Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: This is the latest health brought to you by the Maria Holder Diabetes center and the Barbados Diabetes Foundation. In today's program, we speak with Lisa Banfield as she shares on the topic choose exercise for a healthier you.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Good morning. My name is Lisa Banfield and I am the vascular technician here at the Maria Holder Diabetes Center. And my job basically entails screening for persons living with diabetes and other chronic diseases to ensure that they have adequate blood supply going to their lower extremities.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: She spoke on how exercise can positively affect the glucose levels of a diabetic patient.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: So when we speak about diabetes control, we're talking about things like lifestyle modifications. And lifestyle modifications usually come in the form of things like diet and exercise. In terms of exercise, we would encourage you to at least do 30 minutes a day, three times a week. And that can aid with your blood sugar levels. That can also help you to just feel better, it helps you to de stress, it can help with weight reduction. It can also improve your cholesterol and blood pressure levels. It can improve your heart function, muscle function, and all of that can really just make you a healthier person, as well as make sure that all the levels that I would have mentioned previously are as controlled as they possibly can. So essentially what happens is when you exercise, you use glucose stores that's in the body. So with elevated blood sugar levels, what exercise can do is it pulls from the glucose stores and therefore you can have a lowering of your blood sugar levels post exercise, obviously for a long duration of exercise, meaning on a consistent basis, then you can look forward to having improved blood glucose levels.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: Exercise looks different for everybody, depending on a number of factors.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: So exercise really looks different for everybody. When we say exercise, we can talk about something as simple as just a brisk walk for 30 minutes. I encourage my patients who like to swim and who can swim to employ that option. There is the good old handy regular weight training, or we can go into something more fun. We're all into like the dance, aerobics and that kind of thing. So you can employ quite a few options where exercise is concerned. But my ideal goal for most persons is to just make sure that you enjoy the exercise. You never want it to be labor somewhere you don't feel like you don't want to do it. So I encourage people to do things that they like to do. So be it dance, be it swim, be it jogging, be it running, do what you like to do.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Can diabetics engage in a sport and are there any special considerations?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: I would say yes, but with everything else we would really like to tell people to have as much control and supervision when you are engaging in activities like that. Make sure that your peers know that you are diabetic. So that should anything occur, there are people around you who are able to help should anything happen while exercising, because that's also a risk as well.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Finally, she shared important contact information on how you can contact her and the team for more information.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Okay, so you can contact us at the Maria Holder diabetes center at 417-0305. That is 417-0305. And all of our staff here are more than willing to assist in your journey to a healthier lifestyle.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Thank you so much, Lisa. This has been the latest health brought to you by the Maria Holder Diabetes Center.
