Not to sound harsh, but the reality is pretty harsh. EVERYONE says that: "I'll never gain back the weight I worked so hard to lose!" but almost everyone does.

But it sounds like you do have the right mind-set, not even using your birthday as an excuse to go off your WOE. I think those little excuses can pile up, and pile up, and pile up and then they become habits, then they become daily habits. Before you know it, you're back to doing exactly what you did before!

I think the people who are most likely to succeed are the ones who are most ruthlessly honest with themselves and don't try to justify or rationalize their behavior but call themselves on it, correct it and go on.

My sister is a perfect example of a rationalizer. She cheats a lot on Atkins. She doesn't binge or have huge cheats. But she's always got justifications or rationalizations for why she did it. And rather than owning up to what she did and then trying to improve, she reasons it all away as intentional. "I meant to get off the diet so it is ok".

The end result is she isn't losing weight. I just hope she doesn't give it up and say the diet failed her.