Hi,

I tried this question in the diabetes forum which is its more natural place, but no-one seemed too familiar with the problem. I am not diabetic but a recent fasting blood sugar test was too high, and I started to keep a check. When I exercise I always get a blood glucose increase of about 10 points e.g. if my pre-exercise blood sugar is 88, I might go to 98. I recently went from 100 to 118 on exercise alone.

From trying to google it, it seems not a common thing. There are a few references to intense exercise causing a bump up in blood sugar. But I don't know that I would class my training as particularly intense (mix of 20 mins aerobic with interval-style intermittent sprints, followed by 20 mins weight machines - is that 'intense'?).

Does anyone here experience that or have an idea what is going on?

By the way, if you are like I was and never give too much thought to blood sugar, it may be interesting to know that you can get a self-test glucose meter for $20 (test strips are $1 each), and testing takes about 30 seconds. At that price and convenience, I think they make a great medicine cabinet item for anyone, even non-diabetics, for making an occasional health check on fasting blood glucose,

Paul.

It seems logical the body would produce sugar via gluconeogenesis to keep it available for use by the muscles. How long have you been doing this workout? If it's something new, then I'd consider it 'intense' because your body is being stressed.

Hum things have been patchy - several years without exercise due to ill-health, then I have been exercising Nov 06 till now, with a break at the Christmas period, and a break in March, but otherwise regular schedule of 5-6 times per week. It does feel challenging, especially the interval training and elevated heart rate, but I guess I still think of intense as a different level to what I do.

About gluconeogenesis, yes that makes sense, but from what material I can find, that won't be causing a rise in blood glucose for the average person (except for the 'intense' situations). What I'm most curious about is if I can avoid it by different types of training, or at different times of day, or maybe it's a temporary aberration that I can burn off eventually (I hope).

Hmm,

Are you a diabetic? If so, have you talked to your endocrinologist about it?

If you are not diabetic you may want to go see and endocrinologist (Doctor of the chemicals in the blood).