I found it was better. I didn't mention this in first comment, but nutritionalist friend got me a couple test CGMs after I'd been using normal GM with blood samples for a few weeks. I'd check them both at the same time, and many times the CGM was quite off, both on the super low and super high. There were points where I'd look at the CGM, see the number, feel that it was probably way off, and then test the blood and see that my feeling was correct.

Your example is definitely the thing I wanted both glucose monitors for. The CGM didn't seem that great at the giant spikes. With the GM, I'd test numbers right before eating, then 10 minutes into eating, 20, 30, etc. Sure it involved poking my finger, but those were much more informative. than the 15 minutes CGM time frames and the fact the those numbers weren't close to as correct as the blood GM.

True about the light exercise unless you have the poking stick with you. What I did was have an internal treadmill in my apartment building. Example would be test 20 minutes after food, see and feel a 140 reading from the GM, go down and walk for 10 minutes, come back up add see and feel the drop to 100. Learning the feels has been invaluable, and the CGM wouldn't have gotten me the same quick time information that I could trust compared with real time from the direct source.