Replies to 'What's Your Payoff for Being Overweight?'

I started like everybody else with weight problems, by trying diet after diet. You either learn from each one or you don't. I lost my weight before Dr Phil wrote his UWLS book, but what he says is right on the mark.
The first thing I learned was that will power only gets you so far. I could lose the weight until will power petered out, or stress hit, or vacation came along, whatever. I also learned that I am very sensitive to some foods, not a true allergy, but close. I do better with low carb diets, food cravings disappear when I stick to them. You must learn as much as possible about your body and metabolism. We're all different, and different foods affect us differently. Some do better on low diets, some on low-carb.
Next, I had to learn to manage stress and other triggers. This is programming and arranging your environment. This is crucial to long-term success. If you don't get this down, you'll just gain it all back.
Dr Phil's book is excellent for teaching you all of these things. Other great tools and be hypnotherapy. I went to a group weight loss hypnotherapy class. It had a tremendous affect on my attitude and replacing the "tapes" in my head with ones that helped me stay the course.
Dr Phil's SELF MATTERS is good to help you understand yourself and your pay-offs. Losing weight is all about changing your life habits, so understanding how you got these attitudes and coping skills to begin with is invaluable.
And always remember one thing, you never fail at a diet if you learned the lesson of why it didn't work. Then you can apply the lesson and keep progressing. Plateaus are just "breaks" and contain their own lessons too, don't give up when you hit one.