Calorie Balance

I'm a week into increasing my calories to slow down my weight loss and am feeling out of control! When I first started increasing my calories from 1200ish to 1640 it was so hard. I struggled to eat enough calories and found myself filling my caloric needs with not-so-good for me foods. As I've decreased my calories during my weight loss journey it's been easy to cut out the crappy foods and stick to around 1200 healthy choice foods. When you only have 1200 calories to play with you really do find the best food that gives you the most bang for your caloric buck.

During this past week I've noticed that it has gotten easier to meet my 1640 goal, but only by adding sweets, unhealthy fats, and eating even when I am not hungry. I need to figure out how to increase my calories with healthy foods that will help my body and improve my fitness level. This all feels really unbalanced and out of control! It's like I can either (a) eat a minimal amount of calories and easily stick to my goals or (b) graze all day in an attempt to meet my higher calorie range and struggle to stop eating when I should. It should be EASIER to follow my goals when I have more calories to consume. Why is it so much harder???

PLUS the scale is not moving. I know, I know~ it's not suppose to be moving. I know I am getting stronger. I know that the scale is not the only way to judge healthy living.  This is hard! I am use to seeing the scale move a little every day...not a lot~ a quarter to half a pound each day and now it is just plain stuck. Will my body adjust to the increase in food or will I start to actually gain weight because I am eating more? Am I destined to eat 1200 calories a day for the rest of my life?

Tomorrow is a new week at work and a new day to make healthy choices to meet my nutritional needs. When I first started learning I would enter all of my food for the day on SparkPeople before I even ate breakfast. This would help me to see what other foods I needed to add. I suppose that is how I learned how to eat at 1200 calories. I am going to go back to planning my food for the day and see how that goes.