Stubborn Tot

Ok Mommies of the world, raise your hand if you have a very independent, stubborn toddler!
For this reason I have not made a post in a few days and this morning I felt it would be a good subject for discussion. Those of you who are not yet at this stage I would say to prepare yourself and those who are already past this stage and are laughing I say, laugh it up and enjoy. :)
My 3 year old is stubborn on almost everything you can imagine but for time sake I am going to tell you about the 2 most difficult ones in our house right now. These have been the first thing we struggle with when we wake up and the last thing we are at odds with when we go to bed. So, here is the first:
FOOD! My kid does NOT like to eat when we are eating! Not only that, he will not eat the foods we are eating either. These foods he will eat when he wants to but NEVER when we are eating them for a meal. He is so stubborn (and I LOVE him to pieces) that he will go to bed hungry if I don't fix him what he wants (most times this is a non nutritional meal). That has been fine and dandy with me because I am thinking he will get hungry enough and eat what was offered to him. We were sooooo wrong! He not only has refused to eat but has lost a little weight and complaining that he doesn't feel good. We have only been trying this for the last 2 weeks. So now I have tremendous amount of Mommy guilt (which I feel on a regular basis) and I am completely changing my approach. He likes smoothies so I am going to make him drink his nutrition and calories so we can gain back that weight and get those good foods in him. Then he can have the foods he likes to eat and get the good stuff. (Thanks Mom for the blender) Wish us luck! I love this kid more than anything and I worry all the time if I am doing what I need to as a Mom to give him a happy, healthy life and by trial and error we will get there! He is my first born anyway and I don't remember receiving a  handbook when I had him on how to deal with the power struggles.
Ok, on to number two of our stubbornness: He has been potty trained for number one for a long time now but he has NEVER went number 2 in the toilet! He will do it in his underwear and in a pull-up at nigh but won't even attempt it in the toilet! (Please tell me we are not the only ones dealing with this) He will hold it until he literally cannot go so then I need to give him medicine. We have tried rewards, stickers, books, songs, special Daddy date, teaching him how the body works, talking about where it goes after it leaves our body, making him sit on the toilet, making him sit in the mess, making him clean it up, washing him off in the shower (turns out he enjoys that)....Everything we can think of and this kid just doesn't want to. I have resolved to the approach of just dropping the whole thing, maybe if I do not mention or bring it up in any way he will forget about it and maybe one day when he sits to go number one he will be relaxed enough that number two will just fall out then an epiphany will happen and problem solved! I can only hope right? (sigh) Feel free to leave any suggestions or ideas you may have, I am up to hearing some other approaches. I am so in love with these boys of mine but sometimes I need a Mommy vent. Thanks for lending the ear (or eyes in this case).