I’ve edited the following since I’ve learned a lot about exercise since I originally wrote the post (August 2017).
My Original Goal
At the start of this experience my goal was to Hack My Type Two Diabetes. Per my MD, I am no longer a diabetic and am just at the bottom end of the Pre-Diabetes range. So mission accomplished???
[2018-06-29 update – My last HbA1C was 5.2 which is no longer even pre-diabetic but right in the middle of the “normal blood sugar range.]
Are We There Yet?
My initial theory was that Diabetes is just a symptom of the underlying condition which is Insulin Resistance. Eating Low Carb. Moderate Protein and High Healthy Fats reduces the need for the body to produce Insulin but does it cure Insulin Resistance itself?
[2018-06-29 update -There is a need to differentiate between insulin resistance due to diabetes and peripheral insulin resistance due to a low carb diet. An Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) may or may not be able to distinguish the two. Some people say it takes a time of reintroducing carbs before taking an OGTT.]
What is Insulin Resistance?
Insulin Resistance is the inability of the body’s cells to take in glucose in the presence of Insulin. From Skeletal Muscle Insulin Resistance Is the Primary Defect in Type 2 Diabetes.
Under euglycemic hyperinsulinemic conditions, ∼80% of glucose uptake occurs in skeletal muscle
If your muscles are not able to efficiently take up glucose then you have Insulin Resistance. It may be that exercise is the only way to improve glucose uptake in the muscles.
[2018-06-29 update -I believe that still to be the case but with the added thought that a low carbohydrate diet causes peripheral insulin resistance. Your muscles resist the action of glucose in a state where Insulin is low so that the glucose can be conserved (some say spared) for the essential parts of the body (brain, etc) that require glucose).]
Types of Exercise
My Experience with Exercise
This would bear out with my own experience of the quick dump of glucose that I experienced in the high intensity workout. My glucose went up at least 80 points which I now think is due to Insulin Resistance.
[2018-06-29 update -It was almost certainly peripheral insulin resistance plus workouts at high intensities mobilize a whole lot of carbohdyrates – perhaps as much as 60g/hr. That’s a whole lot of sugar dumped into the blood stream. And my body doesn’t do all that well with that much sugar. Although I will say it got better with time. Until I quite Crossfit that is.]
Not only is the liver dumping in that case but the muscles are dumping too. And that’s a good thing.
[2018-06-29 update -Turned out that the muscles don’t dump into the bloodstream. Only the liver does that. Learning more every day about this.]
So perhaps if I got this right it’s more about the type of exercise when attempting to improve the underlying Insulin Resistance than it is about the exercise itself. Is it true to say the reason my blood sugar rises so high with high intensity exercise is that my muscle cells are still Insulin Resistant and that with more exercise they will get better at responding to the Insulin they are given and then I will not see high blood sugar spikes during and immediately after exercise?
[2018-06-29 update -See comments earlier about peripheral insulin resistance.]
If I have this right I should easy be able to measure and observe progress by checking my blood sugars after exercise to exhaustion and the levels should drop.
I wish I had done those measurements more often and recorded the data.
Here’s a pretty good 2014 article on the subject. [2018-06-29 update – The article did not deal with the blood sugar of diabetics. I wish I had bothered to think more about this but was happy enough with my HbA1C numbers that I didn’t care.]