More than Just Pounds

I am trying my best to eat 2300 calories for my maintenance but is actually very difficult for me because I'm so full!  I literally force feed myself some days.  This reminds me of when I first started WW last May and how I had to force feed myself that first week because I thought I "had" to eat all my dailies and weeklies.  I went from eating 900-1300 calories a day before WW up to 1500 on average and then I slowly made it up to 1900 by December when I worked on raising my metabolism when I quit WW and started counting calories... and now here I am trying to eat 2300.  Sure, I had days here and there where I hit 2300 or more in the past but not day after day like this.  I've actually never been an overeater, I've always battled undereating and gained most of my weight on medication throughout the years and/or a messed up, slow metabolism.  It probably stems from when I was anorexic and bulimic in my late teens.

Here's what I've eaten the past 3 days for my second week of maintenance:

Saturday - 2512

Sunday - 2069

Monday - 2100 (working on trying to eat up to 2100 tonight)

Currently, my average is only at 2227 calories this week so far.  I'm hoping I can bring it closer to 2300 by week's end but again, it is difficult to eat this much.  Maybe I need to bring my maintenance down to 2200?  I never thought eating more would be so hard.  Eating Saturday was easier because I did a hike during the day and then later in the evening I did a 90-minute garage workout with some dance and rowing and back/abs strength training.  Sunday was my rest day, so I don't push myself to get the full 2300 and then today (Monday), I was too busy doing errands and then it stormed when I was going to hike, so it is a rest day and I'm pushing myself to try and get in at least 2100 tonight.

Here's a look at my weight the past few days:

As you can see the past few days my weight is the same at 163.0, which to me is odd because Saturday I did intense exercise and I should have seen an increase on the scale Sunday for that but I didn't.  Then Sunday, I ate Taco Bell and should have seen a rise today but didn't. 

I'm learning a lot about my body with this new scale!  My analog one only ever showed me pounds but my new smart scale gives me a greater insight by showing the in-between ounces.  I also found out that I gain on average 3 pounds at night from the morning weight.  I was always afraid to weigh at night on my analog scale because I was so bound up in the number and I don't think I could have handled knowing the scale went up at night.  Something has shifted since getting my new scale though - after the initial shock of the new scale being 4 pounds higher than my old scale, I started to defeat the power the scale had over me in my mind and realize it is just a number - which I constantly told myself in the past but I kept finding myself under the scale's power and it would determine my mood a lot of the time.  With my logical mind, I know that I'm aiming for measurements as my goal, but I really want to see the scale go down too.  I'm reminding myself constantly that muscle is more important and that I never want to be skinny fat.

I think the allure of eating more is slowly wearing off.  Sure, I got excited today when I was out knowing that I could really eat whatever I wanted at Chick-fil-A but I actually wanted to feel good in my body and so I opted for a healthy chicken wrap and then later I had a treat of an ice cream bar for 160 calories.  I made my normal healthy dinner, which tonight on the menu was red beans, kielbasa and brown rice but here I am needing to eat at least 500+ more calories before bed and I'm tired of eating!  It is very hard to eat a lot of food when you eat mostly healthy!  You have to eat junk food to get the calories up there and I have eaten a lot of junk food lately, which isn't the norm for me and I feel its effects in my body.

My true maintenance with the exercise I do and lean body mass I have is probably 2600 calories but I chose 2300 because I can't even fathom ever eating 2600 on average every day!  I also don't want to decrease my exercise because I exercise for my heart and blood flow, not necessarily for weight loss.  So, I'm perplexed as what to do - do I lower my desired maintenance to 2200?  Or do I keep pushing myself to eat 2300?  Maybe it will get easier when I do my deficit for 3 weeks at 1800.  Maybe after the 3 weeks is up, I'll be so hungry it will be no problem to eat 2300 calories.  I just have to wait and see.