How did you transition to maintenance? Nuts and bolts!

*chuckle* this is not the worst freaky ever to be, Fawn!!  :} 

I struggled at first.

(1) The whole "your body will know" thing didn't work for me, not at first.

The thing is, I'm a great dieter. I've always been a great dieter. So when I got down to about where I wanted to be, my body wasn't giving me any signals to eat more. I had to consciously add in more calories or I would have stayed at 1200 calories until I got so thin I died. Okay, I probably wouldn't have let it get to that point but my body didn't demand more calories in any way I could sense because I trained it that it was only going to get 1200.

(2) I thought somehow that maintenance would be completely different from losing

So I spent a lot of time flaying around trying this and that. In the end, I went back to what I was doing through the losing phase only more calories and (slightly) more indulgences. I still eat high protein, low carb. I still track my food most days. I still track my exercise. I still exercise! I still push the water/fluids.