Rotation diet: weight loss and weight maintenance require different strategies
Weight loss and weight maintenance are very different matters.
During each three weeks on the Rotation Diet, you aim for perfection, and the closer you get, the better you will do. After all, you can't lose two-thirds of pound a day without sticking to the plan very closely. Removing temptation from your home environment and avoiding it elsewhere are the easiest ways to come close to perfection.
As for the long term, it's balance and moderation, NOT striving for perfection, that will ensure success in maintenance. Some of our successful participants call their approach to incorporating high-calorie foods into their diets "controlled binging"! They intentionally plan to include some every week. They avoid being overly restrained because they find that trying to be too perfect for too long can actually set them up for long-term failure. If you are at all like them, you, too, may have found that constant denial only increases your drive for dense-calorie foods. Then, the moment you indulge in a single bite, the floodgates open and you are overwhelmed by the appetite that has been building up. Thus, in maintenance, you control the appearance of temptations, having periodic indulgences that never let your drive to eat sweet and fatty foods build up to the point where you will overeat and put on weight.
You will learn the strategies for self-mastery and environmental control that allow for "controlled binging" without regaining any weight after you have reached your goal. Just as ice cream and cheesecake are back in my present maintenance diet (together with a couple of beers after a nice jog in the park), your favorite high-calorie foods will return to your diet. But you will be in control, deciding just how many and how much of these foods you want to eat, and when.
So, to repeat, during the Rotation Diet you will find the task far easier if you remove temptations from your home environment. I hope you will be able to do this. If you are a woman, talk it over with your husband, and make plans for him and the rest of the family to have their ice cream, cookies, cakes, and candy as special treats away from home. It will be good for Dad to go out with the kids - they'll love him for it and it will give you a chance to go for a walk alone!