Sorry to hear your HbA1c has stayed stubbornly put, despite the huge amount of effort you have been putting in, and having been careful to avoid sweet stuff (which is often the default recommendation by surgery diabetes nurses).
Though it doesn’t sound like you had many of the ‘obvious’ things to cut back on - and by the sound of it not much in the way of takeaways either.
Cutting back on sweet and sugary things is generally a good thing, but you might be surprised how much *all* carbohydrate affects your BG levels, including rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, pastry, grains, cereals and many fruits. Perhaps you might find you can gently steer your HbA1c away from the ‘at risk’ zone with just a few modest portion reductions to the carbohydrate contents of your meals.
Breakfast is often the trickiest time of the day to be eating carbs if your metabolism is struggling a bit - which is slightly ironic when you look at the ‘breakfast aisle’ in most supermarkets, which tends to be all carbs and almost nothing else!
If you’d like a few pointers from out experienced T2s, you might want to share a typical day’s menu for some suggestions or lower carb alternatives. At 42mmol/mol, only a few smallish tweaks should be all that are required 🙂