According to Dr. Robert Kushner, Clinical Director of Chicago's Northwestern Comprehensive Center on Obesity, using what he calls a life events weight graph helps patients "find their true narrative."

Participants draw a graph of their successive weights, beginning typically from age 18 to the present. They draw in those specific life events that marked each year, such as attending college, graduation, marriage, pregnancy, birth of a child, work, demotion, sickness, loss of a loved one, empty nest, etc.  Then, they pencil in their weights at each life stage.  In this way, they can see a visual display that shows just how complex weight gain is and how it is interwoven with life events, not just because of a lapse of willpower.

It also helps identify periods where weight was under control, so the patient can duplicate what was proven to be successful for them.  And, of course, it visually depicts times where they may have regained weight, so they can ask themselves what got in their way, at those times.  

Even simply writing your weight down in a calendar book will do the trick. The idea is to correlate the events in your life with your weight's ups and downs. Using this as a guide, you can emphasize the positive and eliminate the negative.