How to lose those last five to ten vanity pounds?

Hey everyone!
This is my first forum post, so please bear with me. I gained about twenty to twenty-five pounds during the past few years, and I've lost about fifteen of those. Since I returned from my Peace Corps service in June 2012, I've been a member of MyFitnessPal, working out almost every day with Jillian Michaels, counting calories, eating well, and doing a more or less spank-up good job! I'm still about five to ten pounds away from my goal weight, and in addition to cardio, I do strength training, understanding that muscle weighs more than fat (and burns more calories, too).

Here's the rub: I keep hearing that it's all "calories in versus calories out," and while that may be true, there seems to be so many factors that go into the equation of weight loss! I've been hovering at or around 1,250 - 1,300 calories per day for the past six months (and I eat back my exercise calories, being careful to conservatively log how many calories I actually burn). There's no way I want to be eating around 1,300 calories per day for the rest of my life, so I figure it's high time I shake things up a bit. I'm well aware that the body can become very, very efficient at conserving fat, burning fewer calories, and subsisting on less if need be (hey, how else did our ancestors survive long periods of famine?), so I guess I'm just confused.

I recall hearing on one of JIllian Michaels' podcasts that when you finally want to go into maintenance mode, you should increase your caloric intake by 10% every two weeks or so, rather than shocking your body with a boatload of food all of a sudden. Thus, if I wanted to work up to my maintenance level of about 1,750 calories, I should slowly increase rather than just eating an additional 400 calories or so. On an unrelated note, I also recall reading that when plateaus do happen, to increase caloric intake between 1,800 and 2,400 calories for three days (sounds crazy, but it has worked the several times I have done this, about every month and a half or so). Jillian says "ninety percent of the time plateaus are caused by your body's survival mechanism of protecting against famine, which is triggered by calorie reduction. The best way to fix this quickly is to give your body a little more food so it feels secure. Varying your calorie intake is my best advice for keeping your body from plateauing: For the next three days vary your calorie intake between 1,800 and 2,400 calories. I know this may sound crazy, but trust me...I know what I'm doing. Then, after three days, drop back down..." Quoted from: http://www.everydayhealth.com/fitness-specialist/dealing-with-weight-loss-plateaus.aspx

My question, thus, is what's a good route to take from here on out? I certainly don't want to gain weight, but since I'm not losing, I'm wondering if it might be best to increase my calories for a time (by 10% every two weeks, maybe), and then once I'm ready to hack away at those last five to ten pounds, go back to MyFitnessPal's setting of "lose 1 pound per week" (though this hasn't happened in, well, ever, but I haven't had much to lose, really). I suppose I should also mention that those last few pounds are entirely vanity pounds (as JIllian refers to them - can you tell she's an idol of mine?), and I'm otherwise a happy, healthy, etcetera etcetera twenty-five year old woman. Is there the possibility that by increasing my calories slightly, my body might gain a lot of weight? Will I see weight gain, and then after a time, weight loss again? (And how can I keep my chin up and not get down on myself if weight gain does occur?)

Comments? Advice? Inspiration? Motivation? Words of wisdom? I'm open to it all!

Thank you for your time,
Emma