Not sure how to 'maintain'

Nuts. Whole milk. OMG cheese has a lot of calories! Avocados.

A glass of milk, toast, and butter is 500 calories.

Just increase your intake by a 150 cals a week or so...slowly increase to get up to where you "should" be. Nuts and nut butters, milk, avocado, olive oil...There are a lot of really nutrient rich foods that are calorie dense, but I understand that it's hard to eat those "on purpose" after you've been restricting calories for any length of time.

Nuts. Whole milk. OMG cheese has a lot of calories! Avocados.

A glass of milk, toast, and butter is 500 calories.

These are all good suggestions. You can also try bigger portion sizes of the things you are already eating. I think this is a common problem. It's hard to get into the mind set of eating more. Maybe try upping your calories slowly, like 200 per week or something so the change is not so drastic.

I eat more fruit and have slightly bigger portions at meal times. I also have a good 'cheat meal' on a weekend . I lost 34 lbs and have been pretty stable for about 6 months now. I too didnt want to fall back into bad habits so I am finding that by allowing myself that one day on a weekend to enjoy a good meal with dessert and wine etc is quite a good way of still controlling what I am eating. I know its not ideal. In an ideal world we wouldn't calorie count - we'd eat what we want and just stop when we're full and maintain that way but I think if anyone has struggled with weight thats quite a tall order!

I've been in maintenance for several years after losing 135 lbs. I've experimented a bit with my weight trying to figure out what I like and where I'm comfortable. A "happy" weight that has nothing to do with the scale.

But it can be a bit of trial and error to figure all of that out. And everyone here has given you a lot of great advice. Enjoy those calorie and nutrient dense food and indulge a bit to get to that "intake" you need to be in.

you can throw away all the tricks you used to eat at a deficit.

when i get to goal weight, for me, that is going to be going back to regular eggs rather than beaters, 2 slices of bread instead of 1, 2 cups of ice cream instead of 1, normal size cereal servings rather than 8 oz milk and 1 serving of cereal, more avocado on my omelets and sandwiches, the list just goes on and on and on

I have been maintaining for a year. My advice is just eat a little more of what you are eating already. That is what works for me.

For example I used to eat 1 egg with toast and butter at breakfast, now I have 2 eggs.

If I had 150 grams of chicken with my stir fry veg now I have a baked potato with it.

Still keep your diary, at least for now. I still log 4 days out of 7 now just to keep me on track.

I'm planning on logging everything forever, but that's just because I think it'll work for me, not because I think everybody should.

I am also comfortable with the way I'm eating right now. I will probably eat reduced fat cheese instead of fat-free, stop using fat-free dressings, and allow myself to eat more restaurant meals where I eat what I want. However, since I only have a weekly deficit of about 2300 calories, it probably only means I can eat those meals twice a week instead of every other week. I would want to eat them probably 6 times a week or more, but that's what got me into this mess in the first place.:frown:

I'll always have to be careful.

the best thing i can suggest is to just get full fat options of things - cheese, other dairy, milk, and healthy fats like olive oil (add to cooking and salads), avocados, pb and other nuts. a handful of nuts as a mid day snack and some avocado and olice oil in a salad can easily up those calories a few hundred if not more. it is tricky though and totally agree on not wanting to fill calories with junk food all the time. or add sunflower seeds to a salad as well or to yogurt with some honey. best of luck but that is the best thing i got, getting out the habbit of lower fat or diet foods (if that is something you did, if you have always eaten full fat versions then idk what to tell you except eat more of them lol)

as far as upping the calories, this has helped me in recovery with an eating disorder, which i know you are not going through but the concept is similar - eat more without huge weight gain - try 100-150 calories every week or two, that way you do not feel overly full and bloated from the change in eating more food

Maintenance can be easy or difficult for some people. When I was a personal trainer, I found that when people fully contemplated aspects of maintenance before beginning a fat loss intervention, they had less anxiety and transitioned into maintenance more easily. It also helps if you decrease the deficit as you lose weight so that you are eating just below maintenance by the time you are within a few pounds of your goal.

In a nutshell, this is what you'll have to consider:
1. Think of what foods you want to eat during maintenance and increase calories by 100 or so every two weeks. Continue to weigh and log all the food you eat.
2. Think of what type and volume of exercise you want to do during maintenance. Adjust caloric intake if you are decreasing or increasing exercise activity.

Be patient with the above as it may take a few months to get things right. But whatever changes you intend to make, do so early on so that you have less variables to worry about which could affect assessments.

this -- it's much less scary if you monitor & feel in control of your increase, and remind yourself that you can adjust as necessary. you've already learned what you need to know about restricting if you find you need to again, so trust that.