Eight-fifteen AM. Tuesday. Sugar levels: 248. Excuses: Infinite.
My patient—let’s call her the CEO of Creative Explanations—sits across from me, armed with a month’s worth of reasons why walking is impossible in Bangalore. She’s one of India’s seventy-seven million diabetics, a number that’s rising faster than apartment complexes in Whitefield. Her Apple Watch costs more than my first year’s salary as a doctor. Her glucose diary reads like a suspense thriller, full of unexpected peaks and mysterious valleys.
“Doctor, you don’t understand.” Her words drop like glucose tablets into the water: slow, deliberate, dissolving with resignation. Each excuse bubbles up with practised precision. “The street dogs in our layout are too aggressive,” she begins, a complaint I’ve logged many times in my clinic diary. “My husband returns past midnight,” follows next, an echo reverberating through every clinic in Bangalore. Finally, “The children’s school schedules are impossible” emerges – the ultimate trump card of modern Indian parenting. Like her glucose readings, her sentences arrive in predictable patterns: short bursts of resistance followed by long plateaus of justification. She adjusts her designer glasses – worth nine months of diabetes medication – and waits for my response.
In medical school, they taught us about therapeutic inertia. Nothing prepared me for the masterclass in creative resistance I witness daily. My patient, a corporate lawyer, argues cases for hours but can’t defend her need for exercise. A heart surgeon who performs six-hour operations “can’t find” thirty minutes to walk. A wedding planner who coordinates thousand-guest events can’t schedule her fitness routine. A college professor who remembers hundreds of students’ names can’t recollect when she last took a walk. A busy restaurateur who taste-tests fifty dishes daily claims he has no time for a post-dinner stroll. Each morning brings fresh paradoxes: brilliant minds stumbling over simple steps, falling into the gap between knowing and doing.
Twenty-five years of ayurvedic practice in Bangalore have turned my clinic into an unlikely theatre. Each day’s script remains unchanged: Act One—denial (“Sugar runs in my family!”). Act Two—bargaining (“Just one more month?”). Act Three—when we’re lucky, the sweet victory of acceptance. Some days, I’m the director, others the critic, but I am always the captive audience to life’s most persistent drama: humans negotiating with their health.
The sociology of diabetes in India reads like a family WhatsApp group: chaotic, contradictory, and oddly entertaining. We’re the nation that invented yoga, yet we’ve also perfected the art of finding excuses not to exercise. A recent study showed that 82% of Indian diabetics know they should walk daily, but the same survey found that only 12% actually do. The gap between knowing and doing is wider than the Silk Board junction at peak hour.
Evening after evening, I listen, nod, scribble, and prescribe. But today is different. Today, I will tell you about the patients who did walk—the ones who turned their diabetes stories from tragedy to triumph—who discovered that the only step harder than the first one is the one you never take.
Recently, one patient walked into my clinic. Her latest blood sugar readings fan out between us like a disappointing report card. “Doctor, I know you’ll say walking, but where is the time?” she sighs, echoing a refrain I’ve heard a thousand times in my twenty-five years of practice in Bangalore.
I am sharing what has become one of my favourite responses: “When our Prime Minister can dedicate two hours daily to yoga, walking, and pranayama despite running our nation of 1.4 billion people, surely we can find 30 minutes for our health?” Her eyes widen slightly – this perspective hasn’t occurred to her before. “But doctor, he has assistants for everything!” she counters. I smile and reply, “True, but can his assistants do his exercises for him? Some things we must do ourselves.”
Like a skilled weaver working with threads of different colours, I’ve collected countless stories of resistance and triumph in my years of treating diabetes patients in our Garden City. The excuses form a familiar tapestry: Bangalore’s unpredictable weather (“Doctor, it was raining!”), family obligations (“My children sleep so late”), domestic challenges (“My husband’s office timing is so irregular”), and infrastructure issues (“The footpaths are broken”, “The street dogs are scary”).
Yet, for every excuse, I have a success story that shines like a beacon. Take Mrs. K, a 58-year-old homemaker whose blood sugar once consistently danced above 300 mg/dL. She started with just 10 minutes of walking in her apartment corridor. “Initially, I felt like a caged tiger pacing back and forth,” she told me, laughing. “But I had nowhere else to go!” Today, she leads a group of 15 women who walk together in their community park, their morning chatter mixing with birdsong as they complete their 5,000 steps.
Recent research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism emphasizes what I’ve observed: just 150 minutes of moderate-intensity walking per week can reduce HbA1c levels by 0.6% to 0.8%. This might seem like a small number, but in the complex mathematics of diabetes management, it’s significant enough to reduce medication requirements potentially.
A particularly memorable case was Mr. R, a software professional who initially scoffed at walking. “Doctor, I have a treadmill gathering dust at home,” he admitted during one consultation. His glucose readings resembled the volatile stock market – unstable and concerning. We made a deal: he would walk for 15 minutes during his office breaks, using the garden area in his tech park. His fasting sugar had dropped from 180 to 140 mg/dL one month later. “The surprise benefit?” he told me, eyes twinkling, “I’ve become the go-to person for walking meetings. My productivity has increased!”
The transformation in my patients who embrace walking reminds me of watching a lotus bloom – gradual but magnificent. Like Mr. S, a 62-year-old retired banker who started walking in his apartment basement during Bangalore’s infamous rainy season. “I felt like a submarine commander at first,” he joked, “pacing back and forth underground.” But his dedication paid off – his diabetes medication was reduced by half within six months.
Recent studies from the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism highlight another crucial aspect: evening walks can reduce post-dinner glucose spikes by up to 30%. I share this with patients who claim evening family commitments prevent exercise. “Make it a family affair,” I suggest. “Turn it into your daily family conference.” One patient laughingly reported that these walks became her teenage daughters’ preferred time to ask for permission and favours – “They know I’m in a better mood after walking!”
The science behind walking’s benefits reads like poetry to a doctor’s ears. Each step triggers a cascade of positive changes: improved insulin sensitivity, enhanced glucose uptake by muscles, reduced inflammation, and the release of endorphins – nature’s happiness hormone. A 2023 Journal of Clinical Medicine study revealed that consistent walking could reduce the risk of diabetes-related complications by up to 40%.
One of my patients, a literature professor, described her transformation beautifully: “Walking has become my daily meditation, doctor. Each step feels like I’m slowly erasing the extra glucose from my bloodstream.” Her HbA1c dropped from 8.5% to 6.8% in six months, primarily through walking and diet modifications.
For those who find walking boring, I share the story of Mrs. M, who turned her morning walks into a bird-watching expedition. “I’ve spotted 23 different species in our neighbourhood park,” she announced proudly during her last visit. Her blood sugar levels have become as steady as her daily routine.
The challenge of street dogs, a legitimate concern in many Bangalore neighbourhoods, led to one of my most innovative patient solutions. A group of patients in Indiranagar formed a “walking security team” with whistles and LED torches. “We feel like we’re on a mission,” one member told me. “The dogs don’t bother groups, and our sugar levels are better than ever.”
The success stories accumulate like precious gems in my practice diary: a homemaker who started walking during her pressure cooker’s whistles, completing 100 steps per whistle; a techie who programmed his phone to lock his favourite apps until he finished his daily step goal; a grandfather who races his grandchildren to the park every evening, combining play with purpose.
The surge of endorphins from walking isn’t just scientific jargon—I see it reflected in my patients’ faces, in their improved numbers, and in their renewed zest for life. Walking, this simplest of exercises, becomes a powerful ally in our fight against diabetes. As I tell my patients, it’s like compound interest for your health—small, consistent investments yield remarkable returns over time.
Yesterday, my oldest patient – a retired English teacher – handed me her glucose diary. “Doctor,” she smiled, “walking taught me what Shakespeare meant. ‘Sweet sorrow’ isn’t about parting. It’s about letting go of old excuses.” She paused at my door. “Diabetes helped me find my feet. Ironic, isn’t it?” Tonight, her words walk with me.
