It took me a few months to get down from the 9s and 10s through the 8s and 9s down to the 6s and 7s and then it took me as long again to get down to the 4s and 5s, but I'm doing significantly more exercise now.
The main thing is to find a diet that you enjoy and one you can live with and which helps keep the weight down and the sugar levels low.
Writing in Medscape, Roy Taylor states:
"The extent of weight loss required to reverse type 2 diabetes is much greater than conventionally advised. A clear distinction must be made between weight loss that improves glucose control but leaves blood glucose levels abnormal and weight loss of sufficient degree to normalize pancreatic function. The Belfast diet study provides an example of moderate weight loss leading to reasonably controlled, yet persistent diabetes. This study showed that a mean weight loss of 11 kg decreased fasting blood glucose levels from 10.4 to 7.0 mmol/L but that this abnormal level presaged the all-too-familiar deterioration of control."
Most people will achieve good results early on. Somehow, you have to bite through that initial success and continue driving your weight and glucose levels down. To re-emphasise the role of exercise, Taylor adds:
"The role of physical activity must be considered. Increased levels of daily activity bring about decreases in liver fat stores, and a single bout of exercise substantially decreases both de novo lipogenesis and plasma VLDL."
At 1000 calories a day you will lose weight until you level out. That's when exercise becomes necessary. For some people, weight loss will be slow, for others, it will be faster. That's just one of the mysteries of different peoples' individual metabolism. But, weight loss will occur and no matter how long it takes, if you are reducing your carbs, you are not making your diabetes worse. Some people on this forum have reported that during this 'plateaux', they have been able to come off metformin and BG levels have remained stable. Changes will happen, no matter how subtle.
This is a case of hyperlipidaemia where the centrifuged blood sample causes the lipds to flow to the top. Normally one would expect a centimenter or so. A single bout of exercise however can reduce that by half, though the effect peaks at 12 hours and only lasts for a day. There is merit in those old sayings about walking off a meal or taking a daily constitutional.