I agree with the idea of making things as easy as possible. My home environment is such that it's relatively easy to "eat well." Indeed, when I'm at home for extended periods of time, my weight generally drifts down.

But, even after all these years, I'm not sure I am completely "tough." I still find it challenging to simply say "no" to every tempting food when I'm traveling. I still fall into old habits when I see (work) friends from around the country on trips. It's not as bad as it was before I started WW, but it's far from perfect, too.

Thus, there are times where you do simply have to say "no" to things, but I don't have the strength to say "no" to everything that I should!

I am kind of lucky in that how I eat now is how I ate most of my life. I crept up over a period of years, eating the same foods but in bigger quantities and with more indulgences. It was a pretty stressful window of time and I lost focus on caring for myself. I am pretty "tough" from a discipline stand point...saying "no" is not easy, but I can most definitely do it. Now by joining WW I think I do it even better...When I joined WW it actually was a bit easier that there was a system behind me versus just the consumed knowledge I had over the years and a mindfulness of what I consumed but not actually tracking it.

So with the tracker, the website data and the community the entire process was better for me. I did not have to make big food changes, just tweaks as I tracked. I re-learned to say no by telling myself, this is how you used to eat for years just go back to that...little by little I got there.

My doctor is the one who put my head into portion control, when we were discussing various popular diets, when I reached a weight he and I knew was getting much too high, he said "in the end it is not so much what you eat as much as how much." For some reason although logically I knew that...hearing it did the trick for me. I lost about 12 pounds on my own, then joined WW for more structure.

I do lean on the program a lot. I'm always hoping they don't go out of business etc. Even though I know the program inside/out...I hate to see the tools go away. Point tracking is way simpler than calorie tracking to me. Free fruit and veggies is such a break from calorie counting. But I am pretty sure I can build the structure and tools myself if I needed to and hopefully never go back to a unhealthy weight.

If I have learned anything, the main core of my plan can't be a "just say no" approach. I am not that tough day in and day out and I find it is a rather negative and unsustainable approach. Lately, I have had a few medical people ask me how dedicated to getting the weight back down. It helped remind me of it is one thing I can do right now that will lessen the issues I am having with my back and knee. It is something I have a significant amount of control over. I am trying to keep that in the frontend of my mental approach. More of a what am I saying yes to than what I am saying no to. It is less draining. It doesn't mean there aren't struggles and poor decisions, but I am finding anew, that it is less fatiguing than denial.

I'm really only tough with avoiding those foods that cause me GI distress. Put chocolate in arm's reach, and I'll likely indulge no matter the time of day.

Any toughness, or persistence, is in the area of getting in my workouts. I enjoy being physically active, especially if it means I can be outside.

It's not all or nothing for me but saying no is definitely difficult more often now than when I first started WW and GoaD board. I think that meeting with a Behavior Nutritionists starting this week and also meeting with the local hospital dietitian ( still waiting to hear back for an initial appointment) is going to assist me in figuring out what I had total willpower to do in the past. After 5 times losing 100 lbs in the past I very interested in both aspects of this total program. I am very interested in learning from the dietician more about foods that I like to eat but want assistance with some of the sugar free and fat free foods and their effect on the body if she can answer those questions.

Pushing back and saying no is the other part of the equation. Portion control is easier said than done for me. Part of that is that I try to eat WW friendly items like lettuce, spinach vegetables in general and slow down on certain meats and so forth. I'll be getting into working on solving these issues as I go along and report back.

Interesting question @88olds . As I think back, my 'less-than-totally-tough' self was probably what inspired me to put myself on the '90/10' plan shortly after joining WW. That was simply a function of acknowledging that I had and followed no plan for decades and that's what got me in WW's door. So, it made sense to me that if I followed the plan 90% of the time, I'd be doing much better than really, ever before.

I think I'm with @leeless511 , that it wasn't as much what I was eating and drinking, but how much, that got me fat. I too needed the structure of WW (or some program, but that was what I chose) to help me get where I chose to go. Once I got a little course correction on GOAD for the fact that especially under the previous WW program (Points Plus) I could eat anything, it actually gave me freedom to mix and match to my heart's content. At that time I was in the losing mode and I really appreciated the flexibility. I could vary my meals or drinks daily if I wanted and I lost pretty consistently though some weeks were definitely better than others. I didn't have to be tough most of the time because between my 90 / 10 approach and PP flexibility, it was pretty manageable.

Now, on maintenance, it's not really a lot different. Well RIGHT NOW it is as I seem to be gaining almost without explanation (but I think there is one). I was pretty much eating on the SP program before the programs rolled out (back to not so much what I ate but how much). I've reached a weird point where I sometimes just get tired of the constant vigilance, but again you GOADies have helped me understand it's maintenance fatigue. Alright well, sometimes I'm really fatigued. But truthfully, it hasn't really led me too far astray, certainly more in mind than in real life. It's testing my toughness I suppose, but the truth is I really don't want to creep back to where I was. So, I'm feeling the battle but certainly haven't lost the war.