How do successful weight losers do it?

There’s an old saying, “A path is made by walking on it.”  
Researchers have studied people who’ve lost weight and kept it off.  What path did these successful weight losers “make by walking on it”?  What steps did they take?  What turns in the road did they navigate?  Studies suggest the following:

Successful weight losers move from:	Toward:	
Trying to fool themselves	º	Being honest with themselves	
Looking for a “magic” cure	º	Recognizing that behavior change takes hard work and persistence	
Looking for a “cookbook” approach that applies to everyone	º	Fitting the tried-and-true ways of losing weight into their own lifestyle 	
Looking for someone else to fix their weight problem or take the blame for it	º	Taking “lonely responsibility” for doing what needs to be done or for not doing it	
Thinking of weight loss as an end in itself	º	Thinking of weight loss as part of an overall process of learning about themselves and their priorities	
Being afraid to fail and/or punishing themselves when they do fail	º	Being willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and try again	
Wanting to do it perfectly right away	º	Being willing to settle for “small wins” and build on the positive, one step at a time	
Seeking approval or forgiveness from others	º	“Owning” their own successes and mistakes	
Relying on willpower, control, or discipline	º	Making choices one at a time, being flexible, and trusting themselves 	
Blaming themselves or seeing the needs of others as more important than their own	º	Maintaining a healthy self-interest	

Think about yourself.  What path have you been on?                                            
                                                                                                             
What steps can you take now on your own path toward weight loss?