It's encouraging to know you are in maintenance mode, rather than trying to lose weight.

@EdEarl I'm afraid I'm looking forward to shifting to maintenance a little too much. Kind of struggling to stick in loss mode right now. I shifted in November last year though it wasn't "official" until close to Thanksgiving. I was thinking at the time I would shift back in January or February but getting back took a lot longer. I'd like to hold out until just before Thanksgiving or my short-term goal, whichever comes first. For me, being on maintenance is nice, it is less structured than loss, although I kept a rough tally of daily intake it was not always written down and calories looked up. It was governed more by the scales, when weight went up more than 3 pounds, I would revert to loss mode for long enough to get back down.

The frequent weighing did keep in my mind that I was "controlling" my eating and for the most part that went well. I allowed a few total overboard days, mostly just holiday eating, like T-giving day, Xmas dinner, that sort of thing. This time I "plan" to keep better records when I am maintaining, so I can get a clearer idea how many calories I can eat without gaining. That will give me a more accurate calorie range for loss as well. I can tell the difference this year over last year as far as how much I can eat and still lose. As I get closer to my long term goal, it gets progressively more difficult to keep the ;intake at a level that will result in pounds off.

FitWatch says I can have 1781 calories a day and maintain my current weight but I've long thought that my metabolism was below normal (bet you've heard that from more than one overweight person) possibly because of a number or diets over the years, some OK, some not so smart! I have no real evidence of this but according to FW charts, my calorie intake level qualifies as "aggressive loss" numbers yet loss has been quite slow. Also, my normal body temperature is 1-2° below 98.2° although hypothyroid (drug controlled) could account for that,. Figure it wouldn't hurt however to just put that issue to rest one way or another an closely tracking what is "maintenance" intake for me would be a way to do that.
Enough of this. I need to go to bed. GN!

@DotLewis When one eats a reduced calorie diet, one's metabolism slows, temp decreases, and you live longer. The animals that have been tested on low calorie diets have also been quite active, maybe because with reduced calorie diets they are looking for food. Thus, your body plateaus its weight loss, like me, when I'd been eating 1200 calories for a couple of months, but didn't loose weight. I've heard a couple of doctors mention it; perhaps they cannot measure the rate of metabolism and science is lacking.