From Dukan to Vegan! (?)

For the past year I've been on a nutrition journey.  I've gone from being severely obese (BMI 37.8) to feeling good in a bikini! I started this journey wanting to loose 70 lbs, and once I hit a little over my half-way mark I stopped!

What happened?

I had lost 40 lbs by cutting out all process foods as well as refined sugars and carbs.  I still haven't had a slice of bread in over a year!  While I felt great and noticed a lot of beneficial changes, I started to focus more on my health than on my diet.  Also, I wanted to take the training wheels off, and see if I could maintain at this weight.  So for 6 moths, I stopped logging my food and gave myself the liberty to eat what I wanted.  I managed to keep the weight off, but after 6 months, I knew that I needed to go back to logging my food and making conscious food choices.  For about a month last summer I was able to maintain a primarily raw food diet.  I felt great, had more energy, slept better and looked great.  However, I started to wonder if this diet was really the healthiest way to go.
As fall crept in,  I felt like the diet conflicted with my social life and I abandoned it.  I still wasn't eating as badly as before I started my journey, and was still primarily gluten-free.
This winter, I tried to go raw again.  Let me tell you- winter is NOT the best time for this kind of lifestyle change.  I then started cutting out red meat.  I tried to eat raw and would have fish once in a while and mostly raw (sashimi).  This still didn't work for me.  I found that when I cheated on the raw diet, I CHEATED!  My mentality was if I'm going to be bad, I might as well be BAD!  Again, no real weight gain here.  As any pounds gained, were quickly trimmed down by going back to raw.
I then thought "wait! why not try vegan for the winter then try raw again in the summer?"  This didn't really work for me because I was still in the Dukan-mode of thinking "Carbs are EVIL!"  and well it left me thinking that the only things I could eat were fruits and veggies before I could eat them raw and now I could eat them cooked.  Well this didn't help!  I'd much rather eat them raw anyways!
This week I found the missing link-- COMPLEX CARBS; whole grains, beans, legumes, wild rice, etc...
From the Dukan diet I had this association that these kinds of carbs would make me FAT (again), but maybe I can balance being healthy with trying to loose weight.  I mean if I can maintain for 6 months eating things like chicken wings and Ben and Jerry's, I should surely be able to stabilize eating lentils and hummus, no?  Here we go again, I love me a good experiment!  I have a feeling this won't be a quick weight loss program, and that I'll have to workout regularly to kick things into high gear, but the rewards will be worth it!
Seems kind of weird to have a Vegan- Dukan Blog - doesn't it?