This thread helped me focus on what I didn't know, so thank you all for joining in.
Before I posted I'd been puzzling what ingredients to eat. There's lots of recipes and calorie counters on the web but finding a full list of foods with a breakdown of contents took a while.
I found this a couple of days ago. It's a spreadsheet.
Source:USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp
It lists, for a given weight of each ingredient, the calories and then the grams of fat, of carbohydrates and of protein in the sample.
In my copy I've now added some columns.
Calories per gram lets me sort the entries from low values - like white fish and lettuce - to high values like peanuts and lard. If I want more weight on my plate I need to choose fewer calories per gram.
The weight ratios between carbohydrate and fat, and of carbohydrate and protein, help me find low carbohydrate ingredients and know whether I'm ending up with high fat or high protein instead. I think that gives me more knowledge to pick what to eat for a given meal. My next step will be to note the before and after Blood Glucose for each meal when a testing kit arrives and I nerve myself for all the finger-sticking.
With my BMI of 29 I reckon bringing that below 25, at the same time as reducing my HbA1c of 76, is needed.
I've been surprised by the spreadsheet. This thread highlighted milk in coffee as a calorie obstacle so that's now gone. Subsoil vegetables, even onions, raise a meal's carbohydrate proportion. My first few tries at reducing carbohydrate swapped it more for protein than fats. I'll persevere until I have a pattern that works for me. Maybe licking double cream might end up part of it.
The other thing I've done is googled cold diabetic feet. From the day I reduced calories my feet have turned icy by bedtime regardless of buying emergency tog-rated socks. I can't remember having cold feet before. This forum has many threads about the phenomenon. The unexpected consensus is damaged nerve endings are starting to self-repair, if I've understood correctly.