Yes there are a lot of people who follow a non-low carb diet, they just don't tend to shout about it!
My diet is very much the same as it was pre-diabetic days with exception that when I do have the occasional fizzy drink it's diet and I don't take sugar in my coffee anymore... But my eating habits remain about the same as it always did... I don't wake up in the morning thinking how can I spread my permitted 30g of carbs over a day's worth of food I get up and as I go through the day, I decide what I'm eating total up the carbs and work out my dose of insulin (within a equation of other factors)...
This doesn't mean that I'm stuffing my face all day with horddles of high carb foods, with lashing of high doses of insulin, what it does mean is that I am consuming food at a level that suits my days activity, maintain a healthy body weight well to be honest I do border the line of being underweight and maintain exellent diabetic control (I'm in the 5% club) and after 20+ years I have no complications and don't take any medication or supplements other than my insulin which is realistically a very small amount compared to others (18units adverage per day)... And best of all I don't hanker after any food stuffs such as chocolate, puddings etc rarely eat them but know that I can if I wanted to..
As you are T2 then yes it's slightly different, you can't adjust metformin per meal etc like you can insulin.. So needs a slightly different way of tacking seeing your foods..
But there are many tricks you can do, such as portion size, cutting one thing back in your meal and adding something else to bulk it out (handy if you are a large eater) or perhaps swap it for something that has a lower GI value... Then reserving something for the occasional treat..
Some idea's
If you like your pasta it needs to be cut back, if you having something Lasagne then cut the portion size back and add a side salad.. Better still if you make your own pasta then you can use thiner layers of pasta knocking off some carbs (I find that if I make my own pasta it's a lot easier to perdict the impact of my BG's)
If you like you chocolate fix, then buy an expensive brand with high coco butter content, and have a piece of chocolate after your meal...
Many recipes for pudding, deserts, cakes etc can be adapted to lower carb content to a minium...
If you consider why people who follow a weight lose diet fail over a period of time, weight lost diets are based around either one or both of two things, Restricting portion size, or Restricting food types allowed... It doesn't address a simple fact that if you can't have something you are more likely to crave it! Be it a large plate or quantity of food or a particular item of food..
So sometimes it's better to chip away at the changes you need, so that the transision from one lifestyle to another is made easier than it is actually to go cold turkey over night...
P.S
For all those who are screaming about the dangers of long term high blood glucose causes complications.. Yes I know it does but if your body has been used to functioning with high blood gucose levels, then dropping blood glucose levels over night to normal levels can be more damaging than lowering them over a couple of weeks...