[spoked451]

First thing I did was quit anything with high fructose corn syrup and all soft drinks even diet ones.

That's the key. Cut out as many sugars & simple carbs as possible. Some say to go even further and cut as many things that triggers your body's insulin response. Problem is that not everyone triggers on the same things & even sugar substitutes can set it off which can be even worse because odds are whatever it was you ate doesn't have any sugar/carbs in it so you end up with free insulin.

A good way to be aware of net carb intake is to subtract grams of dietary fiber from total grams of carbs to get the net for the food in question. I've seen people say that one should limit daily net carbs to anywhere from 100g to as few as 20g. Take a look for yourself and you'll just how hard even 100g a day would be.