The importance of maintaining regulated blood sugar levels goes far beyond diabetes prevention; it’s equally crucial for hormone health.
Fortunately, even the smallest lifestyle changes can influence blood glucose behaviour throughout the day.
Registered dietitian and diabetes educator Erin Palinski-Wade explained why movement is the "easiest way to make your blood sugar go down quickly" in a YouTube video.
“The more you move, the more your body uses the sugar in your bloodstream for energy and it helps make you less insulin resistant,” she explained.
Movement helps the body use sugar in the bloodstream
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While movement is highly effective for lowering blood sugar levels, different types of exercise affect the body in different ways.
Experts at Diabetes UK explain: “Anything you do at a comfortable pace, such as walking, jogging, yoga, cycling, or swimming, tends to make your blood sugar levels lower.
“And physical activity that involves lots of short, sharp bursts of movement, such as sprinting, squash, or HIIT workouts (high-intensity interval training), tends to make your blood sugar levels higher.
“If you’re doing something like stretching, your blood sugar levels may stay the same.”
During a previous conversation with GB News, Dr Alasdair Scott broke down some of the ways exercise benefits blood sugar control.
He explained that even minimal movement is beneficial, with any post-meal walking proving better than remaining sedentary.
“Strength training is very important because muscles are the biggest sink for glucose,” Dr Scott said.
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Blood sugar management is important for hormone health
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“When you eat food, you create glucose that goes into your bloodstream.”
By building larger muscles through strength training, the body gains a greater capacity for glucose absorption and utilisation.
“Probably the two most effective forms [of exercise] are something called zone two training - which specifically targets the mitochondria and burns fat - and high-intensity interval training,” Dr Scott added.
Zone two training, performed at around 70 per cent of maximum heart rate, represents a specific form of aerobic exercise targeting mitochondria, the expert explained.
