Normally, if you asked me if I would willingly go into a 105 degrees Fahrenheit room for 90 minutes for a workout, I’d say ohh HELL nawwww before you had the chance to finish asking your question.

I’m not someone who has a passion for exercising. I tolerate it. I try to do it daily for two very important reasons: 1) It keeps me in shape and 2) it helps me manage my blood sugars better. Otherwise, there’s very little about exercise that I actually enjoy. I’m not a fan of feeling out-of-breath for long periods of time. I have a love-hate relationship with the post-workout soreness that floods my body after a particularly intense session. And I definitely cannot stand sweating – on just about any given day, I’d rather be freezing cold and wearing layers of clothing than dripping in sweat.

All that said, though, I willingly participated in a fitness class called Bikram yoga…which is also known as hot yoga because you’re in a temperature-controlled room heated exactly to 105 degrees for the duration of the workout. For 90 minutes, you slowly move through 26 poses, and that’s that.

I wasn’t worried about the latter; it was the former that had me sweating (both literally and figuratively). I wondered whether I’d be able to tolerate the heat for a full hour and a half. I also had concerns about my diabetes devices – would I be sweating so much that they would fall off? Would they be able to stay safely in the room with me, or would the heat be too extreme for them? And how would my body and blood sugars respond to the hot yoga, anyways?

I knew the only way to get answers to my questions was to show up for class and find out for myself.

And that’s exactly what I did. I went to a morning class with my stomach empty and my backpack full of diabetes supplies. My blood sugars tend to respond better to exercise when I don’t have any food in my system or insulin on board, so I made it a point to wait to eat my breakfast after yoga instead of before. But I still wasn’t entirely sure if or how my blood sugar might react to a brand new kind of workout, so I wanted to be armed with several different low snacks. I felt fairly confident about its stability, though, as I headed into the class sitting pretty at 110 mg/dL.

In addition to extra diabetes supplies, I also thought to bring with me some water that I’d filled and frozen the night before the class so I could stay hydrated throughout it with water that was sure to be extra refreshing in the heat.

Even though I had all this stuff with me, I chose to leave most of it in a cubby outside the studio, save for my CGM receiver, a tube of glucose tablets, and my water bottle. I didn’t want to take any chances with my cell phone, PDM, or glucometer and expose them to the heat – I have firsthand experience with an overheated cell phone, and while it does eventually cool back down its own, overheating my devices is not something I’d actively seek to do. I was taking a bit of a risk with the CGM receiver, but since I have the Dexcom app on my cell phone, it’s not like I’d be at a huge disadvantage if something were to happen to my receiver.

So with my gear in hand, I stepped foot into the yoga studio…and immediately started sweating. Yes, that quickly! It was a heavy, stifling, and moist heat – the exact kind that I hate the most. I started to question whether I had the endurance to even sit in this heat for 90 minutes, let alone move seamlessly through yoga poses in it. In the minutes before the class began, I sipped water slowly and told myself that above everything else, I needed to listen to my body throughout the class. I started to feel better as I reassured myself that it would be perfectly acceptable to walk out should I start to feel light-headed, low, queasy, or anything else abnormal.

Fortunately, though, an exit plan wasn’t needed as I made it through the full class! That’s not to say it wasn’t challenging or extremely sweaty – seriously, my body was so covered in sweat that it looked like I’d just come out of a swimming pool – but I proved to myself that I could do it. And the best part was that my blood sugar behaved beautifully: As a reminder, it was 110 mg/dL at 8:30 A.M. Class started at 9 and lasted until 10:30 A.M. I was home by 11 and when I checked my blood sugar there, I was at 118 mg/dL. I couldn’t have asked for better pre-, mid-, and post-workout blood sugar levels.

Was it scary to try this new, moderately intense exercise? Yes. Was I concerned about my diabetes before, during, and after the class? Yes. But was it all worth it? I’d say yes. I overcame my fears and was met by blood sugar success, making hot yoga a diabetes win in my book.