Disclaimer, I am not in the health profession, not a personal trainer, not a nutritionist, these are just my personal experience in losing 40 pounds and keeping it off for 2 years.

10. Commit to exercise some everyday.  Even if it is taking stairs, walking at lunch, or the gym.

9.  Realize it isn't easy to lose weight and there will be days you don't feel like eating right or exercising.

8.  Get as much extra activity in, take the stairs, park a ways a way or don't take a car at all to do errands.

7.  Remember if you eat a candy bar or have that donut in the breakroom, it takes one minute to eat it and probably more than an hour to burn it off exercising.

6. Cardio is good, but muscles burns more calories (even when just sitting there) so get some strength training in.

5. Eat smaller meals throughout the day.  This keeps the metabolism up.  Most experts say to get 5 small meals a day, I added a fruit after dinner.   Basically it is a small breakfast, protein snack such as cheese or yogart, small lunch another snack, then dinner.  Make sure you have your protein and carbs and don't forget your veggies and fruits.

4.  Learn how to make your fattening recipe healthy.   Get on the boards and experiment.  Learn how to use different ingredients to achieve the same end taste.  This helped me a lot. 

3.  You will hit a plateau.  Just keep it up, you are probably still losing inches.

2.  Look at what you are eating and see if there are any hidden calories that are sabotaging your efforts.  Fruit drinks can be very high in calories.. etc.

1.  Drink LOTS of water (80oz a day)  This amazed me, when I drank the water I lost when I didn’t, I stayed the same weight.