One of the most effective ways to lose weight is to choose a buddy.  Whether it’s your spouse, a friend, a family member, etc they will join with you, go exercise with you, diet with you, in short do the things with you that you need in order to actually stay on your plan.  They provide moral support, which helps many to succeed both in the short term and in the long term.  And frankly, they may come up with insight that you do not, hear things from other people that you do not and they will try it out with you.  Now a good buddy is someone that is motivated.  If you lack motivation one day, they will make up for it and give you better benefits.  If you feel down, they will give you a pep talk.  If you don’t feel like going to the gym one day, they will make you go anyway.  And frankly, ideally speaking it should be a buddy who can actually follow the same diet as you.  After all, if you eat together and one of you is on a vegetarian diet and the other on a low carb diet, how do you really think that’s going to work out.  These are all important elements in finding a buddy and important ideas to follow.  But if you find all these, you have greater success and a buddy to really help you along the way.