Why Working Out Matters for Your Blood Sugar and Cholesterol
Hey Angels and Alphas,
No matter how busy your life gets, it’s important to find time to exercise regularly in order to live a healthier and longer life. Physical activity has been proven to reduce your chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, and many types of cancers, but how does it actually impact your health? When you start working out, here are three things to expect from your blood sugar and cholesterol levels.
The Importance of Exercise
Exercise is important because it helps maintain a healthy weight, which can help reduce the risk of diabetes and high blood sugar. Workouts also improve insulin sensitivity, which can help prevent or control diabetes. Exercise improves your cholesterol by reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and increasing HDL (good) cholesterol levels. Plus, exercise helps you sleep better at night!
What Type of Cardio is Best
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is probably the most efficient form of cardio for fat loss. HIIT is also a very time-efficient way to train since it’s so intense. The best part about HIIT is that you only need to spend around 20 minutes doing it, three times per week. To do HIIT, alternate between 30 seconds of all out effort followed by 90 seconds of rest.
The Importance of Intensity in Your Workouts
Intensity is the key to making exercise work for you. The National Institute of Health recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise per week. In order to get the desired benefits from your workouts, you need to make sure you are working hard enough. If your workout isn’t challenging enough, then it’s not effective. You should be able to talk during a workout, but not sing or shout without much difficulty. If you can do more than one minute without stopping or talking, then it might be too easy.
Interval Training
Exercise can play a major role in maintaining healthy blood sugar and cholesterol levels. While most people know that getting enough sleep, eating well, and staying active are all part of a healthy lifestyle, research has shown that exercise has additional benefits.
Studies have shown that working out on a regular basis helps to control blood sugar levels by promoting insulin sensitivity in the muscles. Additionally, exercise leads to an increase in HDL cholesterol (the good kind), which helps keep LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) low. Exercising regularly is also beneficial because it reduces inflammation within the body; this process is vital because chronic inflammation can lead to many serious conditions such as diabetes and heart disease.
How Training Impacts Your Blood Sugar
By now you’ve probably heard that exercise is good for your health, and most doctors would agree. Exercise lowers blood pressure, increases HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol), reduces LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol), improves insulin sensitivity, helps to control weight gain, relieves anxiety, combats depression, helps prevent osteoporosis, increases energy levels – the list goes on.
But what many people don’t know is that exercise also improves blood sugar control. In fact, studies show that when overweight or obese individuals start a regular walking program, their fasting glucose levels will drop by up to 20%. Studies also show that even moderate exercise can be beneficial in lowering fasting glucose levels in patients with diabetes.
How Training Impacts Your Cholesterol
When you exercise, the body releases a substance called lipoprotein lipase that helps break down cholesterol in your bloodstream. This process is known as reverse cholesterol transport, which moves cholesterol from the walls of your arteries back to your liver where it’s excreted.
Regular exercise also improves insulin sensitivity so that cells can more efficiently use glucose (sugar) to create energy, which lowers blood sugar levels. Exercise also reduces inflammation in the body, which has been shown to decrease the risk of diabetes.
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