Thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this threat.
You are very right when you say that losing weight is hard work. That is why I get so riled up when I see those ads on tv or covers of books promising that you can lose weight without exercise, eating less, in next to no time or whatever - there is always a cost and an effort involved. By promising utopian solutions they are setting people up to fail.
It is interesting to read your journey's story.
My take on it is that the reason why perhaps you have not yet reached goal is because the urgency for you to do so isn't there.
My advice to people starting out in weight loss is that they have to get their head in the right place.
They have to turn the WISH to lose weight into a WANT to lose weight into a MUST lose weight mind set.
That is why I tell them to count the costs and benefits for losing weight AND not losing weight.
Once they have done this, then they can count the costs and benefits better - and change.
Hopefully in this process the WISH turns to WANT and finally into a MUST.
For me losing the weight became a life or death matter.
I had convinced myself (and with good reason) that if I didn't lose the weight then I had only a very short time left on this earth.
That certainly put some urgency to the task to say the least!
Reading your story I feel that you've got to the WANT stage of the mind set and just stopped short of the MUST stage.
You've done enough (and good for you to do what you have done

) to stave off the disaster but still remain under the shadow.
Being 6 to 8 kilos over your goal weight is comfortable for you.
The cost and time to travel to goal weight is not urgent because you are not sold on the need (MUST) to get there.
The cost in your mind outweighs the benefit to do so.
Thanks again for your post...gave me a lot to think about.
Kim