Week Four: Feeling The Burn

Very few things are as perplexing to me as my blood sugar.  I seriously thought that adding an exercise regimen to my diet would lower my blood sugar and all would be right with the world once again.  NOT.
I am a member of an exercise group at our church.  The intensity of our work outs vary depending on who shows up and how ambitious we feel.  I had found that my blood sugar was lower after exercise class, so I was happy. 
Now that I am getting an intense work out two to three times a week at the gym, it's like trying to hit a moving target.  Some times my blood sugar goes up while I work out. Apparently after the body burns the glucose from the pre-exercise snack of simple carbs and protein, the liver kicks in with stored glucose to power you through your work out. The rest of the biology is too confusing for me to try to explain, even if I understood it. 
Sometimes, my blood sugar goes down.  Way down.  To avoid meeting paramedics and the business end of a dextrose injection, I am planning my meals and snacks carefully.  So far, so good.
My personal trainer (PT) backed off on the intensity of my work outs after the unfortunate blood sugar diving episode.  Now we have been moving slowly back to work outs that leave me sore and out of breath.  This week we began more core strengthening, weights and cardio.  I am enjoying the challenge and am quite amazed at what a weakling I am!  I now have no illusions of being fit.  PT is working muscles that I didn't even know I had.  I am, once again, waking each morning to a find out what hurts.  And surprisingly enough, I missed that in the last couple of weeks. It is a good pain; a pain resulting from pushing myself to my limit and finding that it's a little farther than it was the week before. 
We are proceeding with caution.  After every component of my exercise, PT is asking "how does your head feel?".  When blood sugar is low, my ability to reason or be rational is the first sign that things are going south.   ( note to family and friends:  my blood sugar is NOT always low!)
Once, after a long day at the office I ran to the big box store to exchange a gift.  Long story short, the customer service person was less than sympathetic to my plight and I went in search of a manager for further assistance.  This unfortunate man was witness to my rapidly tanking glucose level as I went from a rational adult to a crying puddle before his very eyes.  Even I was a bit surprised by my behavior.  It wasn't until I was in the car on the way home did it dawn on me that I hadn't had lunch and it was almost supper time.  I avoided that store for a couple of weeks after that incident, afraid that my picture was hanging in the employee lounge under the words "Yikes!  Approach with caution and kleenex!". 
We are back on track and moving into exercises to strengthen my core muscles.  Most of these exercises are generally hard and unpleasant.  Planks are a great core strengthening exercise.  You lay on your stomache on the floor and then hold up your weight with your toes and your forearms.  I started at 30 seconds and am moving up from there.  You feel the burn in your stomach and it hurts just to breath.  I encourage you to give it a try. 
My Saturday session with PT ended with core exercises on the floor.  Scissoring your legs in the air while laying my back caused cramps in my thighs.  PT assured me that when my core was in shape, the abdominal mucles would take over the work of my legs.  Apparently yesterday was not that day!  I felt pretty good when I got out of bed on Sunday morning.  I didn't really notice my stomach muscles were sore until I started to sing praise choruses before worship.  Using my diaphragm to sing made me thank my PT over and over during the half hour we sang and led worship.
And yet in the midst of my thanks and praise to our awesome Creator, I stopped to give a humble thank you for being able to have this experience.  Having a PT who challenges me, patiently works with my wild blood sugar swings and motivates me want to work hard is a blessing.  Watching myself "coming into focus" after a long time of mirror avoiding moments is a gift.  Being able to share (and vent) to whoever cares to read this blog has made the process so much more fun! 
Tune in next week as I relate my first 5K experience!