Re: Exercise helps control diabetes

I think that diabetes is the result of many different factors from genetics, to the way we live.  And a lack of physical activity is certainly one of the factors.  Added to that, in just the past 40 years, the life expectancy has increased significantly allowing many people to "age into" diabetes.  My father was diagnosed diabetic 50 years ago, before home blood testing.  He was not overweight, walked everywhere (he didn't have an automobile) and was in 'good' shape - but he ate pie for breakfast, cookies for lunch and cake for dinner, prepared for all of us by out good cook mother.  We all developed poor eating habits.  He was able to cut down the sweets and lived to 81, but would have been much better with home testing.  Yet, exercise can really make a difference in not just controlling diabetes, but I find that it helps me to control my appetite, and I also get a sense of well being from it.

If you've ever been in the workplace in large groups where you get to know a lot of people from different backgrounds and different lifestyles, you will find most of them disregard real healthy living.  The workplaces that I've been in all had schedules, deadlines, and a big push - and that's in the white collar area.  Martini's for lunch were common, and I participated in that too, but I also jogged a lot.  Most everyone is in control of their own physical destiny.  Most know it.  Many don't care.  I do.

There are 200-300,000 knee replacement surgeries in the USA each year.  They need a factory.  I had one of mine done six months ago and it totally changed the way I walk and will take more than a year to recover, but I am getting out now for an hour at a time, five and six days a week.  I need some upper body work too, and am struggling to get that cranked in.  I was bone on bone before surgery and did everything in my power to keep from having it, but it just became too painful.  Staph and other hospital infections are deadly, and they have been in hospitals for decades.

"Hmm. I wonder if the same people who are most blatantly disregarding the doctor's recommendation to exercise are ones who also disregarded "health" advice in general and that's what led to them being diabetics (or at least such severe diabetics) in the first place... ?
OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE FOR ALL

My grandfather was a diabetic and if the doctor said do it, he did it. He got off insulin and controlled it through a strict diet. He also exercised every day. He didn't cheat at ALL. He soaked his feet in a vinegar bath every night, wore special socks, etc... and he lived 20+ years that way, and when he died it was because of a hospital infection when he had knee replacement surgery, not anything directly related to being diabetic.

I know someone my age who is a diabetic and he doesn't exercise at all! And he eats stuff like full sugar desserts all the time..."