People have mentioned other addictions, compulsions, etc. I have used the 12 Steps in other areas of my life - for me they are concrete and give me something to refer to to meet situtations when I can't figure it out on my own. For me they express what I have to do to maintain my weight as well. It's not just the eating, it's the thinking, for me. Gradually over the last year (I will have one year at or below my goal weight on May 1) I have become able to live with weight maintenance without it being the only thing I thought of, just as I did with my other life issues. Working with these situations has become 2nd nature, but I know well the fear of falling back. It's still there, but every step I take away from my former habits is one more step in my new and more peaceful, happier life.
Temptation comes and I slip up, but I have faith now that I can stay on track. The results have shown me that. I hold on to that and to the guidelines that have gotten me here, and I also try to take it just one day at a time. (Formerly, I was working quite hard to get the universe all straightened out and in line 24 hours a day stretching into the infinite future, what a job! No wonder I felt a bit stressed...)
It really helps to have the Chicks here and to find support like this. I am grateful for that, as well as for every day I'm hanging in there with things balanced as they are now.
Jay, I am pretty much in the same place you are. I take great comfort that I have been able to maintain for a few months. My previous experience has been to lose weight, and gain it all back within six months.
This time when the weight loss slowed to non-existant, I made a conscious decision to just maintain, and not gain it all back.
So how has the few months of maintenance gone for you? Haven't you felt ok with your relationship to food while you have been maintaining? I, too, would hate to live with a "constant battle" going on between me and food, but it hasn't been much of a battle, so far. I ate what I had been eating and enjoying. I think I learned pretty quickly that adding cake frosting, peanut butter out of the jar (akin to drinking vodka out of the bottle, for me),and stale cookies to the scheme was not going to work. No one needs straight cake frosting, anyway.
Maintaining went well for me--I really liked being able to eat more calories. It felt like abundance to me.
But I've been trying to lose again, for a few months now, and I am on a plateau. A real plateau.
It's just tough to stay with it. And the thought of maintenance being more of same is really disheartening to me. I know it won't be--I know that--but I wonder how low my maintenance calories will be if I get down even to 140. As I said, I don't want maintenance to be a battle.
I am pretty new at this maintenance thing. I've been in accidental maintenance for a year or so (trying to lose but pretty much just maintaining), I've only been consciously trying to maintain for a month or so. So I'm still struggling with changing my mindset from losing to maintaining. Every day I'm am just that close to dropping my calories back down to a level where I can lose weight.
I think that, because I am so new at this, I always feel like I am one brownie and one missed workout away from my starting weight. I've read the articles about how many people gain back the weight they lost and I feel an absolute panic that I'm going to be one of them. When I have an off-plan meal or day, I often have to remind myself that I'm not going to gain back all the weight I lost with just one meal/day. That I just need to get back on plan and in a week it will be as if it didn't happen.
So I feel like maintaining requires constant vigilance (in fact, it's my motto under my profile name). I have to weigh, measure, and count every calorie. I've read comments by Glory and others about how they just estimate calories for the day and don't fanatically weigh/measure everything they eat and I am just not there yet. I don't think I'll ever have the same relationship with food that I had before or that other people consider "normal" but I do hope that maybe one day I'll be able to be a little less fanatical about it. That maybe one day I'll be able to eyeball portions and just keep a mental log of what I've eaten in my head. But that day is clearly a long way off.
But, even though I feel like constant vigilance is critical, I wouldn't say that every day is a battle. Some days I am definitely white-knuckling it. The good news is that, in maintenance, it's okay for me to have an extra 100 calories on those days. But then there are other days where I feel like I'm in "the zone." Where my eating is effortlessly and perfectly on plan; where I love the food I'm eating and have no problems staying in my calorie range. My hope is the eventually (and I suspect I'm talking years, not months, from now), I'll get to the point where I have a lot more "in the zone" days and a lot fewer "white knuckle" days.
I know when I quit smoking the first two weeks were miserable--every day was a white knuckle day. Then it got tolerable but I still wanted to smoke. Now, over 10 years quit, I'm in the zone--I rarely even think about smoking (only at times of extreme stress). I hope that eventually maintaining my weight will be the same.
You know, what's interesting for me looking back at this and also looking at my FitDay records for that time, is that I was asking this question after a week of eating under 1200 every day--even though I don't recommend that to anyone! My average for the week was 1182. I wonder what I was thinking! Probably the same odd thing so many think--eat less, do better.
And even more interesting is that I was staying at about the same weight as I'm at right now!
So, in between then and now, I figured out that maybe my approach wasn't the best. For the past week, my average calorie intake has been 1570, and I weigh what I weighed in April 2008. Now that's about a 400 cal/day difference, and yet my weight is not going up. In fact, I've been losing. Slowly, but losing. Go figure!
I still am a believer that maintenance does not have to be a place of endless restriction, but a place of mindfulness.
Mostly a pleasant place to be and a path of moderation, with keeping vigilance in mind. I don't consider it as a "battle", because this is too negative a concept for me—it'd feel as if I was battling against my own body, fighting some sort of curse, and I don't want to view it that way. Some people can "eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce"? OK. I can't. And it's just that.
Now, keeping moderation in mind, this is something I can do. But I admit I'm not very consistent at "constant vigilance". I mean, I am mindful of what I eat, I try to make good choices, etc., but I don't keep logging my food intake, and I only count calories for certain foods and not others (fruits, veggies... I don't count). Maybe I'm having it easy at the moment, and the honeymoon won't last? Somehow, though, I think it's also because my way of living has changed in the past year or so. Before, I would count and exercise, but the 'exercise' part was more the self-imposed kind, the "I must exercise in order to lose/maintain". Now I walk a lot, I bike a lot, I've taken on running early in the morning for the sole pleasure of doing it, and all of this is perhaps what has made maintenance "easy" for me. So I tend to think that as long as I can keep up with this (which isn't much in itself, it's not like I walk 4h/day either), then maintenance is mostly enjoyable, and not so much a constraint as I used to think before being there. This psychological state of mind helps a lot.
"Accidental maintenance" - good phrase (thank you Barbara) for what I've been doing for the last 6 months. It's a matter of daily choices for me - sometimes boring, sometimes frustrating, sometimes very rewarding.
But it has become a lifestyle for me now, rather than a string of behaviours so it's much easier to make all of those daily choices without agonizing over each one.
I expect to have to battle during weight loss--and to be vigilant, and to struggle, and so on. And sometimes to be hungry, and to get tired, and even feel tired generally. But I'm thinking ahead to that time when I decide I'm done losing, and what my daily life could be like.
I don't want it to be a "battle." I don't want to "struggle." I want to find the middle path, the path free from extremes, where I am not craving constantly or indulging in some craving. Not avoiding foods, but not running after them either--physically or with calorie calculations!
I haven't had alcohol for over 20 years, and for the first few years, it was a battle and a struggle every day, and sometimes every hour. It's not like that anymore--I simply don't drink. I can go anywhere and get through anything, and whether others are drinking or not, it no longer matters to me. There is no battle now. I am a nondrinker.
The phrase "white-knuckle sobriety" refers to people who are hanging on for dear life. I don't want to do "white-knuckle maintenance."
I want to find a normal relationship with food--that is, the kind of relationship that is based on nourishing my body. I want to break away from food-as-drug, food-as-thrills, food-as-what-we-do-'cause-we're-bored, etc.
JayEll, I really get that.
I think maybe it's a separate journey. There's weight loss (and certainly the first part of maintenance, whether first part to you means one month or one year or whatever, is much the same as weight loss). And then there's learning to relate to food in a way that's healthy and mindful but not more than that, if that's possible for you. I think it really helps not to expect that to happen automatically, nor to expect it to happen from the process of losing weight. So, I took a year to lose (most) of my weight. I expect to take plenty of time figuring out a way to be healthy and mindful but not stuck in a dieting mindset. I mean, it's not like society is very helpful with that I'm sorry if I'm being as clear as mud.
Anyway, I'm not saying what anyone else does is abnormal. We all start in different places, and we all have different goals and needs.
NOTE / ADD: I remember something you posted: Awareness is always being present. Obsession is never being present.
That sums it up for me. It's a good rule to evaluate my choices / behaviors / thinking / emotions by. The exact same choices about food may be mindfulness for one person and obsession for a different person.
My average for the week was 1182. I wonder what I was thinking! Probably the same odd thing so many think--eat less, do better. 
I'm sorry if I'm being as clear as mud.