Being realistic about weight loss

When I started my journey I needed to lose 85 pounds. In the first 3 months I had set my goal to 2lbs per week and ended up losing 30lbs at a consistent pace. After that point I started to notice that the losing streak was slowing down and even went up 3 pounds. On the good advice of others here I changed my weight loss goals to 1.5lbs a week and increased my intake. Another 6 weeks in (after a short plateua) I proceeded to lose weight again and got down another 10lbs. Since that time, over the past 6 weeks I have only lost 7lbs and have even yo-yoed a bit.

I realize that this is not unusual in weight loss and I am not really discouraged yet but I have been pondering about a couple of things. I understand that the heavier you are at the start, the more weight you may see shed quickly. As you reduce your weight your progress will slow and instead of 2-4 pounds week you may only see 1 to 1.5 a week. I can understand and accept this, adjusting my goals to be realistic. What has me questioning is that although I have shed 40lbs at this point, I have read that things may slow down as you get closer to your goal, for instance the last 5 - 10 pounds taking longer to reach. On the one hand I experienced great weight loss losing the first 40 but I still have 40 more to go. Should I see my progress slowing already because I now weigh less or should I still be able to expect a further weight loss of 2lbs per week because I still have 40 to go?