A diabetic walks into a CrossFit gym, and...
It sounds like a punchline waiting to happen, but it also sounds like a regular Thursday night for me. For Christmas my parents got me personal training sessions, and I've been going pretty regularly since then. I'm still the flubbiest person in the gym, but it's important to try. In order to try, I've got to make sure my diabetes has itself in line.
I have to make sure my blood sugar is between 100-250. Any higher and I feel like crap. Any lower and I spend my workout time paranoid about going low. If I'm under 100, I pop a tab or two and trust that things will be fine. If I'm over 250, well, I might not go. This has only happened once. I keep an eye on my blood sugar during the day and aggressively correct my highs. It's always easier for me to eat something than to wait for insulin to work.
During my workouts I mostly put diabetes out of my mind. There is a shelf inside the door at the gym where I leave my stuff, and that stuff always includes my cell phone (serving as my Dex receiver) and a bottle of glucose tabs. My trainer knows I'm diabetic and doesn't say anything if I take a minute to check my Dexcom.
Now the bad part. If I go low during a session, I pop a few glucose tabs and keep going. I very rarely feel my lows, so I can just keep going, keep pushing through it. I know it's not the right thing to do, but I only have 1 training session per week and I don't want to waste 15 minutes waiting to come up. So I don't wait. I might get a little sloppy in my movements, but I rarely have to actually stop.
I'm really bad at the gym. I'm so bad that I don't feel comfortable doing weights without someone to watch over me and make sure I don't hurt myself. So I don't do much at the gym when it's not training day. My favorite type of exercise is no exercise, but the exercise I hate the least is dancing. I dance alone in my bedroom to very loud music.
It's hard to keep myself motivated to move. It's hard to keep myself motivated to do a lot of things. The only thing that keeps me moving is a desire to not look like a marshmallow. What? Have you ever played Wii Fit? If your BMI indicates you're overweight your Mii will look like a marshmallow. Both virtually and in real life, I don't want to be a marshmallow. It's vain, it's shallow, but it's true.
It sounds like a punchline waiting to happen, but it also sounds like a regular Thursday night for me. For Christmas my parents got me personal training sessions, and I've been going pretty regularly since then. I'm still the flubbiest person in the gym, but it's important to try. In order to try, I've got to make sure my diabetes has itself in line.
I have to make sure my blood sugar is between 100-250. Any higher and I feel like crap. Any lower and I spend my workout time paranoid about going low. If I'm under 100, I pop a tab or two and trust that things will be fine. If I'm over 250, well, I might not go. This has only happened once. I keep an eye on my blood sugar during the day and aggressively correct my highs. It's always easier for me to eat something than to wait for insulin to work.
During my workouts I mostly put diabetes out of my mind. There is a shelf inside the door at the gym where I leave my stuff, and that stuff always includes my cell phone (serving as my Dex receiver) and a bottle of glucose tabs. My trainer knows I'm diabetic and doesn't say anything if I take a minute to check my Dexcom.
Now the bad part. If I go low during a session, I pop a few glucose tabs and keep going. I very rarely feel my lows, so I can just keep going, keep pushing through it. I know it's not the right thing to do, but I only have 1 training session per week and I don't want to waste 15 minutes waiting to come up. So I don't wait. I might get a little sloppy in my movements, but I rarely have to actually stop.
I'm really bad at the gym. I'm so bad that I don't feel comfortable doing weights without someone to watch over me and make sure I don't hurt myself. So I don't do much at the gym when it's not training day. My favorite type of exercise is no exercise, but the exercise I hate the least is dancing. I dance alone in my bedroom to very loud music.
It's hard to keep myself motivated to move. It's hard to keep myself motivated to do a lot of things. The only thing that keeps me moving is a desire to not look like a marshmallow. What? Have you ever played Wii Fit? If your BMI indicates you're overweight your Mii will look like a marshmallow. Both virtually and in real life, I don't want to be a marshmallow. It's vain, it's shallow, but it's true.
I believe your comments are so good.
ReplyDeleteI referred your blog to the TUDiabetes blog page for the week of May 16, 2016.