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Type 1 Diabetes

Your Weekly CGM Review: 20 Minutes That Fix Your Whole Week

· 3 min read · Reviewed by GlucIQ Clinical Review Workflow
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Your CGM gives you more than 2,000 readings a week. You look at it a dozen times a day. And yet, if someone asked “what pattern did your week have?”, you probably couldn’t answer.

The people who improve their glucose aren’t the ones who stare at the sensor more. They’re the ones who review it less often — but properly. Twenty minutes, once a week.

Why a weekly review beats daily staring

The experts who set CGM targets have one core rule: patterns, not single readings (Battelino et al., 2019). One spike is noise. The same spike every Tuesday at 11am is a signal.

The DIAMOND trial showed something powerful: adults improved their control just from seeing their patterns (Beck et al., 2017). Visibility was the intervention.

The 20-minute routine

Minutes 1-5: Write down four numbers (from your 14-day view):

  • Time in range (target: over 70%)
  • Time in the lows (target: under 4%)
  • Time above 250 (target: under 5%)
  • Coefficient of variation (target: under 36%)

Don’t judge them yet. Just record them. Trend matters more than any single week.

Minutes 5-10: Find the pattern, not the event. Ask:

  • Is there a time of day that’s consistently out of range?
  • Is it high, low, or both?
  • What changed this week vs last?

Minutes 10-15: Pick ONE thing. The single pattern with the biggest effect. Write it as a sentence: “Afternoon highs between 3-5pm on high-carb lunches.”

Minutes 15-20: Turn it into a question for your team. “Is my lunch bolus timing off, or is my afternoon basal fading?” A question with data beats a week of guessing.

The map: which lever fixes which pattern

The expert guidance is simple:

  • After a meal, consistently high → bolus problem (dose or timing)
  • Between meals or overnight, high → basal problem

That’s the whole map. Every pattern you find fits one bucket — which tells you what to ask your care team.

Common mistakes

  • Reviewing daily. One day is noise; the overlay is signal.
  • Trying to fix everything. Three changes at once = you can’t tell what worked.
  • Not writing it down. If you don’t record the numbers, you can’t see the trend across weeks.

The one-minute takeaway

Twenty minutes, once a week, four numbers, one pattern, one question. That’s the whole system. Your CGM already collects the data — this is how you turn it into a better week.

References

  • Battelino T, et al. Clinical Targets for CGM Data Interpretation: International Consensus on Time in Range. Diabetes Care. 2019. DOI: 10.2337/dci19-0028
  • Beck RW, et al. Effect of Continuous Glucose Monitoring on Glycemic Control in Adults With Type 1 Diabetes Using Insulin Injections: The DIAMOND Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2017. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2016.19975