Big Blue Test

Join the Big Blue Test movement

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For the fourth year Manny Hernandez, founder of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, is making sure we experience the benefit of activity on our blood sugar – and as a result, getting diabetes supplies and insulin to children in need around the world.

The movement is called the BigBlueTest – and you can’t fail.  

Sign up here and this is what you’ll do: 

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Record your results on the sign up page above – and if you can spread the word. With 35,000 people taking the test, $35,000 will go toward life-saving supplies. And, you’ll see what a little activity can do!

What’s coming up for Diabetes Month?

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When I read something useful in the diabetes biosphere I want to make it known and accessible to you here. 

Today’s post on DiabetesMine well captures a number of upcoming events for next month, Diabetes Month. 

One event I will single out is the Big Blue Test. If you have diabetes, are mobile, and haven’t participated in the test yet, you owe it to yourself to correct that. 

No, no dates and facts to study. Rather, you will see first-hand how just 14 minutes of an activity of your choice lowers your blood sugar. 

And, as we roll into Diabetes Month, if you missed it, here is my list of greatdiabetes resources. After all, I always tell fellow PWDs, “the more you know the better you do.” 

And, while somehow I mistakenly omitted DiabetesMine.com, a top news- reporting site from my list, I read it almost daily to know what’s going on regards devices, meds, the FDA and all things diabetes. 

Save a life doing the Big Blue Test: maybe save your own

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Do the Test: Help save a life

Have you ever directly seen the impact of activity on your blood sugar? You’ve heard it a million times: exercise helps manage blood sugar and prevent and delay diabetic complications. Now see it for yourself, and be part of the movement that’s saving thousands of lives. And one of those lives may be your own!

Between now and November 14th at midnight test your blood sugar, participate in an activity of your choice –  walking, gardening, vacuuming, chasing the cat – for 14 minutes, test your blood sugar again and share your results at the Big Blue Test. This is Diabetes Hands Foundations’ yearly initiative to show people with diabetes the impact of exercise on blood sugar.

When you do the Test and share your results, Roche Diabetes Care will fund life-saving diabetes supplies to someone in need in the U.S. or Latin America. The goal is 8,000 Big Blue Testers = 8,000 lives saved. If you want to save more lives, you can do the test as many times as you want as long as you record the results. 

Plus, you don’t have to have diabetes to do the Test. If you have a loved one with diabetes and a meter in the house, do the Test and save a life.

This is also about you: seeing the impact of movement on your blood sugar, you may decide in earnest it’s time get more active. And that, my friend, may just save your life.

My fuller story with details is on the Huffington Post: The 14-Minute Exercise That Can Save Thousands of Lives — Including Yours.

My test by the way – walking for 14 minutes to the library in my neighborhood – lowered my blood sugar 22 points! 

Big Blue Test earns two Telly awards!

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Last year Manny Hernandez founder of Diabetes Hands Foundation, David Edelman founder of DiabetesDaily.com and me, along with venerable producer Sean Ross, created the Big Blue Test video which was awarded the 2011 silver (the highest honor) and bronze Telly awards – respectively in the online programs regarding social issues and health and wellness categories.

If you were one of the 133,674 views the video received, you know the video promoted the benefit of exercise to manage blood sugar. Specifically, taking the Big Blue Test – doing just 14 minutes of an activity and seeing your blood sugar come down. Thousands of people saw their blood sugar lowered on average 20 points. Each view of the video also made possible a donation of $75,000 from Roche to two diabetes charities that sent life-saving insulin and supplies to children in need around the world.

This year Manny, David, Sean and I are back in the saddle, as is Roche, to create another big blue test video. Look for it this November, diabetes month. 

By the way, you don’t have to wait till November to see the benefit of 14 minutes of activity. Why not do it today? Then come November, join the thousands who will record their 14 minutes of activity on the Big Blue Test site (which I’ll be sure to tell you about) and work toward saving your own life, and that of a child in need.

 

My results of the Big Blue Test in numbers, and not

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Saturday night at 5:46 PM Eastern Time we crossed the finish line to 100,396 views of the Big Blue Test video! It was really exciting to watch the tally rise all day knowing victory was in sight – and trying to figure out just the moment we’d cross the finish line.

Thank you for watching the video and passing it on. Roche’s donation of $75,000 to children in need will save thousands of children’s lives.

I hope you also participated in the bigbluetest yesterday and uploaded your results at bigbluetest.org. You can see the mean average results there. And you can still upload your results this week.

I was so eager to see the effect of 14 minutes of brisk walking on my blood sugar that I did the test twice. To be honest I did it on Saturday as I knew Sunday I wouldn’t be able to.

I did my usual brisk walk but instead of walking around my local park I walked through a nearby Orthodox neighborhood. 

I did my first test at 10 AM. My blood sugar was 90 mg/dl (yes, I know, a little low for the test, but I had my glucose tabs with me…). After 14 minutes of walking I was at 72. Then came the glucose tablets. I did the test again at the bona fide time, 2 PM, and my blood sugar went from 149 mg/dl to 129. Even I was surprised how just that small amount of brisk walking, both times lowered me 18-20 points. 

I got another benefit, as I always do, from my hour-long power walks. In addition to lowering my blood sugar and keeping me insulin-sensitive, my walks are a time for me to get quiet, to hear my thoughts and just be still while being outside. Saturday, when I did my tests, it was the Sabbath and so the neighborhood I walked through was quiet. The shops were all closed, men and boys were strolling on the streets headed to synogogue. No one spoke loudly. Families gathered. There was a reverence for family, for the day, for our surroundings and it brought back quiet Sundays of my youth growing up in the Bronx and taking walks with my father. I found the quiet joy of the stillness as impactful as my lowered blood sugar.

If you didn’t take the test yesterday, take it today, or sometime this week. See for yourself the effect of 14 minutes of activity on your blood sugar. And, see if it isn’t also a time to be still in a crazy world.

Just remember while 14 minutes of activity lowers blood sugar, if you’re low before you go, like under 100 mg/dl (5.5 mmol/l) you’ll probably want to bring it up before you walk, run, swim or prune the rose bushes. 

Right now get life-saving insulin to children in need

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Save Thousands of Lives – Watch and Pass It On

All it takes to get 1 child 1 week of insulin is for you to watch this video. Pass it on and thousands of children will outlive their childhood.

(If you’re seeing this post w/o the video, click here.)

We’re attempting a rescue mission – to save as many lives as possible for kids with diabetes around the world who have no medicine. 

For every view, Roche Diabetes Care is making a donation (through the Diabetes Hands Foundation) to two diabetes rescue organizations:  “Insulin for Life” and “Life for a Child.”

With 100,000 views, Roche will make its top donation – $75,000. That’s where you come in. Watch, and pass it on to EVERYONE you know. Don’t stop when you’ve gone through your friends with diabetes and best friends. Almost everyone is touched by diabetes in some way. It will mean something to others and you don’t know who – so fire away!
  • Just $50 keeps a child alive in Ecuador for a year
  • 1 video hit will pay to transport medicine and supplies to 1 child for 1 week
  • Funds will educate children and their parents how to treat diabetes. It’s the only education most will get
My fellow video creators, Manny Hernandez of dhf and tudiabetes, and David Edelman of Diabetes Daily, and our producer, Sean Ross, and I and all these kids whose lives you’re about to save, thank you from the bottom of our d-hearts.