Self-Induced Plateau?

I joined MFP around January 1 (the determination to finally get fit happened to coincide with the new year, it wasn't an actual resolution). I lost 18-19 pounds by the end of February (I do believe this was "short-term" fat; the fat that has most recently been put on in places that fat storage doesn't usually happen in for women). Also, I finally got to the "healthy" range in BMI due to this. For most of this time, I was around 1000 net calories a day.

Then, Spring Break happened. I stayed at my parents' house for a few days, and realized why I kept getting heavier, slowly but surely, while I lived at home. Those dinners were very calorie-dense! I still logged what I ate, and stayed around my metabolic rate. No loss, but no gain either. I considered that a success.

The week after Spring Break, I was reading up a lot on the forums here that one should never go below 1200 net calories. I realized this made quite a bit of sense after reading a lot of explanations. So, I figured I should do a possible self-induced plateau instead of waiting another couple months of not feeding my body enough for it to do it on its own. The logic was that two months of slight underfeeding would be easier to repair than four or five months.

It's been about three weeks of my weight now being between 148 and 149. The scale isn't budging, and I take this to mean that I very well may have been underfeeding myself and I did self-induce a plateau. I understand it's going to take a little bit for my metabolism to adjust to the extra ~200 calories per day. It's still a little frustrating to see my weight plummeting 8-9 pounds a month for two months and to have lost 3 pounds this month. I also realize that now, because I am in the healthy range in BMI and body fat now, that weight loss is going to go more slowly, but I didn't realize it would be that sudden of a change. My measurements are still going down, too, at the same rate even.

I suppose I do have a couple of questions:
1) While I know the scale "lies," what's keeping my weight from going down while I'm still losing inches? There is NO way I'm gaining muscle that quickly (a professional body builder couldn't do it that quickly), so, what is it?
2) How long does a couple months of under-eating by 200 calories take to repair? That is, how long before one's metabolism "wakes up" again?
3) Since I'm losing inches but not weight, is my metabolism still just as active before, and this is just a serious case of a lying scale?



I apologize for the long post. I don't think I've seen anyone self-induce a plateau in the discussion boards, so this might shed some light on others who may be thinking about doing the same thing. Plus, I just want to know what my body's up to. I'm not freaking out, and I'm barely discouraged; I'm just curious about what's going on with my insides.