I've been overweight and obese for most of my life, and on several occasion i've managed to lose a bunch of weight through diet and excersice, but always ended up regaining it a year or two later. Finally at 40 i got a health scare, heart arrythmia, and i decided to try again. I found a pretty good nutritionist that emphasized 'relearning' to eat over just an efficient weight loss diet. That was the key, and that i managed to modify my environment by buying 95% unprocessed foods and never keeping more than a very small stock of cheat meals. Here in Argentina we still have a lot of options to buy meat and vegetables fairly cheap and accessible, outside of the supermarkets.
That said, the first two years after i lost most of the weight were harsh, not so much because of keeping eating healthy, which happily took less and less effort each month, but because of 'not recognizing myself in the mirror' after 25kgs gone. I started questioning if i needed to keep changing things, like breaking up my marriage for example, or changing careers. And i still have a recurring nightmare where i wake up and i'm 115kgs again.
So i can totally relate with the 'fat trap' concept, even though i haven't been 'fat' for close to 5 years now. Great article!