As you can see from my signature, I got down to 155 and maintained it for about a year. I would occasionally have a high-carb treat, but never gained anything from it. Then I started having a high-carb meal on occasion. Still I didn't gain any weight. You kind of get into the mindset that this is where I'm going to maintain, so a little treat here and there won't matter.

Well, several months into having treats "on occasion," I noticed my size 10 shorts were getting a little tight. But it was the end of the summer, and I figured I'd washed them so many times, surely they had shrunk.

Then my winter clothes were a little tight. I stopped weighing myself for a while, because (remember?) "I'm maintaining at this weight."

Then one day I decided to weigh myself after having not weighed for months. Needless to say, I was shocked to find I had gained 10 pounds back. Then I did a lot of meandering among different plans, never giving any of them a solid chance of working.

Add to this an accident I had. I slipped walking down the staircase one morning and broke 2 vertebrae in my back and was laid up for weeks. I gained another 10 pounds over this, and ended up back at 175.

Finally I started doing Protein Power again, right by the book. Add to that the fact that my husband of 25 years up and left me 5 weeks ago (I had no clue anything was wrong -- he literally never gave me any indication anything was wrong), with no good explanation of why he was leaving.

So now I'm down to 154 again. This time, I'm going to keep in mind the problem with "occasional treats" and avoid them. I'm going to concentrate on eating enough protein and staying low carb.

That's my story, anyway.

In short, you get over-confident and then start to backslide.