Exercise and Muscles, Why diabetics cannot lose fat easily and how to overcome, Muscle loss, Exercise types, Strength (anaerobic) Training and fat loss, Fat loss is a 3-step process and The percentage of fat for men and women
Exercise and Muscles
Exercise not only helps you to live better, it helps you to live longer.
Combining physical activity with calorie restriction protects against losses of bone, muscle mass, and aerobic capacity.
There are mainly two types of exercises. Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise.
In both ways you can burn calories (by mitochondria) and you burn both calories and fat when the blood insulin levels are low.
Importance of doing exercise when the insulin levels low are, you get double benefits of both improving the insulin sensitivity and losing the fat.
If you perform your exercise when the ingested food is still under digestion, your blood insulin will be high and you will be burning the muscle/liver glycogen and/or the food under digestion, which will improve muscle insulin sensitivity and it may or may not promote fat loss and depends on number of calories intake.
The best time slot for exercise is in the morning before your first meal of the day and just before your night time meal for fat loss.
Statistics show that occurrence of heart attacks are more in the morning when compared with rest of the day. If you have any heart related or any other medical conditions don not do this in the morning.
Before starting any type of the exercise, find out the risks, side effects and benefits from the internet. Are you fit by considering your medical conditions/medications?
Check. Consult with your doctor.
Why diabetics cannot lose fat easily and how to overcome.
a) Insulin is fat storage hormone.
Type 2 diabetic normally have high levels of sugar and high levels of insulin circulating in the blood. Without low insulin levels fat loss is virtually impossible.
Basal Hormone sensitive lipase (HSL) is decreased (about 40%) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, and this may be a consequence of elevated plasma insulin levels causing the fat loss slow.
The cascaded effect of slow fat loss.
High visceral and ectopic fats-> gluconeogenesis-> high blood sugar->high circulating insulin->low HSL-> slow fat loss.
b) Insulin secreting medications.
c) Such population have less muscle mass and strength.
Remedies
a) You need to bring down blood insulin levels low.
Done depleting glycogen stores in muscles and liver by
. Eating a low carb or keto diet.
. Weight training/strength training/resistance training/HIIT (High intensity interval training).
. Fasting (time restricted eating) and calories restriction.
. No frequent meals (every time you eat the Insulin spikes).
b No insulin secretion medications.
c Building muscle mass, strength and endurance.
Muscle loss
a) Sarcopenia (age related muscle loss)
Sarcopenia has been defined as an age related, involuntary loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength.
It encompasses decreased levels of the following 3 traits: muscle strength, muscle quantity or quality, and physical performance.
Muscle mass decreases approximately 3–8% per decade after the age of 30 and this rate of decline is even higher after the age of 60.
This involuntary loss of muscle mass, strength, and function is a fundamental cause of and contributor to disability in older people.
How to prevent this
Weight, strength and resistance training.
When it comes to muscle building, try to involve all body parts.
b) Diabetics loose skeletal muscle mass
Insulin not only lowers blood sugar levels, but also promotes the growth and proliferation of cells. Insufficient action of insulin will suppress the growth and proliferation of muscle cells, which in turn will contribute to the decline in skeletal muscle mass.
Exercise types
Aerobic exercise or “cardio’’. Oxygen and calories are used during aerobic workouts. It is of gentle, long duration and endurance type.
Examples of aerobic exercise include cycling, swimming, running, walking, hiking, Jogging, rowing, skating and climbing stairs.
Aerobic exercise is good for heart, lungs, blood flow, muscles, mood, immune system.
Anaerobic (without oxygen) exercises involve quick bursts of energy and are performed at maximum effort for a short time.
Examples include jumping, sprinting, squats, Dumbbells or weight lifting.
Anaerobic exercise is good for increasing bone strength and density, muscle mass and strength, endurance, metabolism, energy and to improve mood.
Anaerobic is better for fat loss.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
NEAT is the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise.
Examples of NEAT
Walking to work, Sweeping, Dusting, Washing dishes, Cooking
Vacuuming, Mowing the lawn, raking leaves, Gardening, fidgeting etc
You can burn around 350 cals a day.
Even body builders do this for fat loss.
You can’t spot reduce body fat.
But you can build/train each body muscle separately. And try to cover the whole-body muscles.
Strength (anaerobic) Training and fat loss
If energy intake is lower than energy burn, insulin will stay low for long periods throughout the day and night. This permits fat burning to occur at full effect except during your post meal time.
Blood sugar of less than110 mg/dL and low insulin level are required for sustained fat loss.
Strength/resistance/weight lifting training is more efficient for fat loss in short duration of exercise.
Weight lifting, dumbbells, squats etc are belonging to this.
Too much of weight lifting may cause muscle soreness in the absence of stored glycogen in the muscles, when the insulin level is low (you can learn more about lactic acid build up at high intensity workouts from the internet). Limit to moderate weights. Split in to morning and evening exercise as well. For a maximum of 300 to 500 calories fat burn through exercise, this pattern should be ok.
Anaerobic exercise uses no oxygen, hence drink plenty of water, taking deep breath is good during the exrercise.
Building more muscle is particularly beneficial when you have type 2 diabetes because muscles use the most glucose, so the more you use your muscles, the more effective you can be at controlling your blood glucose level.
The more muscle mass you have, the more glucose you can dispose of in response to insulin.
For each 10% increase in the skeletal muscle index, there is an 10% reduction in insulin resistance and a 11% reduction in prediabetes.
Drinking a casein shake just before overnight sleep increases gains in muscle mass and strength in response to resistance exercise.
Your exercise duration can be 20-25 minutes before your breakfast and for 15-20 minutes before the last meal.
Fat loss is a 3-step process
1 Lipolysis/fat release, breakdown of triglycerides from the adipose tissues.
2 Transportation by blood to muscles/organs.
3 Burning/oxidation by muscles.
Three phases of fat loss from the start
Phase1. If you are metabolically unhealthy obese, where Insulin fails to suppress lipolysis.
You have ectopic fat all around the body and in the liver as well. In this case you simply burn your fat by exercise/CR/Fasting.
Calorie deficit calculation will be for 35% of that time of the body weight. For a skinny fat person, it can be 25%.
Use moderate weights, more reps and maximum sets (mostly like endurance type). You can use dumbbells and squats.
Duration may be 2 or 3 months. And
Phase 2. If you are metabolically healthy obese and for others, fat should be released, transported and burned.
Low Insulin levels and catecholamine action are required for fat release.
You will start losing whole body fat. Catecholamines action by exercise will be good on visceral fat and you will lose a lot of this type.
Calorie deficit calculation will be for 25% of that time of the body weight.
Use moderate weights, more reps and maximum sets (mostly like endurance type). You can use dumbbells and squats.
Duration 3 or 4 months. And
Phase 3. Losing the stubborn fat, that is lower abdominal subcutaneous fat, love handle in men and in the case of women, lower body subcutaneous fat around the hip, glutes and thighs.
Calorie deficit calculation will be for 15% of that time of the body weight.
At this stage you can supplement 3g of leucine per day, if required.
Use heavy weights, maximum reps, possible sets around 80% (muscle building) and
Moderate weights, more reps, possible sets around 20% (endurance) of your exercise. You can use dumbbells and squats with different weights.
Duration 4 months.
Characteristics of stubborn fat
a) Areas have more alpha-adrenergic receptors than beta and the fat release will be slow. Less net effect by catecholamines and less lipolysis.
b) Such areas have less blood flow.
c) More Insulin sensitive (so keep your Insulin levels low).
d) Female subcutaneous fat is a lot more stubborn than male subcutaneous fat.
Required action.
Be in the calories deficit and keep the glycogen stores depleted all the time (muscle building/weight training).
Higher intensity exercises can help.
Be patient for 4 months.
Total duration for all three phases around 9 to 11 months.
During the fat loss process, it is better to eat only 3 meals a day to avoid insulin spikes. Every time you eat, you spike your insulin. If you have problems with digesting protein powders along with your regular meals, you may have your protein after 1 or 2 hours post your meals.
Even in the later stages of fat loss programme, continue to perform your exercises, both in the morning and in the evenings. Otherwise on and off, only a morning exercise with higher weights might be a good choice at this stage if the calories are restricted. This depends on calories intake.
Even though the aim is to reverse the type 2 diabetes, you can still live healthily and happily with your medications provided if you maintain or add more muscle mass and don’t overeat.
Continue your strength training along with the required protein till your later ages, say 80’s and 90’s. Without adequate muscle mass, you will tend to add more body fat when you overeat.
Some people take whey protein during the daytime and casein in the night, this might be a good choice, once the body fat is reduced and when you like to add more muscles.
The percentage of fat for men and women is classified as below,
Category Percentage for men,
Essential fat 3-5%
Athletes 6-14%
Fitness 14-18%
Acceptable 18-24%
Obesity >25%.
Category Percentage for women,
Essential fat 10-14%
Athletes 14-21%
Fitness 21-25%
Acceptable 25-32%
Obesity >32%.
For a diabetic, you should build muscles and burn your fat in such a way that your body fat percentage should in the athletic/fitness range that is 13% for men and 22% for women, so that you will not have insulin resistance probably for the rest of your life, provided there is no excessive calories in take in future.
Or
You can stop at the level of fat as you like/required especially for the women (the above reference percentage is only approximate and a guess, this can vary with population)
Indoor exercises to save time, or during adverse weather conditions to meet our needs, suitable for both men and women
(Easy, time saving and effective).
If you perform below such exercises for about 20-25 minutes before your first meal and 15-20 minutes before your last meal of the day, you get the required benefits. Keep your glycogen stores depleted all the time.
Or if you have any better plans, you can follow that.
Before starting any type of the exercise, find out the risks, side effects and benefits from the internet. Are you fit by considering your medical conditions/medications?
Check. Consult with your doctor.
Dumbbell exercise for upper body (anaerobic)
Target muscles Arms, shoulders, upper back and chest etc.
For men weighing 70 kg can buy a pair of dumbbells of 6 kg x 2 or 7.5 kg x 2 initially. For more information of exercise type and correct weight of dumbbells, you can find from internet.
Squat for both upper and lower body (anaerobic)
Squat is a dynamic strength training exercise that requires several muscles in your upper and lower body to work together simultaneously.
Many of these muscles help you for your daily tasks such as bending, walking, climbing stairs, or carrying heavy loads.
Ultimately your hands, arms, legs and joints are the ones that will be used in your day-to-day needs at any age.
On the average if you manage to burn 300 to 500 calories per day depending on your weight, that will be your good target.
If your weight is something like 100 kg are more, exercise will add more benefits and it will be better with muscle building to burn 500 calories.
By adding exercise during calories deficit, you can see noticeable changes in fat loss, that will motivate you to be consistent and can continue with the fat loss programme.
This type of exercise is followed for fat loss program. Once you completed this program you should combine both aerobic as well as other types of anaerobic exercises to get all the benefits. Aerobic exercise is good for heart, lungs and blood circulation.
If you need to build more muscles later, you may have to follow a different pattern like whey protein, a bit calories surplus, progressive overload and recovery period etc.
Read more in web for the type of protein, amount, exercise type, time and plan etc.