Building Strength and Stamina
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
Most diabetes advice concentrates on walking. In LADA, strength work deserves equal billing, because holding onto muscle matters more here than in Type 2 diabetes.
The reason is that when insulin runs short, your body breaks down muscle as well as fat for fuel. Strength training pushes in the opposite direction, and muscle is also where most glucose is taken up from your blood.
A workable week looks like:
- Aerobic activity on most days — brisk walking, cycling, swimming or climbing stairs — adding up to around 150 minutes.
- Strength work on two or three non-consecutive days.
- Avoiding two full days in a row with nothing at all.
Strength work needs no gym. Squats standing up from a chair, wall push-ups progressing to floor push-ups, lunges, calf raises, and holding a plank cover the major muscle groups. Two sets of ten to twelve of each is a reasonable starting point. Household items — a filled water bottle, a bag of atta — work perfectly well as weights.
Build up slowly. The most common reason people stop is starting too hard in the first week and hurting for the next three.
If you have eye, kidney, nerve or heart complications, or high blood pressure, ask your doctor before starting heavy lifting or high-intensity work — some activities need adapting.