The Ups and Downs of a Sunday Workout

I haven't written too much about diabetes lately because, for the most part, the diabetes god have been pretty well behaved. They still throw plenty of highs and lows my way but they've been pretty predictable and easily remedied.

Sunday morning was a different story and I was not impressed with their shenanigans. I guess, in hindsight, I was partly to blame but I'm still disgusted by their behaviour.

I woke up on Sunday morning to Rose vibrating next to me. I had just dipped under 4.0 (3.9) after a long slow descent over the last 5-6 hours. To deal with the low, I had four Dex4s. I also turned down my basal rate by 40% for 3 hours since I knew I was going to the fitness centre once I got up.

By the time I was up and dressed and down in the kitchen, my blood sugar was 9 and climbing. Seemed pretty dramatic after only having four Dex4s but I figured it would come back down once I started erg'ing. In fact I knew it would drop down so I had half a banana for good measure.

Ten minutes later I was on the rowing machine and, after 30 minutes of hard work, my blood sugar was 10.4 and dropping. Looking at Rose I could see that I had climbed to 11.5 during the workout before turning south again.

I figured 10.4 was a good number to start my weight training at and that I would probably keep trending downward. I did indeed keep trending downward and got all the way down to 9.0 before heading back up again.

Sixty minutes of weight training later I was 13.5 with an arrow heading straight up. It didn't make sense at the time, After my workout I bolused two units and headed home.

I kept climbing, double arrows up, until I reached 16.9. By then I had 6 units of insulin on board, was starving for breakfast and unable to eat.

I guzzled water, showered, and patiently waited for the insulin to kick in. After an hour, it finally did and my blood sugar did exactly what I expected it to. It tipped downward, gathered speed and within 30 minutes I went from 16.9 to 10.

I started making breakfast, which was technically now my lunch. By the time it was ready I was 6.4. I ate, my blood sugar climbed up and back down the way it normally does when I eat my breakfast and things were fine for the rest of the day.

Doug asked me why I went so high during the workout.

I guessed that it was because I was lifting weights. That used to happen years ago when I weight trained but I had forgotten.

The combination of 30 minutes of cardio (which usually drops my blood sugar) followed by 45-60 minutes of weights (which apparently brings it up) will take me a few weeks to figure out.

I'll start by not lowing my basal insulin next week and see if that helps avoid the awful high without triggering a low.

Good thing I like to exercise, love numbers and don't mind experimenting. Otherwise I can see how it would be pretty tempting to just stay in bed.