In my mid-teens I was one skinny kid. It used to bother me to be so thin, but nothing I did seemed to help me gain weight. My finicky appetite didn’t help matters. Finally, around the age of 16 I got desperate. I started eating a fourth meal in the evenings, made up of things I liked that were high in calories. I would indulge in huge bowls of ice cream or sometimes eat two or three slices of bread covered liberally with peanut butter. Lo and behold, I started gaining weight. My body shape wasn’t very impressive, however. I was still pretty scrawny in my arms and legs, but I had developed a nice plump belly. Realizing that this wasn’t working, I began to lift weights and started looking a little better.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but the tendency to accumulate fat around the belly is a strong indicator of potential problems with diabetes in later life. Slim-legged people with big stomachs are a walking diabetic time bomb. Obesity itself is a huge risk factor in developing diabetes, but when the fat goes straight to the stomach, it is the worst of all scenarios. Dr. Gerald Bernstein, director of the diabetes-management program at the Gerald J. Friedman Diabetes Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City observes,
When those fat cells go in and around your belly, not down in your buttocks or your hips, but when it’s around the belly…that fat in and of itself works to block the action of insulin, which is necessary to lower the blood sugar.14
Beyond that, fat cells are terribly inefficient at processing insulin to start with; muscle does a far better job. The more fat you accumulate, the more insulin-resistant you tend to become. In your youth you may be able to get away with being overweight and still have normal blood-sugar levels. But as you age and your metabolism slows down, all that fat will catch up with you. The bottom line is this: people who struggle with high blood sugar cannot afford to be overweight. If you are serious about getting your blood sugar under control you must take the necessary steps to get to a proper weight. If when you turn sideways and look at yourself in the mirror you discover a blob of flesh hanging out over your waist, you must deal with this.
That’s the bad news; here’s the good news: Our bodies are remarkably responsive to diet and exercise. And here’s better news: we’re not talking about turning you into some obsessed, sweaty gym freak, or putting you on concentration-camp rations. The first thing to know (and rejoice in) is that doing stomach crunches and sit-ups won’t get rid of your belly fat anyway, so you can breathe easy. It is a myth that if you target an area of your body for strenuous exercise (spot exercise), you will get rid of all the fat buildup around that area. You will not. Thus, the answer to a large stomach is not sit-ups. They can be useful in toning, but they are not compulsory.
The beautiful thing about push-ups is that you don’t have to go to a gym, and you don’t need fancy equipment or weights of any kind. All you need is your body and a convenient floor—something most of us should be able to come up with!
What is it then? First and foremost, it is getting to the right weight for your height. This is something that should happen pretty naturally when you get serious about a low-carb diet. It is possible to eat low-carb and still be overweight, but it is not easy and it is not normal.
Second, anaerobic exercise (lifting weights, doing push-ups, and so forth) will build muscle, and every pound of your flesh that is converted to muscle is one less pound that will sit around as useless fat. You don’t have to look like a weight lifter to be sure, but being relatively toned is a worthy goal. The great news is that you can achieve this with very little effort. Three or four sets of push-ups per day for three days out of the week will do wonders in this area. Add to this by investing in a pair of dumbbells, and you should have all you need to turn things around.
In years gone by aerobic exercise was more highly recommended by the experts for diabetics than anaerobic. But today opinions have changed, and nearly everyone is recognizing that a toned, lean body is a tremendous asset in the war against high blood sugar. Don’t give up on your walking, jogging, or swimming, but make sure to pump a little iron or do those push-ups!
Exercise by itself, however, is not likely to get rid of all your belly fat. You are almost certainly going to have to drop some pounds as well. Lose enough weight and you’ll lose that fat. There is absolutely no way a large stomach can maintain itself if you stop feeding it all those extra calories. And once the fat goes, you’ll be amazed at how your insulin resistance will be diminished. Some experts estimate that as much as 90 percent of type 2 diabetes (particularly in America) is related to obesity and belly fat.
So…get your weight and your belly under control, and watch your blood-sugar numbers improve dramatically!