There was a story recently on NPR on psychology of dieting. They've found that if your self-control is good during the early part of the day, it will be better later (which is when I tend to overeat). They also found that having self control over "other" things (like exercise), you tend to have more control over what you eat. This actually helped explain why I cycle because I found it to be very true. So, when I find myself getting into a bad pattern, I just focus my efforts on Starting the day well and with exercise. Usually, this motivates me to keep it going.

Motivation: Attempting to fit into my favorite dress or pair of jeans. Keeping a photo of yourself at your ideal weight - then keeping a photo of yourself at the less desirable weight. Not having crap in the house. I find that when I'm exercising I eat better because it takes so much work to take off all the snack foods. I also found some compromises with DH - he can have snack foods but he has to keep them at his office. We got down to drinking wine on Friday and Saturday nights only. Rest of the week it coffee and water. As other's said having healthy stuff that I actually like easily accessible and readily available. Also pinpoint when you are most like to eat like crap - for me its immediately after work, right before my period and when I'm stressed. Identifying the times is half the battle. It still happends and I have a ton of weight to loss but I find that if I weight myself weekly and keep a record of it I'm more motivated to keep it the same or loss some. If its more than I need to adjust.

Prep healthy food ahead of time so when you are looking for something, you just grab what is already prepared instead of junk food.

eat plenty of protein. it will help keep cravings away.

Op I am in the exact same cycle, even down to the DH, + periods of heavy wine drinking. It helps if I have some type of event or trip coming up where I'll see people I haven't seen in awhile or will be in pictures. Vanity motivates me

what helped me is to be realistic all the time. When you are being "healthy", include treats and make sure to eat enough. When I scaled back too much, I ended up cycling between crappy eating and "healthy" eating because the "healthy" eating was unsustainable.

This is me!!! What helps:

SLEEP - when I am tired, I overeat to keep myself going. 7 hours minimum

Keep a bowl of cut up fruit in the fridge at all times. Sometimes it's just too hard to even peel an orange, but cut up fruit is easy.

Pack my lunch the night before, just as I pack my kids lunches

Weigh myself daily

Tell myself how much I want to fit into that pair of jeans and how I don't want to do anything that will take me away from that great feeling

I worry I don't have the will power. I feel like it is sometimes linked to stress and hormones and other times out of laziness of not having healthy foods around the house. The other major problem is my husband eats awful and always has -he is tall and can get away with it. Any advice is appreciated!