Well to add to my story a little, I became a lifetimer after losing 50 pounds. During my initial weight loss period, I had to mix things up every now and then to keep the scale going down. It's very easy to get into a routine of pretty much eating the same things every day and our bodies are just so darned adaptable! Things just would slow down or stop as my body would adjust it's metabolism to whatever I was feeding it. After struggling with a plateau, I started using the 'Wendie Plan', which is a variation of the flex plan. It's where you alternate high point days and low point days throughout the week to keep the metabolism guessing. I had good results with that. Also I had to change up my exercise routine every so often to keep things moving along too. Keep in mind that I'm a 46 year old peri-menopausal woman so I wasn't the fastest ship in the fleet when it came to losing weight! My average loss was just over a pound a week and only about two weeks out of every four I showed a loss. The other two weeks I either gained or maintained.
I guess what I'm trying to get at is that you do need to jump start things every now and then when it comes to weight loss. If only we could explain to our bodies that we're actually trying to get rid of excess weight! Darned evolution! HTH