This is how I do it, too.

Counting calories works for me. As soon as I stop, I regain. It's a commitment issue for me at this point.

I'm vegan so I don't think I can be of much help as far as a diet though.

Gosh I love you woman, time after time you pretty much always say what I would, lol.

Thanks for all the input, everyone.

I honestly don't think the problem for the past year has been with the caloric intake as much as the lack of physical activity. I literally walk and/or stand for MAYBE 20-30 minutes a day at work, average. And I have a car, so I'm walking roughly 10 feet to the car and 30 feet to the office in the morning.

I am very worried about my allergies right now. They have never been quite this bad, and I have what I think (and a doctor told me back in November) are hives on both legs, one arm, my belly and my face. It's starting to clear a little, and I just had blood allergy tests run on Monday, but no results yet (2-3 days? Right.). Tonight, after e-mailing my allergist, I had an allergen-specific blood test run.

I don't care what the tests say, I know something's wrong. For years before I got the diabetes diagnosis, I would just go to the doctor with weird symptoms (now that I have being diagnosed with diabetes, they're so familiar... Being thirsty all the time, dizzy spells where I can't seem to hold cohesive thoughts, uncontrollable shaking...). I told them, "I know there's something wrong, but I don't know what it is." A couple of doctors looked at me sideways, and a couple of them came straight out and said it was in my head. But now I know what it is, and I can DO SOMETHING when it happens.

That's the worst thing about these itchy patches on my skin and the sneezing fits and the itching in my eyes where I can hardly keep them open 'cause they feel so grainy and the days I can barely get myself to work. I want to be able to DO SOMETHING about it, eat better and control it or have some medicine to make it better...

Well, I guess all I can do is wait and take another benadryl.

Another calorie counter here, and probably 90%+ of my food is cooked from scratch, due to the budget we're on. I calculate the ingredients of a recipe, divide by the number of servings, and measure out my portion. Simple and done.

The longer I do it (it's been two years and some change, now) the easier it is, as the program I use has more and more of my recipes calculated and almost every item I use regularly has been added in.

It's the only way I can lose - measure, weigh, and record my food. Exercise has almost nothing to do with it.

If you think that your allergies are from foods, you can try to do an elimination diet to find out. WebMD explains it better than I could. When my kids were little I had to do this with them. It was a pain, but we learned what they could and could not eat.

Since you are concerned about your exercise, let me share one more thing that I did. I got a Pocket Pedometer, which I preferred to one that I wore on my waist. To get a baseline, I just moved my normal amount for a couple of days. I was horrified to learn that I was just getting in about 1000 steps a day. Then I worked on getting more steps in. I aimed at 2000 for a week and then the next week I increased the number. It really motivated me to do all those things that you hear about such as parking at the back of the parking lot. I eventually got in the recommended 10000 steps/day but it took a long time.

Time2lose: Thank you!!! I have been looking for a good explanation of an elimination diet everywhere!!

I plan on getting a pedometer and heart rate monitor, as soon as my tax refund comes in (in 1-2 weeks).

I have been super depressed for the past few days, with the itching and the tiredness and the feeling-like-crap, and then I don't feel like eating right, and when I messed up, I felt even worse. (I had McDonalds, first time in five months, #1 no pickles or onions.)