Insulin Sensitivity

Insulin sensitivity. This is a topic that seems to be neglected and not given enough focus. In an ideal world, insulin needs would be the same for both morning and evening times. There would be no variables and differences. Unfortunately, this isn't an ideal world. Diabetics will find their insulin needs differ for different parts of the day. The amount of insulin needed to consume a banana in the morning will differ from the evening time. Let's discuss why...

Most type 1 diabetics will probably find themselves needing more insulin in the morning. Why is this? This is because of our basal insulin needs. What does the term 'basal insulin needs' mean? All through the day, our pancreas supplies the body with small amounts of insulin to transfer the glucose from our liver into our bloodstream. This is known as our basal insulin needs.

Our basal insulin needs change according to what part of the day it is. During the night and morning, we are inactive (sleep). Due to the inactivity at night, our basal insulin needs increase. Another major factor for this increase is the production of growth hormones during sleep. Growth hormone and cortisol cause the increase of blood sugar levels during the period of sleeping. This will cause our basal insulin needs to increase during sleep to counteract the increase of blood sugar levels. During the day, our basal insulin needs lower. Why? Generally, we are active during the day which causes us to become more sensitive to insulin thus our bodies need less insulin. Anyone who is under the age of 21, will have higher basal insulin needs due to their bodies constantly changing (growing). Everyone has different basal insulin needs so no two people are the same.

How do we understand our basal insulin needs and how do we control our blood sugar levels? Trial and error. Unfortunately, there is no easy or quick way around this. You will have to closely monitor your blood sugar levels over a period of time (i.e. 1 week or more). Over that time, you will have to check your blood sugar levels before eating and 90-120 minutes after eating/injecting. If your blood sugar levels remain in range after the 90 minutes, then you are fine. If they differ from your ideal range or level from before eating, then you need to adjust your insulin dose. The most important thing is keeping as many factors as consistent as possible such as sleep, nutrition, activity level and many others. This is something I recommend and do to help control my own diabetes. Keeping my sleep, diet and exercise as consistent as possible is essential to my success of controlling diabetes. But how does this correlate to exercising?

Firstly, different types of exercises have different impacts on insulin sensitivity and blood sugar levels. Firstly, we will discuss weightlifting. From my experience, high rep weightlifting (more than 8 reps) lowers my overall blood sugar levels (hypertrophy). Anything less than 8 reps (strength), tends to have no impact or increase my blood sugar levels very slightly. Aerobic exercises such as running tend to lower my blood sugar levels.

In regards to insulin sensitivity around exercising, I find that I'm very sensitive to insulin straight after weightlifting workouts and normally have lower doses. If I consume carbs after a weightlifting workout, I find that I require less insulin than normal. This does not apply to aerobic workouts as aerobic workouts do not make me more sensitive to insulin. This may differ for other people but if you monitor your blood sugar readings as mentioned above, then you will find out for yourself!

Thanks again for reading! Next blog will be published Sunday.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional and I always recommend seeking a medical professional if you have any problems with diabetes. I am writing this information based on my own experiences as a type 1 diabetic. Thank you.