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Diet & Fitness

6 Astonishing Health Benefits of Walking for Diabetic Patients

Exercise is a healthy routine. As previously explained in the benefits of doing simple exercises, by exercising, we can lower fat levels, increase muscle mass, and reduce stress levels. Apparently, exercise is also beneficial for people suffering from certain diseases such as diabetes. 

Diabetics who exercise can lower stress levels, as well as lower blood sugar levels and reduce the body’s need for insulin. Plus, by doing a proportionate exercise, they can also be more protected from diabetic foot.

Various disorders of the foot organs are the second most common complications faced by people with diabetes mellitus. A series of such conditions are commonly referred to as diabetic foot.

In contrast to foot disorders in people with normal health conditions, various foot disorders of diabetics can be a life-threatening stage if not handled properly.

There are many disorders that can appear, such as mild ulcers, gangrene, or a prolonged sense of weakness. Ulcers or wounds in diabetics can be treated even with a long healing process. as long as you use a wound dryer ointment on the right diabetes. 

Otherwise, the ulcer that will most likely turn into a gangrene, require you to perform an amputation. Although it can not be cured, complaints that appear in diabetic feet can be overcome by regulating a healthy lifestyle, nutrition and nutrition intake and regular exercise. 

These three activities will make your blood sugar well controlled which directly improves your quality of life. A common, safe, and easy sport for diabetics is walking, not jogging let alone running, unless you have mild diabetes. 

In addition, walking is suitable for older people, as you can see here in the benefits of walking for seniors, which shows how awesome it is to have a bunch of benefits just from this simple activity.

Even though it does look simple, don’t turn a blind eye on it since by simply adopting this method of exercise, you can gain incredible benefits, such as:

1. Increases Insulin Sensitivity

Regular walking every morning is known to increase insulin sensitivity. In other words, this light exercise is suitable for practice by those of you who suffer from type 2 diabetes characterized by insulin resistance. Walking is ideally done in the morning before you take breakfast and antidiabetic medications.

Morning time, especially from 2 to 8 o’clock is known as the dawn phenomenon. This phenomenon explains the rapidly increasing condition of blood sugar in diabetics because the nutrients from dinner are stored during sleep. 

That’s why diabetes medications are taken in the morning. Exercising in the morning can also increase insulin sensitivity and encourage optimization of drug absorption. If you can, you could also try to have the benefits of brisk walking as well.

2. Helps to Regulate Blood Sugar

Walking activity is known to improve blood sugar control in the body, this is inseparable from its association with the use of fatty acids as fuel. Meanwhile, fatty acids are one of the performance-inhibiting factors of insulin. Walking is also able to reduce blood sugar production in the body.

In addition to improving control over blood sugar, walking can also encourage muscles to absorb more blood sugar. Because, blood sugar or glucose is a source of energy needed by humans to do activities.  However, this effect is not permanent and only lasts for hours to days.

Therefore, in order to avoid complaints due to increasingly severe diabetes, you are advised to do regular walking activities because the benefits of walking for diabetes are quite important.

3. Exercising Muscle Strength

Exercise in various types and portions will have a good influence on the condition of a person’s muscles, as well as for people with diabetes mellitus. With regular walking, your leg muscles will be trained and strong so as to avoid or suppress the possibility of getting disorders such as diabetic foot.

Do it at least for an hour, in order to fully grasp the benefits of walking 60 minutes a day at the same time. Don’t be ashamed of taking breaks between sessions, a healthy exercise is not the excessive one.

4. Creates Healthy Heart

One of the complications of diabetes is heart problems. Regular walking is known to provide good benefits to your heart health. 

If you want to avoid the risk of blockage of blood flow, you can also try to avoid complications that always lurk when you have diabetes mellitus. All can be obtained simply by walking.

5. Increases Life Quality

Not to be neglected, the benefits of walking for diabetes have been through various types of research. One of the studies that raised walking activity in the diabetes prevention program in the Journal of Diabetes and Metabolic Disorder published by Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, India. 

From the study conducted on 102 diabetics with different ages, the result was found that doing walking activities for 30-40 minutes routinely can improve the quality of life of diabetics.

A good walking routine can start with a light portion. Before practicing the recommended routine in the study, you can start by walking for 5-10 minutes in one week. Portions are then added each turn of the week, until you’re strong enough to do this activity for 30 minutes every day. 

Hopefully, the benefits of walking for diabetes can really get you at once to suppress complaints of nausea and dizziness in diabetics. Also if you can, try doing barefoot walking, since it can also give you other wonderful benefits of grounding walking barefoot.

6. Effective Way to Burn Calories (to achieve desired weight goal!)

Walking for long minutes a day can surely burn your calories. Even though it’s not as active as running or marathon, walking is actually as effective.

Don’t push yourself too hard. Do it for 60 minutes a day, it’s more than enough to lower your weight to achieve your healthy weight.