Emily’s Exercise BG Thread

Yes, you can replace muscle glycogen much faster if you refuel soon after you finish.

But…

Walking is primarily going to be fueled by fat metabolism. If you are walking very fast or up hills, your heart rate could get into the zone where it uses more muscle glycogen. But in general, walking would be aerobic and would be much more in line with fat metabolism.

In case you haven’t see these, here are a few threads to review:

This image kind of gives an idea of how the intensity affects how you are fueling the activity. With running, there are actually calculations used for training that tell you where you are at 50% muscle glycogen and 50% fat metabolism.

A few more points - a) walking will lower your BG because your body will use any available fuel source it can, and if you have glucose available in your blood it will use that (and therefor lower you somewhat), and b) for the most part, you do not need to be too concerned with replacing muscle glycogen after less intense activities. You will use some muscle glycogen, but unless you are doing very intense walking, it will not be a glycogen depleting activity. Just general carb consumption throughout the day will top off your fuel tank.

For walking, the main benefit for eating carbs afterward is not so much for the muscle glycogen replacement, but to prevent the lower BGs that generally follow physical activity. So for something like that, you don’t need to be as concerned with bolusing, and then carbing up. You can eat the carbs to prevent the lows afterward, or eat carbs as needed if you start to go lower. The time you walk is also important. If you do it late in the evening, you may not get the low until you are asleep. So you may want to start a bit earlier until you are comfortable with how many carbs you need.

Exercise is a great fix for many things. I am happy that you are working on doing this. It helps in many ways!

Anyway, ask questions!

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