New to dieting

Hi All, I'm fairly new to dieting and was hoping to get some pointers on how to stay on track and not lose motivation when the scale doesn't move. I don't want to lose a bunch of weight, only 10 pounds or so, but the weight I do lose, I'd like for it to never find my address again :tongue: I tried the 3 day military diet but luckily I was already logging my food on this website and I found out it was having me eat less than 1000 calories a day which lead to terrible headaches for 2 days (it was a 2 day diet for me) so I quit it. That is not the kind of dieting I'm looking for. I've done the SouthBeach diet twice and lost some weight on it but gained it back. How do you guys/gals keep the weight off for good?