"exercise alone is not enough"

It's definitely possible to control your weight through exercise alone, it's just a lot more work. I used to eat 2500+ calories a day and I managed to stay at 118lbs at 5'8". I would bike 30-40 miles every day. It's much easier for me to just make better food choices and exercise moderately.

put your settings on sedentary. also, you need to eat back all of your exercise calories. every single one!!

You'd lose weight if you didn't change your calorie intake. The problem for me is that exercise makes me hungry and I think I'd eat more, possibly without realizing it. It's just calories in/calories out, you can change the "calories out" through diet, exercise, or both.

Are you doing just cardio? I ask because I read a story from a personal trainer who finds he eats more and is more hungry when he does alot of cardio. Doesn't have the same problem when he's doing strength training. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Ok so basically, If I didn't change my diet (which is not out of control by any means....I've maintained the same weight for years) but start exercising (going from NEVER moving at all, to working out 5 hours/week) I still wouldn't lose anything??
That's burning an extra 1500-2000 calories/week.. According to the 3500 calories in a pound rule, wouldn't I lose about 1/2 a pound per week? Which was my goal anyway because I don't have much to lose...

And to be fair, still making small changes to intake but not actually on a full on "DIET" and counting every single calorie..things like losing the 200 calorie daily coffee, eating more fruits and veggies, but still being able to have a bag of chips or a sub from subway or some pizza, all in appropriate portions (these things really don't fit in my calorie budget as of now).

So what's the vedict? Not looking for the perfect right answer, just looking for opinions.

I've been using my fitness pal for a while now, and i perused the message boards today because of this same reason! I work out like a mad woman AND my fitness pal is set to sedentary! (I do spin four days a week, cardio two days a week, yoga 1 day a week, weights 2 days a week (i want to do one more day but i don't want to look like he-man either)

I started looking up stuff and what i found is that the recommended settings on the app are off for some people. I noticed this TODAY:

40g of fat per day... i read on live strong and the mayo clinic site it should be 27g for women

16g of saturated fat. I read it should be somewhere around 10-12g on the HIGH end

carbos should not be 80%. it should be between 45-65%

I changed mine to 60% and the rest shifted closer to what seemed healthier. (protein being at 20%)

and sugar intake is actually super low on it (like 20 something). If you eat fruit and you eat two apples you may go over. it should be about 50g (not of processed or granulated sugar)

I went to the goals and changed then to custom today and edited it to what seems to be a better fit. I hope after today i start to loose weight because i was beginning to feel really hopeless (((