Lovely to see the action on this thread; thank you all for your thoughtful replies.

I had plateaued for about a year and a half, about 50 pounds down from my high weight, then started tightening up my focus back in March and dropped about 30 pounds. You may know how that goes--no one notices the first 20-30-40 pounds.

Then I spent the summer traveling, and only had access to a scale a few times over the summer. I had felt like I was losing, and the clothes I had seemed loser, but when I got on a scale on the last night of my trip and saw I'd dropped another 25, I was surprised to say the least.

I really hadn't wrapped my mind around getting under 200 (194 when I left this spring), but just got on with having a lovely summer, eating LC as best I could, walking a lot, being happy. And frankly, if I was low on cash and had to chose between spending 10E on food or on a book or CD, I would tell myself that I'd be hungry again tomorrow, but I'd have the music for a lifetime, so it was very easy to make those choices. Also, I think the quality of the food was better there, and I didn't need as much to meet my nutritional needs.

But when got on a scale that last night, and then got off and on and off and scribbled on the back of an envelope converting stones and kg to pounds to make sure I understood correctly, and found myself at 170, it was a total shock.

That was two weeks ago, and I'm down another 5 pounds since then. So when I returned to work, people finally saw the difference that all that weight loss made. (Most common response? 'You've lost a ton of weight.' Umm--thank you?)

Coming back here and finding that I could fit into clothing and seeing numbers on the scale I haven't worn for years leaves me with a sense of unreality about it all. It's as if I'm living the teenager-y dream of going to sleep fat and waking up thin. I am used to micromanaging the process, and this time more or less skipped the dreaded 180's-doldrums, and good riddance to that. But then missing the journey through the 170's? And continuing to lose? Wows. .

I am so grateful to be here, don't misunderstand. But I'm doing my best to try to own this, to accept this as the new normal. I spent last weekend going through my closet, going through The Boxes, and was stunned to see that almost everything I'd set aside because of weight gain fits now. I have two totes left of clothing that doesn't fit, but it's only a size or two too small. I confronted a lot of emotion in that process, and a lot of fear--if this is coming off this easily, might it come back? Decided I just can't think like that, and took bags and bundles to the charity shop and drove away without looking back.

I've got a pair of jeans, size 13 Zena `mom pants' that are my iconic `I feel like I look good in these', which I wore out in public yesterday. I didn't think I'd be anywhere near fitting them when I unpacked them, but they went right on.

I was at 164.4 this morning. And I think, imagine that--five more pounds and I'll be in the 150's! My 155 goal was set more as a distant Holy Grail than any clear knowledge of what will look and feel right to me. I'm aiming for functionality as my touchstone: where do I feel good, where am I most strong and fit, what weight can I maintain without it being a white-knuckle struggle?

I don't even know the difference between loose skin and rolls of fat--I can see and feel the muscle underneath, and I see sploodge on top of them, but how much of that is skin? Looking pretty good now fully dressed, otherwise not so much. And ladies, to be honest, I would like to also look good without the clothes.

Did your skin tighten up and you lose subcutaneous fat in the years since you hit maintenance?

Sorry to ramble on and on, but this is stuff I'm trying to work out instead of acting out, if you get my drift.

ETA: to clarify, I have no intention of changing the way I eat. I feel like I've finally stumbled on the way that works for me, natural, easy, satisfying. I wait until I'm hungry to start eating, eat what I'm hungry for, stop eating when my body says `enough', and don't eat again until I get hungry. I plan my shopping for the week, package good stuff for my frig at work and eat from that. Lots of fresh and cooked veggies, good fats, some chicken, fish, eggs, limited dairy, nuts, berries. What's not to love? I figure that at some point my body will hit a plateau, and I will assume that's my new goal, achieved. So I am definitely not thinking about changing that up when I hit some arbitrary number on the scale.

When I go to a new place, I ask people who live there to talk to me like I'm five years old. What are the rules? What do I need to watch out for? Don't pick up the snakes? Don't walk in that neighborhood at night? Okay, I can do that. That's what I'm trying to get a sense of here. I've lived in the other place for so long. I know how to live as a fat person. And I've been here before, but not for long, and not for a long time. And I'm still in that fat-zone of wanting to lose another ten pounds, and maybe then another. Still betwixt/between. But I can see landfall from here.