Long story short..
4 months stuck at 178-182.. gaining and losing the same few pounds on a 1200-1500 calorie diet.
I just had a light bulb go off in my head a few days ago that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't losing because I was no longer creating a deficit!
Ignoring conventional wisdom I dipped below 1200
and did two 1,100 calorie days.
Scale said 175.8 this morning. A MIRACLE!
So I am going to cycle lower calorie days and throw in a higher 1,500 calorie "maintenance" day here and there to find some balance.
So, just a suggestion to others fighting a long plateau like I did. Perhaps you need to ignore the 1200 rule for a few days and see if that helps. Also a problem is that I might have been underestimating calories and while it felt like I was doing good, I had just been eating at maintenance level this whole time.