I think when you have the kind of mindset that turns food into an addiction, or which automatically craves something that you have decided you're not allowed, diets are the wrong way to go. And by that I mean diets where you forbid particular foods, or only eat at certain times of day, or "faddy" diets like meal replacements. Banning food just makes it take on more significance than it should do, so you crave it and crave it, then binge on it and blow the "diet". Dropping to too low a calorie count and expecting to be able to sustain it has the same effect - you can manage a couple of days on starvation rations but then you eat the fridge. Our expectations of what we can do when we diet and what our body needs us to do are very different.
I think that you have to include treats and "normal" food when you're trying to lose weight, particularly when you have a lot of weight to lose. The more "normal" your eating, the easier it is to sustain the diet (that's the theory, anyway!). That way you don't need the blow-out beforehand, and hopefully you can stave off the binges that dieting can cause.
"Going on a diet" is a phrase that we ought to ban, actually ... it automatically puts you in the frame of mind that makes you feel you're being deprived, plus it makes you feel that you always have to be "good" with your eating and makes you feel guilty (or even just "bad") when you can't stick to it. I guess what I've been aiming for is just to eat a healthy diet, cut down on portion sizes, and be careful with those foods that I know are my problem ones.
I also think you have to be realistic and recognise that you are going to fall off the wagon every now and then, and most diets don't allow for that ... we tend to feel bad for eating what we shouldn't, feel that we've wrecked the "diet", and rather than drawing a line underneath it we throw in the towel. At least if you don't forbid yourself anything, then the guilt isn't so bad if we do have a blip.
We're human, we make mistakes. We draw a line, forgive ourselves if we need to, move on, and what the MoFos threads have done for me is help me to be able to do that - draw a line under a bad week/day/hour, then move on rather than give up.