Hi again.
Great that your family are going to get you a BG meter for Christmas. You will get through a lot of test strips and lancets in the first few weeks so it might be worth mentioning to them that buying a couple of extra pots of test strips and a box of lancets with the meter would be a good idea to keep you going. The 10 strips in the meter kit usually only last a couple of days by the time you waste a few figuring out how to operate it. I bought myself a special BG monitoring device with my birthday money and it was the best present I could have been given... after all what is more important than your health.... and having the confidence to know what is going on so that you can take control of it makes a huge difference compared to wondering if you are eating the right things and then finding out 3 months or 6 months later when you get a blood test, that you got it wrong.
Unfortunately your Slim Well ready meal was likely not a great choice either. Slimming foods are usually low fat and low fat foods usually have extra carbohydrates added in the form of sugars and starches to improve the texture and flavour because the natural fat/oil has been stripped back. Rice is also a high carb food and I would imagine it was probably white rice which will release it's glucose quite quickly.... hence you were still sleepy, even if not as bad as the previous night and of course not having lunch will have helped your levels to come down before your evening meal sent them back up again.
Most of us diabetics go for the normal fat or even creamy versions of things (yoghurt milk etc) because the fat helps to stabilise our BG levels, keeps us from feeling hungry and provides slow release energy but eating more fat has to be combined with eating less carbs otherwise you just put on weight. I have double cream in my morning coffee instead of milk because it is lower carb (milk contains a small amount of carbs in the form of lactose)
I appreciate that you have probably been told to lose weight or follow a low fat diet by health care professionals but eating more fat and a lot less carbs is an easier and more sustainable way to lose weight for many of us. There is a lot of misinformation about fat and many of us find we are a whole lot slimmer, fitter and healthier by eating it and it often happens that cholesterol levels reduce despite eating more fat.... providing you eat less carbs. The thing I find amazing is that I just don't feel hungry anymore like I used to and I eat so much less than I did. The difference now is that I buy quality, mostly basic ingredients and cook from scratch.
Just so you don't get the idea that food is going to be unenjoyable. I had a fillet steak last night, fried in lamb fat (done rare) and I had that with a large plate of salad (mixed lettuce leaves, 3 cherry tomatoes and cucumber) and a big dollop of cheese coleslaw (not low fat but a creamy one). I am on a low budget but it was in the "reduced for quick sale" section and it took 4 mins to cook.... Can't get much faster food than that! The fat and protein are slower to digest so they keep you feeling full for longer but they don't spike your Blood Glucose levels and therefore don't put you to sleep.... on the other hand, the shot of rum (no carbs in spirits) I had with my bedtime hot chocolate may have helped me to sleep!