It's my one-year anniversary of maintaining my goal weight! (thank you, MFP!)

I reached my goal weight of 135 almost exactly a year ago. Today I weigh 132. I feel relieved and glad that maintaining the weight loss has been possible. (I'm 5'8", female, age 60, and I started out originally at 161 lb. I dieted by eating 1200 calories a day, super-healthy low-ish carb diet. I get light exercise each day and I didn't change that while losing weight. I also totally ignored the whole "drink lots of water" thing, which I personally did not feel was necessary. )

Each person approaches the maintenance journey differently, but here's what works for me:

My biggest luxury when I reached my goal weight was putting away the food scale and no longer logging calories. I was anxious at first about regaining weight, so I still did a bit of mental calorie-counting but that faded out after a few weeks. Instead of calorie counting, I let hunger be my guide in maintaining my weight. I allow myself to get actually hungry before I eat, and I stop eating when I feel satisfied. Even if that means leaving food on the plate in a restaurant or throwing away the uneaten half of a muffin or sandwich I just bought.

I used to drink fruit juice before I went on the diet. When I was losing weight, I couldn't fit the calories into a 1200 per day diet. I have not resumed drinking juice. (I never drank soda.) Now the only things I drink are tea, coffee and the very occasional glass of wine. I don't drink much water and I have never come anywhere close to 8 glasses a day.

I don't worry about fats, and I eat mostly pure whole foods and lots of nuts. I eat very small servings of desserts and treats, and not much white bread or white rice.

Anyway, I just wanted to let people know that (for me, at least) maintenance can be intuitive. My blood pressure, which was borderline high when I was at 161 lbs, has dropped to low-normal -- which was my whole motivation for the weight loss. I have avoided the need to go on a blood-pressure medication.

MFP was a giant help while I was losing weight - I could not have done it without MFP -- so I just wanted to check back in a year later. And to thank the community here.