Managing Blood Sugar With Exercise: The Sri Lankan Guide to Eating Rice and Staying Healthy

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Sri Lanka ranks amongst the highest incidences of Type 2 diabetes in Asia. One of the spaces that is the busiest in any government hospital is the diabetes clinic. The diabetes clinic is one of the busiest rooms in any government hospital. But the food that the majority of Sri Lankans eat on a daily basis, such as rice, dhal, pol sambol, bread, string hoppers, is primarily composed of carbohydrates.

This establishes a very particular issue. High-carb foods spike the blood sugar level. If blood sugar is kept elevated for months and years, the consequences are severe: diabetes, weight gain, nerve damage, kidney disease and heart disease.

However, this is not what most Sri Lankans are told. There’s no need to sacrifice food. Exercise must be used as a tool to control the impact of food on your body. And, if you do this correctly, you can have rice and curry every day without your blood sugar going out of control.

How Sri Lankan food affects blood sugar

Your body converts white rice to glucose rapidly after having a meal of white rice. Then, that glucose gets into your blood and your blood sugar increases. Your pancreas produces insulin to control it, bringing glucose from the blood to cells for use or storage.

This is a natural process. The issue is that if it occurs too rapidly or too frequently, there is not enough activity to absorb the glucose.

One of the most important glucose disposal systems in your body is your muscles! During muscle activity, glucose uptake occurs in the active muscle, both with and without the presence of insulin. It’s the biological fact that makes exercise so effective for blood sugar control. Each time you exercise your muscle tissue after a meal, you are moving the glucose through them more effectively.

If you’re consuming rice two or three times daily, as many people in Sri Lanka do, it can mean the difference between life and death. The most important 30-60 minutes of your day are after eating.

This is the most powerful thing you’re probably not doing: the Post-Meal Walk

One of the best researched ways of managing blood sugar is to walk for 10 to 15 minutes immediately after a meal; doing so within 30 minutes will be enough. Several studies demonstrate that walking after a meal lowers blood sugar rise by 20-30% when compared to sitting still after the same meal.

There is no need to hurry while walking. A relaxed rate is sufficient. Need to get your leg muscles moving, since they’re the biggest muscle groups in your body, and the strongest glucose absorbers on the market.

This is a natural thing to do for Sri Lankans. After lunch, walk around the neighbourhood for 10 minutes. A leisurely stroll around the block after supper. After breakfast and tea, a walking tour. Three walks a day, 10 minutes at a time, means 30 minutes of blood sugar-balancing exercise without a single gym class.

If going outside is unsafe due to heat, rain, or not possible, march in place indoors, walk up and down your hallway, or walk on a walking pad. It’s the movement that’s important, not the destination!

Exercise programmes tailored to Sri Lankans in their glucose management

There are certain types of exercise that make your body better and better at controlling blood sugar levels even when you’re not working out after a meal.

The best long-term weapon is resistance training. With muscle building from weight training, your body stores and uses a greater amount of glucose. The larger the amount of muscle, the greater the amount of glucose disposal. This is the reason why individuals who exercise with weights routinely have a lot improved blood glucose control than those who just exercise cardio.

This doesn’t require a gym. Performing squats, lunges, push-ups and resistance band training three times a week at home and seeing real measurable improvements in insulin sensitivity in 8-12 weeks.

Brisk walking and light jogging are good for your heart and they can help your muscles utilize glucose during exercise. Jogging for 20 minutes prior to breakfast will leave your muscles better able to absorb glucose from breakfast for a few hours following the activity.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT) involves short periods of high intensity followed by recovery time and can have extremely fast results in insulin sensitivity. Studies indicate that this HIIT regimen can greatly enhance glucose regulation in just 2-3 sessions each week over a period of 4 weeks. If you currently have high blood sugar or diabetes, it’s best to add in HIIT slowly and under medical supervision.

The food you eat around your exercise sessions can impact your blood sugar level

Exercise and nutrition are a team effort. Proper nutrition choices before and after training workouts boost the blood sugar effect of exercise.

Choose a light, protein snack before exercise, instead of a carbohydrate meal. A couple of boiled eggs or roasted grams before exercise will give energy without blood sugar rising that much.

Following exercise, glucose is being absorbed by your muscles for as long as two hours. This is the ideal time to have your rice served for the day. Glucose from rice is used directly by your hungry muscle cells without being put in your bloodstream. Many nutrition coaches call this the post-workout window and for Sri Lankans who have their meals based on rice, it is a really good idea to have their meal right after training.

Use red rice instead of white rice as much as possible. Red rice has a lower glycaemic index, i.e. it has a slower effect in increasing blood sugar. Fridge cooling of cooked rice after cooking also makes it have even less of a blood sugar impact even more, as additional resistant starch is added.

Creating Your Week Around Blood Sugar Management

Don’t try to make drastic changes to your lifestyle to get your blood sugar levels under control with exercise. A simple and uniform weekly structure will suffice.

After every large meal, walk 10 minutes every day. This habit alone can result in blood sugar improvement in 2 to 3 weeks.

Include 3 strength training sessions per week (squats, lunges, push-ups and resistance bands at the gym or at home). The sessions should be 30-40 minutes long.

Once base fitness is achieved, consider incorporating 1-2 HIIT sessions per week for quicker results.

Track how you feel. If you have a glucometer, measuring your blood sugar level before and after exercising provides you with actual information about your body. For many Sri Lankans doing it for the first time, this walk post meals makes a tremendous difference to their reading.

The Bottom Line

It is not necessary to eliminate rice from your diet. Movement should be a tool to help you control the effect rice has on your blood sugar. The combination of post-meal walking, resistance training and smart meal timing is a powerful tool for maintaining glucose control; it is natural, it is effective, and it is done without a plan to eliminate food from your life.

“Rice does not have to be the enemy. It will keep them stable after eating it. Exercise and your blood sugar will move in tandem.”