nutrition researcher, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models.

Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: burn the fat

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5 Simple Weight Loss Tips

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but diet is the most critical aspect of any weight loss and fitness program. For the regular person trying to lose weight and burn fat it will be next to impossible to achieve those goals without a sound sensible eating plan.

I posted a new article today by Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS and the author of Turbulence Training. It has some great tips on those looking to loose a stubborn belly fat. They're only five tips there so it's a quick read, but yet very effective points. I guarantee you implement these five tactics into your nutritional program and you will see the fat melt away.

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Discover How You Can Gain Muscle And Lose Fat

Do you want to know How To Gain Muscle And Lose Fat At The Same Time

There are too questions people always ask when it comes to exercise, and fitness:

1. How can I gain muscle and lose fat at the same time?
2. How do I get six pack abs?

Things get confusing, as are all kinds of opinions relating to those questions. They're even some contradicting solutions from people calling themselves experts in the field.

This puts you in a bad spot, if the so-called experts duke it out are you supposed to know what to do. All you really want to know is it really possible to lose fat and build muscle simultaneously?

Short answer: Yes, you can gain muscle and lose fat at the “same time.”

Long answer: It’s difficult and it’s complicated. Continue to read and find out how

First we have the issue of whether you really lose fat and gain muscle at the “same time.”

Well, yes, if your definition of the “same time” is say, a month or 12 weeks. But in that case, you’re probably not gaining muscle at the “same time” literally speaking, as in, right now this very moment you are reading this, or 7 days a week, 24 hours a day for months in a row.

The best explanation for what’s really happening is that you alternate between periods of caloric surplus or, anabolism, and caloric deficit, or catabolism, and the net result is a gain in muscle and a loss in body fat.

You see, if you stay in a calorie surplus, it’s the body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go up together. And if you stay in a calorie deficit, it’s your body’s natural tendency for body fat and lean body mass to go down together.

There may be exceptions, but the general rule is that it is very difficult to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time - the mechanisms are mostly antagonistic to one another. When it does happen, it’s almost always the result of “unusual conditions” - I call them X factors.

The 4 X-Factors

1. The first X-factor is training experience, or age. Ever hear of “newbie gains?” The less trained your body is and the further you are from your genetic potential, the easier it is to gain muscle. The reverse is also true - an advanced bodybuilder with 20 years experience hopes to gain at most 5 pounds of lean muscle in a year!

2. The second x factor is muscle memory. It’s easier to regain muscle you’ve lost than it is to gain new muscle in the first place. Example... the fat out of shape semi retired bodybuilder who starts training again and blows up and gets ripped in what seems like overnight.

3. The third X factor is genetics, or somatotype. Ever heard of a “genetic freak?” That’s the dude who looks at a weight and pacts on muscle, and never gains an ounce of fat. This lucky guy can even be seen eating pizza and ice cream. He just had the right parents.

4. The fourth X factor is drugs. It would stun, or sadden you if you knew how many people take performance and physique-enhancing drugs. I’m not just talking about pro bodybuilders, I’m talking about “Joe six pack” in the gym - not to mention those fitness models you idolize in the magazines. How did they get large muscle gains with concurrent fat loss? Chemicals.

Without a doubt in 99% of the cases of large muscle gains with concurrent large fat losses, at least one if not more of these x factors were present.

That’s not all! There are actually 5 more X factors related to your body composition and diet status referred to as, the X2 factors. But more on those later.

So you’re not a beginner, you don’t take roids, you’re not a genetic freak and you have no muscle memory to take advantage of. Are you S.O.L? Well, I do want you to be realistic about your goals, but…

There IS a way for the average person to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

The Secret: You have to change your “temporal perspective!”

For the most part nutritionists and fitness pros typically look at calorie balance within a 24 hour period. What that means is every night before you go to bed you add up all the cars you digest it and subtract all the calories you expend. If that number is a negative you lose weight, and the number is positive that represents a weight gain.

Now think of this, your body has different demands throughout the day. At certain points you to be highly anabolic state, an example of the after your workout. There will be other times within the day your calorie demands aren't as high.

How you take advantage of this to burn fat and gain muscle would be to eat a higher calorie higher carb meal immediately after you work out. While your body is an anabolic state you'd be feeding the muscles. You may only gain a small amount of muscle but the rest of the day you could be burning fat.

Per day this isn't a lot but give it time the gains and losses will add up over time of weeks and months.

Step back for a moment and take a look at the week as a whole. What if most days of the week you were in a constantly in a deficit. Then on other days you would allow yourself to be in surplus. Over the course of the week as long as your surplus wasn't too much to have a small gain of muscle and a decrease of body fat.

These within-day and within-week phases are called microcycles and mesocycles. If you also had a primary goal with a longer term focus of several months, say 12 weeks or 16 weeks, that would be a macrocycle.

What I’ve just described is nutritional periodization. Some people call it cyclical dieting. it’s where you manipulate your calories, primarily by fluctuating carbohydrate intake, or carb cycling in order to intentionally zig zag your way through periods of surplus and deficit and create specific hormonal responses.

The end result: muscle gain and fat loss during the same time period!

I know that someone out there is having a hissy fit because I’ve only talked about calories: deficits and surpluses. Rightfully so. Calories matter but there’s more to it than calories - most importantly, hormones and “nutrient partitioning.”

If you’re in a calorie deficit you are going to pull energy from your body.The question is: From WHERE? If your hormones are out of whack and you’re eating crap, you could lose more muscle than fat in a deficit and gain almost pure fat, not muscle, in a surplus!

But WHAT IF you could manipulate within day energy balance, use nutritional periodization AND control your hormones with food and lifestyle strategies?
AHA! NOW you can see how concurrent muscle gain and fat loss are starting to look possible!

Make no mistake - concurrent muscle gain and fat loss is a difficult goal to achieve. The good news: difficult does not mean impossible. Or as George Santayana said, “The difficult is that which can be done immediately, the impossible, that which takes a little longer.”

The Holy Grail Body Transformation Program:
How to Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at The Same Time
Click bellow to Get THE HOLY GRAIL!
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You can learn more about gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time in Tom Venuto's new e-book called, "The Holy Grail Body Transformation System."

You’ll learn all about nutritional periodization, cyclical dieting, hormonal manipulation, within day energy balance, nutrient partitioning, AND the all the X factors, including the 5 “X2-Factors” - which are the keys to gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time.

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The 5 Vegetarian Weight Loss Mistakes

5 Vegetarian Weight Loss Mistakes Caused By Advertisers

By Kardena Pauza
www.EasyVeggieMealPlans.com

Naturally, when most people think of vegetarian foods and weight loss, they think of men and women eating healthy meals with plenty of energy to spare.

But, what most people don't realize is there are a number of these so-called "health foods" that vegetarians are regularly consuming that aren't just unhealthy, but lead to weight gain, and I'm not talking muscle.

Over the years I've made many mistakes when it comes to eating healthy on a vegetarian diet and so I thought I would share with you some of the lessons I've learned. This way, only one of us has to make the vegetarian blunders.

With that being said, here are the 5 biggest weight loss dieting mistakes people make when switching to vegetarian meal plans:

1. Eating "health food bars" and protein bars as a healthy snack alternative or as a meal replacement.

This one is a biggie. These bars are loaded with junk binders and fillers with very little nutritional value. Unfortunately, many people believe the advertising and so think they are eating a healthy substitute. My advice, read the labels before you eat them. If nothing else, skip the bars altogether and have fresh fruit instead.

2. Falling for the convincing advertising that energy pills, energy drinks, or anything labeling itself as "thermogenic" will lead to fat loss.

While you'll get a two hour burst of "mania", the incredibly large dosage of caffeine in these products will bring your "high" to a crashing halt that often lingers for two to four hours.

Tip: avoid these ingredients: taurine, guarana, caffeine

Truth be told, energy products do NOT accelerate fat loss and none of them even work to curb your appetite.

So, do yourself a favour; skip the energy roller coaster and avoid every energy product that contains either sugar or caffeine.

3. Thinking there is a magic cereal diet.

There isn't one. In fact, most recently a popular women's magazine was glorifying a particular cereal as the breakfast of choice for those wanting to lose fat. Shame on them!

What they don't tell you is that many of these cereals contain way too much sugar and refined carbs, little-to-no protein, a small amount of fiber, and worst of all, fat derived from hydrogenated oils.

With that being said, if you really want to lose fat, then whatever you do, avoid processed grains and do NOT eat cereal in place of real food.

4. Wasting money on bodybuilding supplements

Why spend your hard-earned money on a product that is really just processed milk? Simply put, you don't need the junk that is advertised in bodybuilding supplement magazines. You can avoid them and still lose fat and build a better body.

for more on supplement secrets check out the link below

Click here --> free supplement review guide

5. The misconception that low-fat products are your best bet for fat loss

Again, those advertisers are real sneaky I tell you! But here is something they don't tell you; the only way to make these low-fat foods taste worthwhile is by pumping them full of sugar.

Sugar causes a number of potentially damaging side effects to your body, but the most visible nasty side effect is the fat that is stored right on your belly and thighs.

Tip: I recommend consuming no more than 6-9 grams of sugar per sitting. Just be careful of the nutritional label as it might indicate 6 grams/1 cup serving, while you're eating 2 cups and oops, you just consumed 12-18 grams of sugar!

So, those are 5 of the biggest mistakes made by those switching over to the vegetarian lifestyle. If you follow those guidelines you'll be well on your way to a healthy vegetarian fat loss diet.

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