Live Longer: How to Keep Your Blood Sugar Low
Three ways to keep your Glycemic Variability in check.
Glycemic Variability sounds complicated but it just refers to the swings in blood glucose levels occurring throughout the day. High blood glucose levels, or hyperglycemia, is something a lot of people suffer from. Around 8.5% of the adult population of the world has diabetes mellitus.
Keeping our blood glucose levels in check today can be extremely beneficial for long term health. It can help prevent heart diseases. It can help you lose fat. It can even help reduce stress and inflammation.
Doing these small things every day will make sure you live a long and healthy life.
Pre-Meal Exercise
Exercising right before you have your meal can improve your body’s ability to burn the energy you get from food more efficiently. But the good news is, you don’t even have to exercise a lot.
Even thirty seconds of explosive exercise before every big meal can vastly improve your body’s ability to burn it off efficiently. You can do any sort of exercise that gets your heart rate up.
You could do burpees, high knees, jump squats, etc. I personally never eat a meal without having done twenty jump squats or fifteen burpees before.
Post-Meal Walking
Many people know that they should walk after a meal but few actually do it. Right after eating, the blood flow from the brain is redirected towards the gastrointestinal tract which makes us feel sleepy. This makes it harder to keep up with this habit.
One thing that helps me is dedicating twenty minutes or more after every meal for something I can do as I walk. I usually watch one video lecture on my phone as I walk after a meal. Sometimes, I might just play a game of chess on my phone.
If you don’t want to walk, even standing after a meal is better than sitting or lying down.
Strength Training
If all you do is cardio when you go to the gym, it might be time to hit the weights. Lifting weights increases the number of receptors on your myocytes that pull glucose out of the blood and into muscle.
If you don’t have time for the gym or you don’t have access to a gym right now (like many of us), just do some squats, pushups, and pullups at least every alternate day. If you’re able to do more than 15 repetitions easily, add some weight. Just put some books in a shoulder-bag, wear it and then do these exercises.
It’s that easy to keep your blood sugar in check. The key is to do the right kinds of movements at the right time. Make a habit of these exercises and your body will thank you for it.
