I had very very similar feelings when I started maintaining. In my life, I had lost sizeable amounts of weight on 2 different occasions and had never been able to keep it off. I had lost weight before, I had never kept the weight off.
The statistics just rolled around in my head - the huge percentage of people who gained the weight back. I did not want to be a statistic. I loved my thinner, healthier self. I wanted to stay that way!!!
I had been eating around 1400-1600 calories. I increased calories in tiny little baby steps. I still counted calories, still food journaled, still planned my healthy meals, packed my snacks, my lunches. I just added 100 more calories every day, up to 1700. After about a month, I added another 100 calories a day to 1800. It was scary and liberating - it felt wonderfully decadent to have 200 extra calories a day.
Even more terrifying - I started to look at "treats" and splitting desserts at restaurants with friends. After banishing sugar and vanquishing my sugar addiction, it was positively petrifying to disturb the sleeping sugar monster.
It has been a very long process with days when I went back to eating a "safe" 1600 calories. I love food though, I love eating and I really started ENJOYING the extra calories every day. I eventually reached around 2000 calories a day - still eating very clean
The best news - I didn't gain back one pound. I reached my maintenance weight of 140 in March of 2005. It has been one year - I actually weigh 127 lbs. I lost MORE weight after I started eating MORE. Amazing stuff
Currently, I am ecstatically happy with my weight and my eating. I probably think about food (planning, packing, shopping) more than a "normal" person, but eating healthy makes me happy. I still have weird thoughts about treats but I no longer feel compelled to binge on sugar.
In June, I got a tattoo to celebrate my weight loss. It is a Chinese proverb (4 traditional chinese characters on my back) that translates to "Dripping water can eat through stone." It's to remind me of perseverance - all the little changes I make every day to stay this healthy.
You can do it! You have reached your goal weight, it's time to slowly increase your calories over a period of weeks/months and keep up the weekly weighings until you find the spot where you no longer lose weight and you don't gain weight. If you find it hard to eat "more" food, try eating small amounts of nutritious, calorie-rich food like nuts or avocados.
If you're interested, here is my journal over on Shape that I started the day I decided that my 12 week plateau at 140 was actually maintenance. It's where I keep my food journal and there is a lot of writing about the difficulties of eating more and struggles to have a "normal" relationship with food.
http://boards.shape.com/ib/ikonboard...3;t=95261;st=0