Lost weight by exercising a lot WHILE EATING A LOT (about 2,

I eat about 2,000-2,100 calories per day because I burn about 2,800 calories per day. So that deficit of about 800 calories/day works great for my goal of losing about 1.5 lbs. per week (give or take). I've been at it for only 17 days and I've lost 5 lbs. as of today on that plan.

In general, if you eat fewer calories than your body consumes each day, you will lose weight. Period. There's no mystery here.

In your case, if you're eating 2,500 calories and exercising "a lot" (whatever that may mean), then you could be doing just fine, assuming that you're burning at least 3,000 calories per day. You probably are, because I don't exercise at all, and I have a desk job, and I burn 2,800 a day, as I mentioned.

And that's not just a guess. I have a Bodymedia armband that I wear 22+ hours a day, and that's where I'm getting my information.

Here's the problem with the approach you're taking, though. If you have no idea how many calories your body burns each day, AND have no idea how many calories you eat each day, then everything you do is just guesswork. To me, that's not exactly a recipe for success.

If you're really serious about losing weight (or whatever your goal is), information is the key. Know how many calories you're taking in and how many you're burning each day through normal life-sustaining functions, your daily activities, and exercise.

Good luck!

Thanks for your response and encouragement. The week prior to last week when I counted calories consumed, I ate an average of 2,565 calories per day. That week, I had gained 0.3 lbs. of fat according to my body composition monitor, so in order to have lost 0.5 lbs. of fat that week, I should have eaten 2,800 fewer calories or burned 2,800 more calories for the whole week (or 400 calories per day). (I calculated that because a lb. of fat is 3,500 calories, and 0.8 x 3,500 is 2,800.) That week, I burned 15,307 calories for the whole week (counting all kinds of burning, including BMR & exercise), so I should have instead burned 18,107 calories (15,307 + 2,800) in order to have lost 0.5 lbs. of fat. (I wear a Fitbit Ultra, so that's how I keep track of all my calories burned.) Last week when I wasn't counting calories consumed, I just aimed to burn at least 18,107 calories. I ended up burning 18,485 and lost 0.75 lbs. That week, I did about 7 hours cardio & 2 hours strength training, so my plan is to continue doing about that much exercise until it sinks to less than 0.5 lbs. fat loss per week (because metabolism usually decreases as body weight decreases), and when that happens, I'll increase my exercise. I know I don't eat exactly the same amount every week, but since I don't have time to track calories consumed, I'll just assume that I eat about the same amount each week.

What I want out of this thread is to hear some success stories (if any) from people who have reached a healthy weight and have done so by exercising a lot WHILE EATING A LOT, with "eating a lot" meaning about 2,500 or more calories for women and maybe about 2,800 or more calories for men. I know I'm going to have to keep increasing my exercising as my metabolism decreases, but I don't know how much I'm going to have to be exercising when I'm close to my goal; I'm hoping it's not too much more than I do now, since now I'm spending 9 hours a week exercising, which feels like a lot to me, but I'd rather increase exercising than decrease my eating because I love eating, so I'd like to hear about people who are at a healthy weight because their metabolisms are usually much lower than overweight people's, so their net calorie goals are much lower (you can see that MFP lowers your net calorie goal as you lose weight), so as people get really close to their healthy weight, it gets more difficult to lose weight, so if someone got to a healthy weight while eating a lot, that means they had to exercise a lot, and I'd like to hear about that because that would inspire me and make me feel more optimistic about what I'm trying to do (lose weight by exercising a lot while eating a lot).

Wow, this thread got revived after almost a year! I apologize for not responding to most of the posts; I don't know what happened; I think I thought not many people would respond and just forgot about this thread. Now I've read all the posts, and they are very helpful or interesting, so thank you, everyone.

I think it's weird that you justify not tracking by saying "i don't have time, i don't even have time for this post, i need to be studying" but you're willing to add hours to your gym time to be able to eat whatever you want.

I think you should call a spade a spade. It sounds (to me) like you want to eat crap because you've got an exam coming up (hello, stress eating!) and you are wanting permission/validatin from the community that this is fine.

if you don't have time to track your calories, where are the hours for the gym coming from? where is the time to type out these long posts?

You obviously do what you want an i hope it works for you (and i have heard of people eating heartily and working out aggressively and maintaining an acceptable weight), but don't say you're following this plan due to time constraints. your plan is not saving you any time (and when you're REALLY screwed and down to the wire, i bet you keep eating crap and drop the workout regime).

IMO, you're looking for a reason to make choices you know you shouldn't be making. eating poorly and in restaurants constantly is, for many, a bad habit that works against weight loss. it's up to you whether you want to practice a bad habit and tell yourself its for the best.

good luck on your test!

I think you and everyone else are right. I sometimes have a problem with stress eating and binge eating, and I LOVE eating yummy food, so I wanted to figure out a way to feel like I'm not restraining myself much eating-wise while still losing weight slowly, but when I made this thread, I was thinking, "Well, I've been spending about an hour a day counting calories (because I ate a lot of food for which the calorie information wasn't easy to find or figure out), so it would probably be healthier and more productive to spend that hour working out instead," ...but what ended up happening is that I got so stressed out with my studies that I gave up all exercise too; then I wasn't counting calories or exercising for several periods of time over the past year, and so I gained a little weight.

On February 28th, 2013, I decided to start trying to lose weight again and start using MFP and my Fitbit Ultra. The past 4.5 weeks have been great! What I do now is mentally set my goal to just losing 0.5 lbs. per week (250 calorie deficit per day), but on MFP and Fitbit, I set the goals at losing a whole pound per week (500 calorie deficit per day). Then, I can still have days where I eat a lot more than I burn, but those days balance out with the days that I have a 500-calorie deficit, and then I still end up losing half a pound or more per week on average. On average, I have lost 0.7 lbs. per week, so I am happy. For the first 4 weeks, there were 3 days (not each week, but for all 4 weeks) when I didn't log at all because those days I ate a lot of food at restaurants, and it was just too difficult to estimate the calories I ate, and I knew I ate more than I burned, so I just thought of it as like a "cheat" day and didn't log it (one day, for example, included a buffet at Mr. Gatti's, and I ate a lot --whatever I wanted), and there were some days I did log when I ate 2400 to 2700 calories, but, like I said, those days balanced out with the days I had a calorie deficit. For the days when I did keep track of the calories consumed (every day for the past 4.5 weeks, except for 3 days), I ate an average of 1,890 calories. I only averaged about 1.5 hours of cardio and about 2.5 hours of strength training per week, but now my focus is on calorie counting than exercising because I know there will be some weeks when I'll exercise more or less, and I will just adapt my calorie intake according to what MFP or Fitbit tells me. Now my focus is on trying to follow a 500-calorie deficit plan on most days but allowing myself to indulge and overeat on some days so that I don't feel too deprived --then I'll still lose half a pound or more per week and be happy. I feel like this is the best plan for me that I can stick to forever :-)

I am 5'4 female and eat alot even though my limit on FP is 1200 cals! I'm exercising about an hour cardio 3 x a week
Can i lose weight on this? And the thing about spending fewer cals than I eat, does that mean if my limit is 1200, I should look to burn 1300 or so?

Unless you have a health problem, I think a person will always lose fat if he/she is burning more calories than they consume. I don't think anyone's total daily calorie burn can be less then 1,200, even on days when they don't do ANY exercise (unless they have a medical problem), so yes, you should be able to lose weight eating 1200 calories per day while exercising 3 hours per week --I think you should be able to lose weight eating 1200 calories per day even if you didn't do any exercise, (but you should do at least 2.5 hours of cardio per week for heart health). I recommend that you get a Fitbit and link it to your MyFitnessPal account (I really want the new one called Fitbit Flex or whatever; I have the Fitbit Ultra) --that will tell you how much you burn every day, and it will even keep track of the extra calories you burn while grocery shopping or anywhere. I am 5'3" and 161-163 lbs., and even on days when I don't do any exercise, the minimum I've burnt on a day is 1,838 calories, but most days, it's more because even if I run only one errand or just some chores, it can add a couple hundred calories to that, so if you weigh less than me and happen to burn about 1700 calories per day without exericse, then your calorie deficit would be 500 if you ate 1200, which would equate to 1 pound of fat loss per week (and again, that's WITHOUT exercise).

I have never been able to lose weight by exercise alone. Now, exercise AND watching what I eat? Yes! That is the combination that works for me because I can still eat a pretty good amount, not feel like I'm starving all the time and lose weight.

I've tried to lose weight by just exercising and ended up not losing anything!

Yeah, you're right. Now I know to do both. I think before, whenever someone said, "watch what you eat," I was thinking that you have to feel like you're deprived and hungry most of the time, but I've been losing weight while counting calories and working out a moderate amount, and haven't felt too deprived (but it helps that I don't set my calorie-deficit goal so high and am just happy losing weight SLOWLY).