I've found a way to take this formula and make it into a very effective weight-loss diet. I've been at it for almost a year and have lost 20 pounds so far, and it doesn't seem like I'm going to have any trouble keeping it off. Granted, I'm not anywhere near the traditional 5-year mark used in studies to evaluate whether someone has relapsed. But it does feel like something that I can sustain, even for the rest of my life if that's needed to keep the weight off.
There are some trends coming together in recent research that suggest that the most sustainable way to lose weight not to follow any specific regime, but to find a set of food restrictions that you can live with but which still lower your overall "food reward" to a level that you can sustain without giving up. (See this book review at Slate Star Codex [1] for more on these ideas.) It's like a much more fine-tuned and personalized version of the fad diets that don't have calorie-counting but add some restriction so that you don't want to eat as much, like the Atkins Diet or the grapefruit diet.
It turns out what works for me is to limit myself to 3-4 specific meal categories a day, only changing something up every few months. Currently it's Grape Nuts Flakes and milk in the morning, a homemade turkey and roast beef sandwich (or even 2) for lunch, and homemade burritos or Barilla Plus pasta for dinner. No beverages except water. No sides, except there are a couple of low-reward foods that I'm allowed to eat all day (currently Spring Mix and steam-in-bag veggies).
Crucially, these are actually some of my favorite foods–and some are pretty high-calorie–but if they are the only things that I am allowed to eat every day, my food reward starts to drift down and I want fewer calories.
I don't put any limits on anything, so I'm never physically hungry and my willpower isn't being drained every day by trying to limit myself. I let myself eat pretty much whatever when I go out socially, but otherwise absolutely no cheating.
We'll see how it works out in the long run, but overall I'm just as happy as before. Any boredom from the diet itself is mostly cancelled out by the benefits mentioned in the article (saving money, not needing to think about making your meals, etc.) Not to mention the whole "losing weight" part!
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/25/book-review-the-hungry...