I was diagnosed about 18 months ago as well. Mine was weight gain and age finally catching up to me. I was about 240 lbs at the time.
My doc sent me to classes (4 classes, 4 hours each) that taught general nuitrition and how to correctly plan meals. I learned mine was rather mild. My readings were never over 160. A guy in my class was hospitalized when his reached over 600. What you had was bullet dodge.
Still I treated it seriously. Followed the meal plan to the "T". No cheating or anything. I increased the number of meals a day, cut out soft drinks entirely and found the trick to weight loss. Basically I thought of it as if I was playing an RTS game, like StarCraft or Command and Conquer. I found that I would analyse my meals and build a strategy of what to give up to make my carbs count. I also watched nutrition labels like a hawk. I don't say this lightly: your best friend are foods high in dietary fiber. They fill you up without impacting your carb count as much. And boy do they make you regular.
About 6 months later, I lost about 30 lbs. In a year I was under 200 lbs and my A1C was 5.5. I've been able to keep the weight off and learned to monitor what I eat. I lapse, but I track my lapses. You can live with this. The key is finding something that makes you want to stay around. For me, that's my six-year old son. Motivation and training will help you make it through.
