I have been on oral.medicine for the last 22 years and I had optimum of taking 2000.mg Metformin daily as primary medicine with glimperide etc.I have experimented with myself by almost daily monitoring of my blood sugar, with different meals comprising of f varying quantity of carbohydrate ,protein etc with exercise such as walking ,weight training etc .During this period I have been obese with 40 kg to now 30 kg still
Everything said and done ,the most important thing is diet with minimum carbohydrate reinforced with exercise etc but primary thing is diet and keeping your weight under check as far as possible.The other thing is to keep your blood sugar within parameters anyhow through diet ,medicine and exercise ,whatever it takes but you must not hesitate in taking medicine af the earliest.The most important thing is to keep your blood sugar under check anyhow and only dependable way is to self-monitir by a glucometer,and don't depend on any lab except for HbA1c (3 months average BS) preferably every 6 months.
Through this,I could halve my medicine from 2000mg to 1000 mg even with my constsnt obesity -a genetic problem for me ,through diet,exercise and cheerful self monitoring.As for diet,not all diets sich as rice,potato etc raise blood sugar of everyone same way as everybody is different from.othets genetically.In my case,only rice ,not other carb raise my B.S alarmingly and this I could know through constant self-monitoring.Now ,it has become interesting for me to know about raising o for my BS with different meals.I don't suffer from any other problem such as high BP etc.
In nutshell,'mimimum carbo'diet, medicine,exercise-cardio with some weight training and regular cheerful self -monitorinh of your BS are the ways to lead a happy diabetic life.