Good on you nono for gathering up your energy and looking at improving your control... I think most of us can relate completely to wanting to come back to better control!
I second the diet cordial instead of juice, but do carefully monitor even diet cordials, I find they can spike me even though they are "no added sugar"... I believe some artificial sweeteners can affect some people's blood glucose regardless. So double check a brand before relying on it. Water is even better for you
And herbals teas are great.
As far as motivation, I don't know if this helps but I tend to think we look at (and get depressed by) things like HBA1c, other long term indicators, how the doctor judges your progress, etc...
Try completely forgetting all that stuff - and instead concentrate on getting some progress day to day, within a few days or a week or so at a time. Eg, crack your coffee problem (and get help from a dietician to do so). Then look at your night-time BGs and improve them over a few days. Then onto another small puzzle...
It can be motivating to make progress like that, where you see small, meaningful improvements, rather than a disconnected 3 monthly test result. (and by the way, your questions show that you already know this: trying to solve each little mystery, that's the way to go!) Remember too, that you will feel better in yourself mentally and physically with better control... and if you look out for it, you will notice the difference with improvement.
To make progress though does mean you need to be willing with the BG test strips, otherwise you just can't keep track of progress/lack of. How many tests do you tend to take?
