What have we learned?

So what have we learned so far about eating and weight? The last 19 months have been a learning curve for both of us and we feel confident about the future. We've ditched our larger sizes and swapped these for much smaller clothes. Our bodies have changed shape dramatically and I'm continuing to do so. Most importantly we both realise why we were overweight, why we were slowly gaining weight and finally how to put that right - without going to extremes and following silly diets.
Having the confidence to spend money on a whole new wardrobe of clothes in smaller sizes is our commitment to staying at this lower weight. We cannot see that we will ever put the weight back on, which was something that would happen after EVERY previous weight loss attempt when following a 'diet'.
Dieting never worked in the long term for us because we couldn't take control - the diet did that not us. As soon as the 'diet' was over, we had to take control of our eating once more - so returned to our normal eating habits. The diet was written in a different language to the one we associated with on a daily basis. Sometimes the diet would have a strange set of rules, which, if followed could result in weight loss. If I desperately wanted to lose weight, I would follow those rules rigidly - but the minute I returned to my normal eating habits, the weight piled back on.
To take control of our eating (and weight) we needed to understand the formula for weight loss - that's how we came up with our method - OUR IDEA. This formula / method will stay with us forever. We found success by eating all the foods we love - no diet foods were necessary. Understanding and taking control has been the key to our weight loss success.