That's wonderful, thank you, I'll give it a read :)

I'm sure it was very mentally hard to eat more. I'm a stickler about watching my calories. I don't freak out or anything if I go over a hundred or two, as long as I stay under maintenance, nor do I 'punish' myself the next day by eating less. But it's still hard to get past that mentality because I'm so used to doing it now.

I read that post Mel gave me a link to and it makes perfect sense, that thin people who USED to be fat have to eat less than thin people who were NEVER fat. Because all the tweaking we do to our system to get our body to accept taking in fewer calories, I'm sure, screws things up a little, for lack of a better description.

That was a good read.

That's what everyone tells me. They'll say, "My gosh, you look so thin!"

Well, I'm sure I do compared to 220 pounds.

And when I say that I'm not done yet, they'll get an almost horrified look on their face and say, "Why???? You don't NEED to lose anymore weight!"

10 more pounds, dammit. That's all I ask.

I'm 122-125, 5'4, size 2, 38 years old and I do 2000-2200 calories a day. I lost weight on around 1500 cals (1200 would have me passing out!) and when I was ready to maintain I slowly ramped up my calories every other day or so, just like others have mentioned. It didn't hurt that when I was dieting I always did a 'free day', which many do not believe in but I believe it may have had something to do with my ability to eat more and maintain. I haven't gained a pound in almost two years now so something must be working.. **Keeping fingers crossed**..

:)

That's wonderful! It's always inspiring to hear about 'losers' that are keeping it off. Because, frankly, I'm a little scared of how long I can do it.

But... the changes I've made are lifetime changes and I'm ready to accept the fact that I'll have to watch what I eat for the rest of my life. I'm fully aware I can never go back to the way I was eating before.