Anti-gravity exercise for diabetics: What it is and how to do it

When diabetics were questioned about the kind of exercise regime they follow, almost 60% of them answered ‘walking’. And this is a common belief not only in our country but worldwide. Diabetics are often recommended to walk for a minimum of 45 minutes and practice some yoga asanas like Mandukasana, Kapalbhaati etc. While they are good, if you are talking of reversal, stoppage of medicine, stoppage of insulin, it may not be enough to just walk and do a little bit of yoga to reverse diabetes.
The reality is sugar drops when you go against gravity. Let us take a deeper look at the importance of anti-gravity exercise for diabetics.
To understand all this more clearly, one should know the difference between exercise and physical activity. There is always deep confusion between these two terms. Many people believe that if they are busy throughout the day and engage in a lot of physical movement, they do not need to exercise. We should know that physical activity includes all body movements that increase energy. All that you are doing day-to-day is not exercise because that is simple physical activity for which your body is programmed and used to.
Exercise is a planned structured physical activity with a certain goal and intention. For example, aerobic exercise, resistance training or combined aerobic and resistance training.

Now what is anti-gravity?
Anti-gravity is largely aerobic and slightly anaerobic exercise which involves repeated and continuous movement of large muscle groups. The main difference between walking versus going against gravity during stair climbing is the need for glucose increase at a faster pace hence blood glucose gets pulled into the muscle cells (at times even without the need for insulin).
When one goes against gravity, muscles want more glucose at that time, so they will start pulling glucose from the blood. During anti-gravity exercises, you are using major muscle groups and may result in a drop in your sugar levels by 30-50-80 points. The basic premise of the anti-gravity is to open up the receptor locks, move the blood glucose into the cells and prevent this excess blood glucose from getting converted into fats.
The more your glucose will rise, the more insulin levels will rise. The more insulin, the more it will hold your fats and water and this will end up in obesity.
So you need to control sugar to control your insulin. If you are able to control insulin, you will be able to balance the fats, inflammation and water in the body.
You have to ensure that your blood sugar does not remain more than 180. You need to bring your PP sugars below 180 and fasting sugars below 140.
The best time to do anti-gravity is 1 hour 45 minutes after meals and it has to be done 3 times a day. Doing staircase 3 times a day for 5-10 minutes each is very important in the adjustment phase.

There are 3 options for doing anti-gravity exercises:
1. The easiest way is staircase climbing. You can start with 100 steps and go up to 300 steps.
However, do not do stair climbing if you have knee pain or started having knee pain, if the pumping of your heart is 30-35% less or if your BP shoots up.
2. Nitric oxide dump: Those who have knee pain, they can opt for nitric oxide dump. It is a very powerful exercise in which we do squats, alternating arm raise, non-jumping jacks, shoulder presses.
3. For those who are unable to do staircase climbing and nitric oxide dump, you can lie down and move your hands and legs in the air. Do it for 1-2 minutes.
Reversal of diabetes does not happen only with walking, one needs to do something more. Your strength should improve and to improve your strength, you need to work against gravity.
Besides sugars coming down, anti-gravity has the following benefits too
Increases immune function and cardiac output

In diabetes type 1 it increases cardiorespiratory fitness, decreases insulin resistance and improves lipid levels with endothelial function.
In diabetes type 2, it reduces sugars, HbA1c, triglycerides and insulin resistance.
Improves muscle strength
Promotes weight loss
Get the right knowledge and work accordingly.
The article has been contributed by Dr Pramod Tripathi, diabetes researcher and founder of Freedom from Diabetes.