Working out the buddy system

Terry Barton, who has type 2 diabetes, has an exercise buddy who never takes no for an answer. “He insists we keep the routine going. In the past five years, he’s never let me take a day off unless I’m out of town,” says Barton, a 65-year-old mortgage broker/banker from Godfrey, Ill.

Barton’s exercise buddy is a 107-pound sheepdog named Bear, who leaps, wiggles, and barks if Barton lingers over his coffee.

Before Barton was diagnosed with diabetes five years ago, he took only short walks around the block. “Bear always wanted to go farther, but I was too busy—or so I thought,” he says. Now, Barton and Bear walk for two hours every morning and an hour every evening to help Barton control his weight.

Last on the list
If a person has diabetes, exercise is often the last thing on his or her to-do list, says Lois Exelbert, RN, administrative director of the Diabetes Center at Baptist Hospital in Miami, Fla. Even if they always monitor their blood sugar, watch their diet, and take their medicine, patients often claim they don’t have time to exercise.

“Yet without exercise, the other things on the list really don’t work very well,” says Exelbert. “Exercise needs to be a regular part of the day, like brushing your teeth.”

Luigi Meneghini, MD, director of the Eleanor and Joseph Kosow Diabetes Treatment Center at the Diabetes Research Institute in Miami, says exercise is key for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. “The more active you are,” he says, “the greater the benefit.”

In addition to helping you feel better, exercise helps ward off the nerve, eye, kidney, and blood-vessel damage associated with diabetes, notes Dr. Meneghini. He adds that exercise also helps people with type 1 diabetes prevent the weight gain that could lead to insulin resistance.

Be sure to talk to your doctor about what kinds of exercise you can to do help manage your diabetes.

Something for everyone
You can start exercising simply by parking your car farther away from your office, supermarket, or shopping mall entrance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website (www.cdc.gov) has an exercise-for-all page with light, moderate, and vigorous activities to choose from.

A former high school athlete, Barton enjoyed running until his knees gave out. By the time he was 60, he broke a sweat only in the steam room. “As my exercise options decreased, I’ve had to adjust,” he says. But he has found a nice park and a woodsy trail near his home where he can walk Bear and work on his own heart-health at the same time.

The first step—whether you are a couch potato or an athlete—is to set up an exercise program with help from your doctor, diabetes educator, or nutritionist. If your doctor gives the okay, this kind of diabetes self-management training may qualify as a Medicare-approved service.

“Simply telling people to be more active means nothing,” says Exelbert. “You need someone to get you started on a personalized program.”

The second step is to follow that program—even if you don’t have an exercise buddy named Bear.