Almost done, now need to maintain...any pointers?

jlarue78

Long story short (hopefully i can...), I'm 34 male, started MFP last July, started at 260, now down to 197. 6'2". Started to just simply "feel better" and not really lose, I've always been tall, so never thought as being overweight. Initial trainer assessment at LA Fitness, he told me i needed to lose 50; thought he was crazy. But after 6 1/2 mo, i lost that 50 +13 more and have 2 left.

I've been tracking my food on the app, eating smaller portions, less dining out, actually knowing what i am eating, and working out 3x a week, run 4.5 miles and do weights. I've read some points on these forums about eating your work out calories and i don't and have lost.

Here's my goal, long term, i want to maintain my loss, and i have gone down 2 pant sizes, so i want to maintain that too. I know you have to continue to track you food, exercise and I'm fine with that. Eventually i want to get away from tracking my eating down the road; but still weigh weekly to make sure i don't go over. Right now i can have 1890 cal/ day and will be going up to about 2400 cal/day. My concern is how to add calories to my diet but not going back to what i use to do (eat whatever, sweets, fast food, etc). I am more conscious of what i eat now, so i don't want to replace that 500 cal with something that has too much fat, sugar, etc. Also is okay for every once in awhile to have a day to eat whatever, and how long it will take to recover from what I had (example, i love Mexican food, but i know there's lot of fat, sodium in it, so i still want to have it but not as often)

I have disciplined my self almost 7 mo to eat great, and i slip every so often, but i don't want to go back to where i was. I will continue to exercise so that will help.

One thing i have noticed is that i do feel hungry more, so i do drink a cup of water, have a light snack, etc. But there's been a few days when i went a little over board, but instead of feeling overly stuffed, i felt like i needed to eat more; but i knew when to stop.

So i know there are several questions here, i was wondering if there are good pointers out there. I use to eat out for lunch daily, now i bring my lunch to work, eat a light breakfast, and snack in between and try to have about 800 cal left for dinner.