If there is one type of exercise that you should be doing whether you’re diabetic or not it is the following: weight training, resistance training or weight lifting. I’m going to explain why shortly…

I’m not going to list here all the reasons why exercising is going to benefit you. You probably know this and have already heard a gazillion times why exercise and by this I mean; running, riding a bike, swimming or just playing any sport in general is good; and why exercise provides incredible benefits for you as a human being.

If you still don’t know why doing exercise is good for you please go online on google or YouTube and read or watch videos about it.

Our ancestors had to hunt and walk or run long distances in order to find food and survive. Biologically we are designed to move. Nowadays we open an app, order food and it gets delivered to our door. Don’t you fucking love it? Netflix is on, food is delivered super fast, ohh life is good man…

This is not a history class so I’m not going to get into details here. But let me tell you something you probably know. Your body, this machine you take with you everywhere, was designed to move, to run, to jump, to swim, to walk, to sweat and to do many many other things.

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A nutritionist can tell you what to eat and it’s up to you to do this or not. You can also buy meal plans and ready to eat food because you might be busy or you just don’t have the time to cook. Feel free to insert any excuses or imagine whatever you want here…

The only thing other people can not do for you is to exercise. Well, this and many other things. They can not sweat for you…

Now, I’m going to try my best in the following paragraphs to convince you on why you should lift some weights or do resistance training.

Let me explain what resistance training is. Resistance training is not bodybuilding. It is not bulking up to build gigantic muscles. No. Resistance training is doing exercises that put stress on your body, especially muscles so they can get stronger and as a result build lean muscle mass.

At the beginning you don’t really need lots of weights to do resistance training, you can use your own body weight but eventually yes, you need to use weights in order to create tension and build lean muscle mass.

How does resistance training benefit diabetics ?

So by now you should know that everything you eat turns into glucose or “sugar” right? Well, our muscles store and are made of glucose and our bodies use this glucose for energy. What happens when we start building muscle ? The food we eat (glucose) will have a place to go, where does it go ? It goes directly to these muscles instead of just staying in the bloodstream and going nowhere. This is why resistance training improves insulin sensitivity.

Let me explain this in another way…

Mike and Tom are both type 1 diabetics. Mike goes to the gym and lifts weights and has muscles. Tom doesn’t do any type of exercise.

They both wake up on a Saturday morning. Mike goes to the gym and lifts weights for 1 hour. Tom stays home and reads or watches tv or whatever.

Its 9 am… What happens when they both eat the same breakfast ? Mike will have this food feeding and going directly to his muscles and therefore his muscles are absorbing the glucose. This happened because his muscles need this glucose and these “sugars” have a place to go and be stored. Sugars don’t end up just floating around in the bloodstream.

Tom will eat, but guess what? No muscles ? Ok, the foods he just ate which turn into glucose end up in his bloodstream going nowhere… which will probably cause high glucose levels.

Now, I’m not saying that muscles will eliminate your need for insulin. No, but muscles will clearly help you by improving insulin sensitivity so you will require less insulin and you will have better glucose levels after eating meals.

This happens because your muscles are storing and keeping that glucose because they need it.

Now I’m going to list all of the other reasons why you should start lifting weights. If you don’t lift weights, let me ask you; what the fuck are you waiting for ?

Before I explain these… something that really pisses me off and makes me angry is the fact that a lot of diabetics use insulin as an excuse to eat whatever the fuck they want. I mean you can, but have you thought about controlling your glucose levels with more exercise and better food choices ? Didn’t I just explain how building muscles will help improve glucose levels? To all the doctors out there, tell your patients to go lift fucking weights and eat healthy. That should be your first advice and not just prescribing insulin or a bunch of other medications. Lift weights mate, let that sink in…

Other reasons why you should start lifting weights:

-Builds a faster metabolism: Muscles require more calories in order to maintain. So this means that when you have muscle you will expend more calories and therefore burn more fat. All of us expend calories in order to maintain our basic functions. You can call this our daily calorie burn. Anytime you are sitting down, sleeping or doing any physical activity you are burning calories. What happens when you have muscle ? The more muscle you have, the more calories you are burning in order to maintain these muscles. This results in more daily calories burned and more fat burned.

-Builds strength: Lifting weights will definitely make you stronger. Over time you will adapt to lifting heavier and become stronger.

-Builds bone density: By placing resistance in your muscles, your bones will also become stronger, which will produce more bone density.

-Increase in testosterone: Resistance training raises testosterone in men. Testosterone is important because it helps with libido and it helps to build strength.

-Increase in growth hormone (GH): This is a hormone produced by the pituitary gland and it is very important because it affects weight management, cellular repair, height and metabolism. You will naturally increase GH with resistance training.

-Improves mobility and flexibility: By doing different resistance training exercises you are targeting and training different parts of your body. These parts will become stronger and will become more mobile and flexible.

-Better cognition and mood: There are many studies and research that explain how exercise improves cognitive function and is good for your brain.

Exercise helps to lower rates of brain related diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Resistance training also helps to treat depression and anxiety.

Other benefits of Resistance Training:

-Better blood pressure

-Lower cholesterol and triglycerides levels

-Reduce fat around the heart

So here we have a few benefits that I hope will convince you to start lifting weights. These are just some of them because like I said all the benefits of exercising and lifting weights will be too many to cover in this post.

If you don’t know where to start, let me tell you this. Just start. Period.

There are thousands of apps and videos online that will help you.

I started when I was 14 years old, my mom took me to a gym in Cali, Colombia where I am from. I went the first day and I have never stopped going to a gym since that day. I love every fucking minute of lifting weights, I love being sore from a good workout, I love the pain, I love seeing my body transforming itself when I apply consistent workouts and the proper nutrition. I have learnt so much about my body and how this beautiful machine operates. I have made a commitment with myself to workout until my last day on this earth. I will fight diabetes every single day through my workouts. I will enjoy this workout.

Do I have the biggest muscles? No. Am I the strongest? No. Do I have a perfect body ? Pffff far from that… so what ? Who cares ? If I had the perfect body what would be the point of going to the gym ? If I am the strongest, what would be the point of all of this ?

Just start…

@dieabeast

Just lift some weights man…