Maintenance - that is really what it's all about, isn't it? I think I'll be okay - I don't really have the experiencing of yo-yo-ing since i've pretty much just watched my weight go up - but I DID lost 40 pounds about 5 years ago doing the Carb Addicts diet and then regain most of it. I lost it fairly quickly - just under 4 months - so I think I was really viewing it as a diet. This time I've been on it so long it actually FEELS like a lifestyle! But I think I scared myself pretty badly - I realize that since I'm not so young anymore (I'm 47) I've really only got one chance at getting this right. I realized a couple years ago that I was going to stay morbidly obese till the end of my life, which would probably be short, and never do another fun thing. For years before that, it was always an idea of "I'll do that when I lose weight" and the assumption that I had a lot of time to do that. I started having visions of dying in my home, and the paramedics being unable to haul me out on a stretcher, or something. I truly believe that if I regain all that weight at this point in my life, I'll never be able to bring myself to try again. So between that knowledge; the fact that I'm already physically able to start having fun again and don't want that to stop; and the fact that "regular or normal" food is now low carb and not what I gave up (did that make sense?) I am very optimistic. I suppose there is also some social pressure- everyone is complimenting me, how embarrassing would it be to gain it all back. I work with a guy like that - he's in the 400's and lost a LOT of weight very quickly, BECAUSE he had a heart attack and was on doctors supervision. He gained it all back just about as quickly (to the point where he needed a motorized scooter to get around the school). That first time, he was a super hero and everyone was talking about it. Then last year he got "the surgery" and lost maybe 100-150...and I see NO ONE is saying anything at all about it to him.