No Games, Just Sports

Friday 5/14 - Let's get moving. Exercise . . . love it or hate it? Do you have a regular exercise routine? Or do you have trouble finding your exercise motivation? How do you manage your insulin and food to avoid bottoming out during your workout? Today is the day to tell us all about your exercise habits, or lack thereof.

Exercise is essential to diabetes life.  But sometimes exercise is . . . well . . . boring!  Sorry, I can't handle being on a treadmill for 30 minutes staring at a wall.  And for me, I have a hard time of sticking to the same routine.  I need variety and spice when it comes to my exercise, which includes sports, biking, swimming, and a good walking partner. 

I'm a tomboy, to the core.  I love watching and playing competitive sports (P.S.  If you come over during an Auburn football game, you may want to bring earplugs.).  Therefore, it's no surprise that my favorite way to get in some exercise is through sports.  Currently, I'm only playing softball on my company's team.  However, during grad school I played intramural softball, football, and soccer.  Football was my most successful team; 3-year undefeated champions for the co-ed league.  I played on defense!

That's me, sitting down, in purple pants, hold up three fingers for our "three-peat".  

My softball career was a little more extensive (I'm thinking of dedicating a whole post to it later on, once I track down pictures).  For 10 years, I played fast-pitch softball year-round as a catcher.  I loved it!  I especially loved playing catcher--I could see every player on the field and I called the shots, even for the pitcher.  Softball was pre-diabetes life, though not hypoglycemia.  I knew what hypos were for a long time before diagnosis because of an incident where I nearly passed out at school when I was 12.  My mom tried these chocolate taffy bars that were supposed to normalize my BG, but they were gross!  Anyways, back to exercise and sports . . . this by far the best way for me to move around.  

Last year, Trey and I bought me a mountain bike.  I had never been over a pothole, much less a mountain on my childhood bike!  We went up to some trails here in north Alabama to test out my skills.  I fell off my bike 3 times, and only one was pretty nasty.  However, once we were done with my first trail, we found out it wasn't considered an official biking trail.  Great!  Nothing like baptism by fire!  But I still love my bike and finding a sweet downhill to evaporate the sweat from a 30 minute trek.  *Weeee!*  I'm hoping to condition myself for a marathon sometime later in life.  

I learned how to swim before I started remembering how to swim!  When I was a year old, my parents moved to my childhood home that had a pool.  I remember doing a lot of dog paddling, diving to the bottom of the pool and holding my breath as long as I could, games of "Marco Polo" with my friends, and races from the shallow end to the deep end.  Interestingly, diabetes always cooperates when I'm in water.  Whenever I go swimming, I disconnect Arnold and go have fun, but I test every hour.  And it doesn't matter if I'm doing laps or just wading in the water, my BG is always normal when I'm immersed.  If I could be a fish that never eats, my BG would be normal most of the time.

Have you seen Nemo?  

But I do know how much just getting some exercise in everyday helps my numbers.  So I try to get out for a walk everyday for at least 30 minutes.  To prevent it from getting boring, though, I feed off a good walking buddy who is excited, anxious, and begging for a walk! 

Did someone say "WALK"?