Tasha-
Congratulations on making it to your goal weight!
I want to say to you, that your diet STILL needs to be a huge part of your life. This should not change-so maybe you won't have that feeling of being "lost" now that you have made your goal. The struggle to lose all of those pounds was a hard one-but I think that you will soon see that keeping it off will be the hardest challenge yet.
What makes maintenance so hard-is that you will still be working hard and counting calories and everything that you did before-except you will have to start thinking about different goals when it comes to staying motivated-since you won't be looking for scale losses any longer. You will have the freedom to eat a little more than you did for weight loss-but you still have to watch it diligently and not go back to the eating habits that caused you to be overweight in the first place.
What you first want to do is get up to a maintenance level of calories each day. If you have been eating 1200-1400 a day...then take it up a little each week gradually so your metabolism gets used to the change. Once a week up your calories by 100 a day...so you will be eating 1500 this week...1600 the next...and so on. Maintenance level can be around 1800-2000 on average, depending on your activity level. I think it is still very important to journal your calories and food intake just as you do when you are losing weight. It is when you don't keep track that things start to slip a little...and you start gaining weight back. I would recommend weighing in one time a week only-on the same day-just to keep your weight in check. If you are a pound or two up-then go back to a little lower calorie level for 2-3 days until it is gone and then back to maintenance calories. It is best to take care of a small gain immediately, rather than letting it spiral out of control and taking care of it when it becomes 5, 10, or 15 pounds gained.
Since you are at your goal weight-it is now the time to make goals that have nothing to do with the scale-but still are goals for improving your health and fitness. You may not want to lose any more pounds...but you can still improve the look and shape of your body by adding muscle mass through strength training, improving your cardiovascular health through aerobic activity like walking, dancing, jogging, etc. Take a dance class or exercise class locally and give yourself a little reward when you have finished a certain amount of classes-just like you would reward yourself when you reach a weight loss milestone. Enter in local charity walkathons and othe activities like that. If you exercise for 30 minutes 5 days a week...up it to 40 minutes...and reward yourself when you stick to it. You can also do small tweaks in your diet to improve your health as well...things like limiting red meat to once a week...limiting soda to one a day or one a week...setting a goal of eating 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day in your calorie alottment...goals of this nature to strive for that have nothing to do with the scale-but still health and fitness related. It helps to keep things interesting.
Congratulations again, and good luck to you.
Aphil