I do not care what the calorie total is, alone, because it does not tell the whole story. From April 1 – Nov 1, 2015, at 750 calories a day, I was losing weight at a regular rate. I aimed at a weight goal in the lower portion of my BMI range, and it seems my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is about 1000-1100 cals/day, because, at least for now, this is maintaining my weight +/-2 pounds since Nov 1, 2015.

With a calorie target in mind, I also have to figure out how many grams of each nutrient I need. The FDA gives guidelines for this:

30-35% of calories from fats (and there are about 9 cals/g)
40% of calories from total carbs (4 cals/g), including 10% from added sugars
20-30% of calories from proteins (4 cals/g)

For the 2000 cal/day diet (or any number of calories you want), using the cal/g values, you end up with an easily calculated set of daily targets, including sodium < 1500 mg/day

The World Health Organization recommends 25g added sugar/day as their guideline, and I have been between 20-23g/day, but not zero. I have also been sticking with a lower carb total (but not zero). So for my actual current daily average of 1010 cal/day, I have been hitting 63 g fats (56%, higher to compensate for the lower carbs), 66 g total carbs (27%), 22 g sugars (9%), 13 g fiber, 55 g proteins (22%), and 875 mg sodium. And so I just measure everything, and write down the nutrients on everything, and decide what to eat based on coming in on average, over a few days, with these values.

I adopt and adapt recipes to stay within these targets.

In the know – If you know about numbers, here is what my A1c has looked like since my diagnosis. The mystery here: 10-12 months prior to this, I was in the non-diabetic ranges. Something spiked, which is probably why I could bring it under control so quickly.