My Favourite Health & Fitness Freebies

A continuous glucose monitoring system, the MiniMed 670G self-adjusting insulin pump, a personal trainer AND an unlimited food budget so I can buy organic, ethically sourced food all the time…

And, whoops—you interrupted me there in the middle of a reverie relating to the things I’d have to help me manage my diabetes if money were no object. The top of the range monitoring and pump therapy tech is obvious while the food and exercise one less so—but activity and an excellent low-carb diet can help you manage your blood glucose levels.

Stable blood glucose levels don’t guarantee you riches or the partner of your dreams, but a person who doesn’t ride the blood sugar roller coaster is far more energetic, and free to pursue what they want unhindered by the hell of mood swings.

In the meantime, what can we fiscally challenged diabetics do so we can fix our blood glucose levels to the best of our abilities? Here are suggestions for freebies that can help you manage your condition…

YouTube—otherwise known as the exercise channel in our house. Online, you’ll find tens of thousands of exercise uploads—from yoga to Pilates, barre classes, HIIT workouts and weight-lifting. You could spend several years working your way through them and not do the same workout twice. If you find gyms off-putting or their membership fees too expensive, YouTube’s perfect. Look for workouts that don’t need equipment either.

Start with walking workouts (Lesley Sansome’s Walk at Home channel is great). Fitness Blender’s videos are explained well, and the exercises done at a speed you can keep up with. Jessica Smith TV does a huge variety of workouts that offer different fitness benefits, and Heart and Soul Fitness does the same.

MyFitnessPal—there are studies that claim food tracking helps you maintain your weight. Food logs are useful for we diabetics too as they allow us to work out how much insulin we need for meals we eat regularly. MyFitnessPal has a huge database, but you can also add your own recipes and the site will give you a full nutritional breakdown of each.

MySugr – a free app for logging blood sugar results and additional information such as insulin does, exercise, weight, blood pressure and more. The app is useful, but if you don’t log for a day or so you will struggle to remember all the information you need to input for a complete picture of what is going on.

The internet—thanks to the world-wide web, there’s a wealth of information at our fingertips. As a teenager and twenty-something with diabetes, I only knew one or two others with the condition, and we didn’t meet up regularly to swap notes. Now there are forums, websites, charities, blogs, recipes and more online where we can find out more about the ol’ defunct pancreas problem.

A word to the wise… We all know the internet allows unprecedented freedom of speech, which is mostly for the good. But it’s also a place where information spreads unchecked. Blogs—and I include this one too—offer opinions and personal experience, which do not always equate to fact and recommendations suitable for you. Still, the Diet Doctor, Diabetes.co.uk, radiabetes.com and diabetesdaily.com offer gems. (I  apologise if I missed your great site out—limited room here.)

And finally…drum roll… the NHS! Here in the UK, we folks with type 1 diabetes get free healthcare and prescriptions. I mump and moan occasionally about wanting the latest tech, but I’ve had diabetes for more than 30 years and in that time, I’ve never paid for medications, appointments or equipment. Our fabulous healthcare system has existed 70 years now. It’s shaky on its feet sometimes, but you can’t argue with the wonderful principles at its core—free healthcare for all, based on clinical need.

What are your favourite diabetes freebies? And what websites or blogs do you like?