I have never understood the "Life gets in the way" explanation, so I can only tell you my experience. I lost about 60 lbs, and then stalled eating a casual low carb diet. I lost another 15 lbs by following a strict Atkins 72 style of eating. Once I hit my goal, my mindset was maintaining by getting back to a casual low carb way of eating. I quickly gained a few lbs and started experimenting over the next year with IF, carnivore, 80% fat, etc., which resulted in me ending up about 20 lbs over my goal weight. The best advice I have seen here had nothing to do with me, but I found it very helpful. There was a question from someone who recently started low carb asking about including high intensity training into her regime. Along with the typical answers about how to do that, one reply was to simply get your food right before adding anything else. I have implemented that strategy, and quit worrying about tracking macros, ketone levels, fat ratio, etc. and just started eating, without following any specific plan but similar to Atkins 72, Dr. Westman page 4, strict keto or whatever the terminology. Anyway, I stopped worrying about a goal weight, but I am slowly heading in that direction. I'm not sure what you can take away from my story, but for me, the lesson was to get (and keep) my food right instead of thinking in terms of weight loss mode vs maintenance mode and the rest won't really matter.