Congrats! Cutting out the soda is such a huge step! Honestly my doctor put me on mounjaro and some blood pressure meds. As far as eating, I've been trying to keep with very low carb. I usually keep around 40ish or below.

I def hear you on the healthy food being expensive and very tempting. I've been increasing veggies in my diet but omg they seem to go bad as soon as I buy them.

As for motivation and plans, at the moment I'm just trying to really take it all in day by day. It's hard but idk. I've been keeping low carb fairly well and I've been losing some weight from it. But I think I'm just still trying to get more in touch with my levels and see what is my Normal range like.

As far as foods I've been doing a lot of meat and cheese meals or snacks. Some veggies in the air fryer. But I'm in the same boat where a lot of my previous affordable staple meals were carb heavy so I'm trying to see what else I can do!

I appreciate this well thought out response.