Reading the Charts.
Food, insulin, and exercise all operate at different speeds — and those change when they overlap. These tools make those invisible processes visible so you can learn to anticipate them.
Every chart shows shape, not numbers.
Each chart shows relative effects — how a factor moves blood sugar compared to a flat baseline. No actual blood sugar numbers appear, because everyone’s starting point is different. The shape of the curve is what matters: when it peaks, how long it lasts, and how it overlaps with other effects.
Each simulator is a sandbox for one concept. Start with the individual simulators to build intuition for each effect. When you’re ready, the 24-Hour Simulator lets you combine everything and see how they interact across a full day.
Four things move blood sugar.
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Carb Effect
Food raises blood sugar
Carbohydrates digest into glucose and enter the bloodstream. Fast-absorbing carbs (juice, glucose tablets) hit quickly. Complex carbs, fat, and protein slow the process down — which is why the same amount of food can produce very different curves depending on what's in it.
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Insulin Effect
Insulin lowers blood sugar — slowly
Rapid-Acting insulin starts working about 10-15 minutes after injection, peaks around 60-90 minutes, and stays active for up to 6 hours. It never acts instantly. Where you are in that curve when you eat or exercise changes everything.
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Basal Effect
Background insulin rate (pump only)
Insulin pumps run a continuous background dose all day. A temp basal change — higher or lower — takes 60-90 minutes to reach full effect. What you see is how that change compares to your normal baseline rate.
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Exercise Effect
Movement lowers blood sugar, and keeps lowering it
Aerobic exercise pulls glucose out of the blood for as long as it lasts, and muscles keep refilling their stores for hours afterward. Anaerobic effort does the opposite first: adrenaline releases stored glucose and blood sugar climbs before it falls.
Try things you wouldn’t try in real life.
These simulators let you experiment with diabetes-management scenarios and see how they play out — while keeping you completely safe. Build your knowledge of what works, what doesn’t, and how to handle different situations before you need it for your own management.