Diabetic, Obese, too many meds and not a routine kinda gal

My motivation was firstly my health. My LDL was too high. Someone close to me had blocked heart arteries and had to undergo getting 3 stents. As I was getting older, I knew I wanted the healthiest life possible for me. I did lose weight and now have normal LDL without the use of drugs-just by eating well and exercise alone.
I understand that diabetes negatively effects heart, eyes, blood pressure, skin etc. For me all this would cause me to seriously consider changing my lifestyle and I hear you are ready to make some positive changes. Don't wait till you damage your health irreversibly. Please love yourself enough to start making the changes necessary to improve your health. A very dear friend of ours lost his life last year in his early 60s. He waited a little too long to begin changing his lifestyle.
Living a healthy, strong life is great motivation for you.
You don't need to starve yourself you just need to change what you put in your body and start moving your body.

What finally did it for me was a diabetes diagnosis. I started eating "better" the next day, did some research (Bloodsugar101.com is a GREAT resource for diabetics! ) and decided that low-carb/high fat was going to be my new lifestyle. Once I lost a bit , I started to exercise.

Feeling better became its own reward

I feel you, honey! I'm right there with you. Getting that diagnosis of diabetes is what threw me over the edge. I cried all that night, and freaked out because I was worried that I wouldn't be able to eat anything I liked, and pretty much threw a tantrum for the first few weeks. Then I went to some diabetes management classes that my health insurance sponsored, and it really, really helped. I learned the importance of keeping carbs in your diet, because that's what regulates your blood sugar. I learned the importance of the right protein and in the right amounts, and I learned that everyone is going to struggle with it but you have to keep pushing forward.

Being on this site and forcing myself to track has made it much easier, and I can manage my carbs and directly link them to my blood glucose and how I feel. And after hearing how much exercise can drop your blood sugar, I picked that up as well.

It's scary. It's hard. It feels like you're having to completely uproot your life and that your only option is to eat nothing but lettuce all day. It's not that bad. You can get to the point where you're having more energy, where you enjoy what you eat, where you know what to eat to make you feel better, and where you find your happiness again.

You can do it.

Start small. Pck two goals and accolish them this week. After two weeks of making that a habit, pick two new goals. You can start by making a list of 10-20 goals and picking two new ones every other week or so.

You may want to also talk to a registered dietician who specializes in diabetes counseling to get some ideas of how to portion your meals to control your sugars.

^^^^ this

focus on one thing at a time, and also try to focus on building new habits and routines. It will be a lot easier in the long term if you get yourself into good habits you can stick to than if you're relying on willpower and determination constantly. you say you're not a routine kind of a person, but everyone has habits and routines, e.g. get up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, eat breakfast... that's what i mean... for example if someone's in the routine of reaching for stuff like cocopops for breakfast, change that routine to eating eggs or a more healthy kind of cereal - make sure it's a breakfast that you enjoy though!! Self torture does not work. Just one example... another could be walking to work instead of driving, taking the stairs instead of the lift... these things become habit after a while, e.g. you get in the building and automatically go up the stairs instead of automatically pressing the lift call button.

Start by changing small things, then you can add more things as you go along, like going to an exercise class or even starting doing strength training (there are many benefits to this), or making other healthy food substitutions or taking a healthy packed lunch to work instead of eating in the cafeteria. With the MFP food diary, you can start just by tracking your food (i.e. not worrying about calories etc to begin with) and then you can get a good idea of what eating habits you need to change... it can be really illuminating and the big advantage of counting calories is you know when you have calories left over for food that's considered less healthy, so it's not like you even have to give up any foods that you really love, you just learn how to fit them into your calories while making sure your body's getting the nutrition it needs...

if all this seems overwhelming at first, don't worry, that's why it's best to just focus on one or two things at a time, make them habit, then add the other things bit by bit as you go along, and it seems a whole lot easier than trying to do everything all at once... and before too long you're in a much healthier lifestyle and seeing the lbs slowly go away. (slow and steady fat loss is the healthiest and most sustainable, always remember that and avoid fad diets and anything that promises rapid weight loss like the plague.... the body burns fat slowly, if you lose weight too quickly then most of it won't be fat)