

Make the most of your nutrition
For people with diabetes mellitus
Tasty meals bring pleasure to our daily lives
A meal plan can leave people with diabetes asking lots of questions, whether they administer insulin or not.
The blood glucose (also called blood sugar) level increases after meals. If your blood glucose gets very high, you can feel weak and tired.
The level of glucose in the blood of a healthy person 2 hours after the start of a meal (postprandial glycemia – PPG) typically doesn’t exceed 140 mg/dL, but that of people with diabetes may reach 200 or 300 mg/dL or more. Such increases in glucose can damage the blood vessels due to deterioration of the endothelium (inner lining of vessels), leading to development of complications. However, if you understand how to keep your blood glucose level stable, you can feel better and reduce the risk of complications. This brochure will help you to do it.
Using this leaflet, you can more easily understand how the meals you consume affect your blood glucose level.
It gives you detailed information about nutritional issues.
How to contact us:
If you have any inquiries or require support to use your OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter, you can contact us through:
Email: customerservice@lifescan.com
Phone: 1-800-227-8862
Before you start.
Think why you want to understand how meals influence your blood glucose level.
Look at the list of reasons and select the ones that are true for you.
I want to feel better after meals
I want to enjoy my meals
I administer insulin and would like to know how meals affect my blood glucose level
I want to control my diabetes better
I want to be sure that I eat right
I’m tired of feeling guilty after meals
I want to prepare one dish for my family and myself
I want to control my meals, and not to feel that I’m controlled by them
I want to be more energetic, as I often feel tired after meals
Other:
Which answer is most important for you?
NAME: Ivan
DIAGNOSIS: Type 2 Diabetes
TREATMENT: Insulin
AGE: 59 years

How he felt before:
"I did not know for sure what I could eat and what I could not. I often felt that I could not eat foods that I like and felt somewhat restricted."
What he did:
"Using this brochure, I did all tasks one after another during one month."
What he said then:
“I began to understand how the blood glucose level is related to meals. It wasn’t stressful – I just took it slow. Now I can enjoy my favorite meals because I understand better what I can eat and how much.”
Understanding the influence of nutrition on diabetes management
1 Beginning
Understand how meals affect your blood glucose level.
Know your goals.
Task 1: Are you in your target range?
2 Learn about how meals affect your blood glucose level
What are carbohydrates and bread units?
Task 2: Check out the influence of your favorite meals.
3 Measure and act!
How can OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter help simplify the process?
How should I react to high or low values of glucose?
Task 3: Measure blood glucose before and after meals.
4 Stay motivated!
Task 4: Track progress of your results.
Stay the course!
You
have these tools to help you manage your diabetes

Discover a simple way to use colors in managing diabetes
Introducing the OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter, the only meter with Blood Sugar Mentor™ messages, offering personalized guidance insights and encouragement so you can take action to help manage highs and lows

Current


Did you know that…?
OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter with Blood Sugar Mentor™ feature will show you encouragement messages that can help motivate you to stay on track to achieve your diabetes management goals.
You may improve your well-being if you understand what effect meals have on your blood glucose level
Did you know that…?
Blood glucose levels change during the day?
This fluctuation is influenced by meals, physical exercise and administration of anti-diabetic medicines.
Blood glucose level Time
How do these factors influence blood glucose levels?
Meals
Physical excercises
Anti-diabetic medicines
Source: 42 Factors That Affect Blood Glucose?! A Surprising Update https://diatribe.org/42-factors-affect-blood-glucose-surprising-update Accessed December 24, 2021.
Target range
After meals, many people with diabetes feel a loss of energy or have a bad mood. If you keep within your target range and minimize fluctuations, you can reduce the risk of diabetes complications and feel much better.
In order to stay within your target range, you should keep increases in your blood glucose levels after meals to a minimum. Keep reading to learn more.

Meals are one of the key factors that increase blood glucose levels.
1 Beginning
Get to know your target range
Write down your targets together with your doctor
My target HbA1c is: less than %
My target range is:
Blood glucose: from mg/dL mg/dL to
Before meals less than:
2 hours after meals less than:
mg/dL mg/dL
Normal < 110 mg/dL
Normal < 140 mg/dL
Number of glucose tests to perform per day: tests/per day
A tip!
You can set your high/ low range limits in your OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter, for before and after meals.
Be sure to talk to your healthcare professional about the range limits that are right for you.


1 Beginning
Task 1
Are you reaching your target range?
Myth
I was diagnosed with diabetes. Now I can’t eat anything I love!
Fact
Diabetes does not mean you have to give up the foods you like.
When you understand how selection of foods influence your blood glucose level, you will find out that keeping within the target range means you don’t have to give up the foods you like completely.
Some foods can result in a higher increase of your blood glucose level than others.

2 Learn about how meals affect the level of glucose in blood
There are two main things that influence the blood glucose level after a meal:
The size of a serving plays an important role, as a large serving of certain foods will have a significant influence on your blood glucose.
Composition of your diet: Foods contain carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and dietary fiber. The blood glucose level is most influenced by the amount of carbohydrates.
What are carbohydrates?
They are starches and sugars contained in foods.
Your body needs carbohydrates for energy, but they increase the blood glucose level higher and faster than other types of nutrients.
That is why if you have diabetes, it is helpful to be aware of the number of carbohydrates in your meals.
In order to simplify this task, dieticians have introduced a conventional notion – a Bread Unit.
A Bread Unit
A Bread Unit is a kind of “measuring spoon” for calculation of carbohydrates. Regardless of the type and quantity of food, whether bread or an apple, one bread unit contains 10-12 g of digestible carbohydrates. Tables of bread units and product equivalents in terms of carbohydrate content are given on the next page.
2 Learning
Bread Units (BU)
1 BU is the quantity of food containing 10-12 g of carbohydrates
A tip!
Cooked cerals, garnishes 1 BU (buckwheat, semolina, oatmeal, millet, rice, couscous)
Red beans, black beans, kidney beans, lentils, fava beans (cooked from dried fava beans).
g
Other food like pizza, pancakes, chicken fingers and desserts also contain carbohydrates, but the number of BUs depends on the serving size and exact ingredients.
The weight in grams shown in this column represents the serving size of the food that contains 1 BU (approx. 10-12 g of carbohydrates). Source:
2 Learning
Equivalents of foods in terms of carbohydrate content
Breakfast
250 ml whole milk
200 g yogurt
75 g whole wheat bread (3 slices)
1 bread unit
1 bread unit
3 bread units
60 g white bread (3 slices)
3 bread units
Source: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Agricultural Research Service
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ Accessed December 12, 2021.
Lunch / Dinner
220 g boiled rice

220 g boiled pasta
5 bread units
5 bread units
180 g french fries
5 bread units
2 Learning
Equivalents
Vegetables
200 g carrots
500 g lettuce
500 g cucumber
180 g plums
Source: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Agricultural Research Service https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ Accessed December 12, 2021.
1 bread unit
1 bread unit
1 bread unit
1 bread unit
Fruits


140 g bananas
180 g cherries
220 g apricots

320 g strawberries
2 bread units
2 bread units
2 bread units
2 bread units
2 Learning
Task 2
Check out the impact of your favorite foods
Measurement of blood glucose levels before and after meals can help you understand that to remain within your target range, you don’t need to give up your favorite foods completely.
It is hard to remain within your target range every time! You are learning, and with time, you will see that the results of your tests will get into your target range more and more often.
Don’t worry if sometimes your results exceed your target range
2 Learning
How can the OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter help you see the impact of your meals on your blood glucose results?
Adding Meal and Event tags
Your OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter allows you to attach a Before Meal or After Meal tag to your current blood glucose result. It is important to understand the link between blood glucose levels and food. When you tag your test results with Meal tags, you add information about food to your results. Your meter uses this information in a variety of ways and displays Pattern Messages, Mentor Tips and Awards. Talk to your healthcare professional to see how Meal tags may help you manage your diabetes. Consider the following guidelines when Meal tagging.
• A Before Meal blood glucose test is taken just before the start of your meal.
• An After Meal blood glucose test is typically taken one to two hours after the start of your meal.
• A blood glucose test taken while fasting should be tagged as Before Meal.
Tagging Results
To change to an After Meal tag, press then highlight After Meal and press
NOTE: The Range Indicator icon displayed with the result uses Before and After Meal ranges. When you change a Before Meal tag to an After Meal tag, the Range Indicator icon may point to a different segment on the Color Bar. A new Message may appear.

A tip!
Tag your results as “Before Meal” or “After Meal”
Don’t forget to tag your result, as after or before a Meal. Be sure to talk to your healthcare professional about the range limits that are right for you.
3 Measure and act!
ColorSure® Dynamic Range Indicator
The OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter comes with a ColorSure® Dynamic Range Indicator feature that instantly lets you know if your current result is below (blue), within (green), or above (red), your range limits.
It also shows when your result is near the low or high end of your target range, so you can confidently take action before going out of range.

Current numerical result and healthcare professional recommendations should be considered in treatment decisions. Be sure to talk to your healthcare professional about the range limits that are right for you.

3 Measure and act!
Reacting to high levels of glucose.
If 2 hours from the beginning of a meal you notice that your blood glucose level exceeds your target range, or if your blood glucose level increases by more than 40 mg/dL, there are several ways to reduce it. Please consult your doctor to select the ways that are right for you. Always follow the advice of your doctor.
What you can do 2 hours after meals:
Walk for 30 minutes; it will help reduce your blood glucose level. If you are taking insulin, you may need to inject an additional dose. Your doctor can advise you if this is an option for you.
Tracking your results will help your healthcare provider select the most efficient treatment plan. Don’t forget to bring your logbook or use the OneTouch Reveal® app to track your results.
Rules of changing the insulin dose (to be filled in by the doctor):
Other recommendations of the doctor that may help you
What can you do during your next meal?
Try to reduce the size of a serving. It means that you can still eat the foods you like, just eat a bit less of them.
Try to find an alternative. For example, for a snack try a yogurt instead of chocolate cookies.
You may need to adjust your dosage of medicine (pills or insulin). Your doctor will help you here. Bring the completed logbook to the doctor or share your test results with your doctor through the OneTouch Reveal® mobile app.
Other ways (to be filled in by the doctor):
How to react to low levels of glucose?
If you are taking insulin, you might eventually face hypoglycemic events. Here are some tips, but please always follow the advice of your doctor.
Eat 15-20 grams of carbohydrate, such as 1 tablespoon of sugar or 1/2 cup of juice
Wait 15 minutes for sugar to get into blood
Check blood sugar again
If blood sugar level is still less than 70 mg/dL, repeat the process.
Other ways (to be filled in by the doctor):
3 Measure and act!
Task 3
Measure blood glucose before and after meals.
Comments/
If the results of the tests after meals are consistently higher than your recommended target, please consult your doctor.
Don’t forget to tag your results as “before” or “after” meals
3 Measure and act!
Do you know that...
OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter can help you identify high or low patterns?
The OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter reviews your past results and may display Mentor Tips (guidance), Pattern Messages (insight) or Awards (encouragement). Pattern messages appear when the meter identifies a pattern of glucose results that fall outside the high and low range limits you set in the meter.

Do you know that… you can also have a digital logbook, and share your glucose results with your Healthcare Professional without the need to wait until your next appointment?
You can do this by connecting your OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter wirelessly to the OneTouch Reveal® mobile app.


You can download the OneTouch Reveal® mobile app FREE from App Store or Google Play.
4 Stay motivated!
Track the progress of your results and stay the course! Keep making changes until you see good results in your blood glucose levels. If you pay attention to what you eat, you can achieve better results!
Using the OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter, you can track the progress of your results. If you tag your results as “Before Meal” or “After Meal” every day, your meter will help you monitor the progress of your results by showing your average values.
Follow these steps to see the last 7, 14 and 30 day averages for your tests, and your before and after meals tests.
From the Main Menu, press or to highlight Summary and press
The number of results that are low (blue), in-range (green) and high (red) are displayed and appear as bar graphs.
Press to display the Summary by time of day
The number of test results that are low, in-range and high, by time of day, are displayed. The four time slots are Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Bedtime. The time frames for the four time slots cannot be changed.
Press to display your overall averages for the past 7, 14 and 30 days
If Basic Mode is off, press to display your Before Meal averages for the past 7, 14 and 30 days

If Basic Mode is off, press to display your After Meal averages for the past 7, 14 and 30 days
NOTE: If you do not have results in the past 7, 14 and 30 day periods, dashes will appear in the mg/dL column

4 Stay motivated!
Task 4
Follow the progress of your results
Step 1:
Follow progress of your results: write down in the table below, the average results that you just read from your OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter.
All results
Before meals
After meals
7 days
14 days
30 days
Step 2:
If the value for 7 days is closer to your target range than the value for 30 days, you have improved your results!
Congratulations! You have finished this brochure.
You have taken important steps towards understanding the role of nutrition. This is one of the key issues typically considered most challenging for people with diabetes.
Please go back to page 13 and see how often your glucose levels are staying within your target ranges. Also, look at page 6 and see if your reasons for wanting to understand your glucose levels better have been addressed.
Do you now feel that you know more about what you can eat?
We hope that this brochure along with the OneTouch Verio Reflect® meter have helped you understand how meals affect your blood glucose level and optimize your nutrition!