There are a couple of things that creep up on you as far as "weight loss" and make it really difficult to get those "last 10lbs" or to fight through a plateau....
1.) As we all get older we lose muscle. Muscle is the "engine" that burns calories. Our engines get smaller over time, such that if you stick with the same calorie intake, there is a high probablity that you will gain "fat".
2.) To build muscle, you need stress. Our bodies adapt amazingly fast to physical effort. A walk that burned 200 calories, only burns 100 a month later. You become more efficient and use less energy. Again, if your intake calories are the same, you will plateau or start to gain weight. This is where I think Joyflyin has it right: switch up every couple of weeks.
3.) You can never go back to your old habits, if you want to keep the weight off. You just can't. It is a permanant change in lifestyle. Feel good about that.
I went from 215lbs in college (played lacrosse at a very high level) to 290lbs about 5 years later. In a year, I dropped 70lbs to 220 and I went back up to 230-235 for the past 7 years.
My rules:
1.) No empty calories (pretty much all sugar is gone from my diet.)
2.) No carbohydrates after lunch. (Any carbs are from whole wheat, oatmeal, whole grains, etc.) I get home late and tended to eat late. No need for a ton of carbs to go right to fat as I sleep.
3.) One "cheat meal" per week. Don't go overboard.
4.) GO OUTSIDE. I found that when was idle/bored, I would eat for something to do, but I wasn't hungry.
5.) Learn what "hungry" feels like. It is OK to feel that way. You don't have to eat right away.
6.) I eat 6 small meals throughout the day.
On a strangely positive side: Yes, I know that being overweight has health issues. But it is true that this is pretty much the first time in human history that large populations have had so much food, the money to afford it and relatively low physical labor to actually have "obesity" become an issue. You pretty much had to be a king or an emperor, in years gone by.
