I definitely understand why "diets" don't work. If the moment you hit your goal, you go off your diet, then all the weight will come back. If you spend the whole time on your diet longing for the day you can go off it, you're already doomed.

Diet won't lose you weight (or if they do, you won't keep it off). Changing your eating habits will.

Eat reasonable portions and focus on more meat and vegetables (seriously, vegetables...not fruit and vegetables) and less sugar and grains and you'll get there. But you have to figure out a way to make those swaps in your diet in a way you can live with.

As a friend of mine who also lost a lot of weight said, eat less pizza and beer and more bourbon and steak. When you say it like that, it doesn't sound so bad.