Can Exercise Lower My Blood Sugar?

Exercise is a great way to decrease your blood sugar levels. There are two main ways in which your blood glucose levels can be lowered with exercise.

When you move your body, your skeletal muscles start respiring more, your heart rate increases, and your cells begin to take up more glucose from the bloodstream.

Your insulin sensitivity also increases when you exercise. Insulin molecules bind to receptors on your cells and tell them to take up more glucose. This increase in glucose uptake occurs during and after working out.

Being able to monitor your blood glucose can be a great way to ensure that they don’t drop too low during exercise. When your blood sugars are too low, it’s a condition called hypoglycemia. Having very low blood sugar levels can lead to dizziness, fatigue, and even fainting in severe cases.

If your blood sugar drops very low, eat something that contains simple sugars that can be absorbed quickly into your body to get you out of a hypoglycaemic state.