I should have posted this last week when the scale finally gave me a 172.4, but today I stepped on and it said 170.1!!!
So, in the interest of open information so that maybe someone can take what has worked for me, this is what I did over the last two weeks.
My current plan:
5 small meals a day
lean meat, lots of veggies and fruit, 100% whole grain only
at least 90 g of clean protein a day.
Weights 3 times a week
cardio 6 times a week, run one 5k a week
10,000 steps a day
I checked my Fitday. It's really great to log everything, and I could look back and see what I had done differently. One thing that stood out is that I was barely getting enough fat. Only on two days in February did I get around or above 20 fat grams, and one of those days was my birthday. I averaged 10-13 grams of fat a day
What was happening was that I was weighing myself everyday, and not being able to handle those little fluctuations. So, instead of frying my veggies in one tbsp of olive oil, which is well in my plan, I would go get the cooking spray instead. So, these last two weeks I've been planning out my days on Fitday and sticking to it. And only weighing myself once a week.
On the exercise front: I saw that I was really unsteady with it. When I'm in the field I can easily get between 24,000 and 31,000 steps in a day. But when I'm writing reports or my dissertation, it's really difficult to get to 10,000 and that's including my cardio in the morning. I decided that on my sedentary days, I'll do my cardio as usual and then throughout the day take 10 minute exercise sessions doing something that'll get my heart rate up. At least 3 of these sessions a day. So far, so good.
What I didn't change:
For me, this is for life. That means that if I can't sustain it then I won't do it. Looking back at what I have eaten made me think of this. The only way I could've cleaned up my eating a bit more was to not eat a brownie and two glasses of wine one day, and then to not to go out for cocktails on Friday (unusual week, Project Runway finale, I usually only go out once a week). Those are things I'm not willing to give up, luckily, it looks like I won't have to.
Thanks everyone who posted on my help thread, I'm finally listening to my body!
EDIT: Totally forgot, I took out my 2,000 calorie day, and made my everyday goal of under 1,400 calories. Both times that I went out I ate 800 calories during the day, and right before I had my "heavy" meal of either a ton of veggies and salmon, or tuna in ww pita.
Goodbye Plateau!
Archy!!!
Congratulations on bustin' out of there! 
