Great job! I am an outlier too. Yoyo ed for decades, and finally dumped most grains and all dairy and upped my veg a ton. Walking, body weight resistance and intermittent fasting put the nails in the coffin of 40 pounds over 6 years ago.

IMO, there are several effective ways to lose weight, some faster than others, some making maintenance more difficult. I personally use calorie counting, not the fastest method for loss but one that will set me up to maintain the loss when I'm done. Last year, between June and October, I lost 30 pounds. I maintained that loss until this June when I began "dieting" again. I have lost 20 additional pounds since June 12 and am less than 5 pounds from my next short term goal. If I reach it before Thanksgiving, I will go for the next goal, if not, I will go to maintenance through the holidays.

I learned long ago, losing weight and keeping lost weight off is not a matter of what you eat, it is how much of it you eat. Granted, I can't eat chocolate every day, I can't have burgers and fries regularly, I can't eat 2 pieces of pie because it is there but I CAN have a little chocolate now and then as a treat and when I get with friends for an occasional retiree's luncheon, I can have a piece of pie (then bring half of it home). As someone who not only enjoys eating but also cooking, I am not willing to deprive myself, for the rest of my life, of things I enjoy but I am willing to limit my intake of them.

However, more important than what you have in your stomach, is what you have in your head. I'll admit, diets fail! I have had many failed diets, they start out good but within a couple weeks they falter, then fail and whatever small loss I had returns quickly as I resume old habits. I've followed some of the speedy diets, did serious Atkins at one time, lost weight fast, quite a bit of it actually. Unfortunately, I was not interested in spending the rest of my life eating no carbs and when I went off Atkins, weight returned. The reason? All in my head. Why was I trying to lose weight? After I lost, what was my motivation for keeping it off? If I didn't keep it off, what would be the outcome? The answers to these questions hold the keys to successful loss and maintenance.

While losing weight so I would look better for my 20th class reunion than I did when I was in high school made for a good reason to lose weight, and it worked to the tune of 60 pounds, it offered no real reason to maintain after the reunion was over. In fact, it perhaps gave me cause to gain weight as it resulted in my stepping into a brand new relationship. I don't do "relationships" real well and the stress of it, compounded by it being long distance, only prompted stress eating. As the relationship faltered and failed it proved to me that I was apparently unable to "pick well" when it came to men. Being fat didn't sound so bad, putting that fat "moat" around myself to keep people away.

So, what is different this time? What will be different after I meet my goal this time? Again, it is in my head. This time my motivation is health. No, that is not a panacea, just a health issue won't do it, I mean after all, just being obese is less healthy than not, all things being equal. I had blood pressure issues for several years, creeping upward but I put off taking drugs because doc said (and 'tis true) that weight loss can bring pressure down. I tried several times and would lose maybe as much as 20 pounds and my BP would be back within "normal" limits but then maintenance would fall to the wayside. Why? The 3rd question answers that, what would be the outcome (consequence) of failing to maintain the loss? I would end up taking BP medicine! So what?

I had come to see BP meds as inevitable, most people my age that I knew were already taking it. It started to not seem that important to avoid them so regaining the weight lost it's importance. This time the diet, which started 15 months ago, was prompted by an episode of Afib. It was not the first I had experienced, I was diagnosed with proximal Afib after being under anesthesia. It had been relatively well controlled by the BP meds and was not severe enough to require Warfarin or referral to a heart specialist. However, June 12, 2017, I woke up in Afib, which lasted maybe 5 minutes. It was the first extended episode since the weeks shortly after the initial diagnoses (about 18 months earlier) and although it was not a racing beat it was clearly chaotic and as such quite disturbing to me.

When it ended, I grabbed my Kindle and looked up weight as a contributing factor and not surprisingly it is considered one. That day I began my diet, counting calories, keeping the numbers low enough to lose weight slowly, without being consistently low enough to trigger a significant metabolic slow-down. I remain resolved to do whatever it takes to avoid having further/increasing bouts of Afib. Interestingly, I found that Albuterol can be a trigger and as a 40 year asthmatic (not severe, just wheezing) I have not had an asthma incident sufficient to use the inhaler, for over a year now. This time, the reason to maintain when I get to my goal weight is to keep a possible Afib trigger at bay. The consequences of not maintaining, I could well see an exacerbation of the Afib symptoms and this is wholly unacceptable to me.

And there you have an alternative outlook on the weight loss issue.

I should add, that the picture on my left was my 63rd birthday, then I tried shaving my head. It didn't work. But, it shows that I won the battle with obesity. Another statistical outlier.

Good advice Bob.