the "eating when you're not hungry" dilemma

Thanks for the information! I have a question - what about when I'm not just not hungry, but am actively feeling quite full? Here's a couple of examples -

Most mornings my breakfasts are small or non exixstant. Since I started here I've been averaging about 250 calories for breakfast. I've been advised that it's better to larger breakfasts to jump start your metabolism, but I just get really really full very quickly in the mornings. Should I force myself to eat anyway, or break off and have another healthy snack later in the morning?

Here's another example - yesterday I was out for the greater part of the day so I missed my afternoon snack, and didn't get home to dinner until very late. I had a pretty large supper, but was still under my daily goal by 300 calories. Should I have forced myself to eat more or can I make it up by eating more the next day?

I know that idealy I'd be close to my target calories every day. But I'm finding this really hard to do. I'm always either over or under by about 300 calories or so. Any advice would be greatly appreaciated!

generally I agree with Cris on this one, I'll elaborate a little to maybe give you a plan of attack.

for the first part, the slow ramp up is key. Don't try to switch from a 200 calorie breakfast to a 600 calorie breakfast all at once, gradually, over the course of a few weeks, start adding in extra calories to what ever meal is lacking. To go along with this, you should research the concept of calorie dense foods (google is a wonderful resource if you type that in), things like nuts, oils, eggs, avocados, beans, quinoa...etc. Things that don't really fill you up but give you a lot of calories to work with.

For the second part, cris hits the nail on the head, planning is everything. Eventually you become really good at planning your daily nutrition. So good that you don't need to think much about it (that's how I am now, after 4 years of this) but it's doable. For instance, I'm at maintenance now, which is about 2700 for me, but I usually burn about 350 to 500 extra calories a day with exercise. As you can imagine, that's a LOT of healthy food to consume in a day. If you don't become super efficient at figuring out your calories, you'll find yourself failing to meet your goals often. I don't, I almost always meet my goal, why? Because I've studied calorie dense but still healthy foods, and I'm not afraid to eat.

I know that last statement sounds weird, but a lot of people on here become "afraid" of calories, they think that if they try something new, for instance, adding 100 calories to their diet to tweak their goals, they'll suddenly have an utter fail and gain 10 lbs. Obviously this is hogwash, and it's impossible to gain 10 lbs of fat without noticing, especially if you're aware enough to be on MFP and be active. But there's still the irrational fear, and it permeates our culture, that's something you need to get over, the best way to figure out the calorie goals for you is to figure out about what your goal should be, then tweak and observe, re-tweak, re-observe. Rinse repeat until your meeting your goals.

I'm not afraid to eat.