can you eat what you want and lose weight?

no reason to give up anything.

you can absolutely eat whatever you want. you, however, cannot likely eat how MUCH you want. it's all about finding a balance.

I regularly eat fast food, ice cream, sugar drinks and other junk food. As long as I stay within my calorie budget all is well.

You can still lose weight. However, I have found that calories in certain foods do not work the same as calories in other foods, at least for my body.

I eat anything I want to eat. Period. With that said, I am finding that I am starting to make better decisions. I love ice cream, I found a very good tasting no sugar added. Things like that will come later, for now, just hit your calorie goal.

eat what you want in moderation.. as long as you stay within your calories..eat drink and be happy :drinker:

This. If I ever banned a food it would probably jump back at me in a huge craving so I ban nothing.

How I understand it - in the beginning the weight comes off 'fairly easy' (unless you have some sort of medical issue of course) as long as you just stay w/in the calorie budget to lose weight. (takes 3500 calories outgoing to lose 1lb a week....most find that with a balance of fitness and food)....

in the beginning it is 'easier' and you can eat usually 'whatever you want' - but i've heard from others who get closest to their ultimate goal weight - that's when you have to start worrying more about the 'balanced diet'

good luck!

Works/is working for me :flowerforyou:

If you cut out foods you love how will you learn what a day in your cal goal is like with these foods? You will not be on mfp forever and need to learn how many cals these foods have and their macros so you start getting an idea of if you eat this how much should I have. Also what would happen when you add them back in? If this is a lifestyle change it should be something you can keep forever. Im 5'5 eat 2000 cals and I find it manageable.

I eat what I want to, pizza, fried chicken and chocolate ( every single day on the chocolate) included. I don't give up anything, but I do eat sensibly ( i.e., two fried chicken thighs instead of 4 or 5 pieces, two slices of pizza instead of half a pie) and I'm steadily losing weight... It does help that I do a lot of gardening and farm work. I've never gone to a gym. I may add; I never do cheat days, don't believe in that, and have no need to.

If you have a medical issue, no you can not. At 80 pounds overweight, you need to make sure you're not insulin resistance before you start eating pizza or icecream. It will make losing weight harder for you and lead to diabetes.

Calories in vs calories out.

However, do appreciate that the type of calories in may affect the calories out.

For me, I'm not convinced it massively does - maybe for others it does more.

(For instance this article http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-science-of-nutrition-is-a-carb-a-carb.html suggests that if you're reasonably healthy, how you get your carbs doesn't really matter.)

I can't, but that's because I have PCOS. Dairy, pasta and bread just do not work with my body anymore.

Edit: I still do.. but I've also been on a plateau for 6 months.

No foods are completely off limit (I think that's one of the reasons "dieting" fails so frequently). Measure & keep within your caloric goals.

As long as you know what your trigger foods are. I cannot a few Hershey 's kisses. If I eat one, I will eat 10. So I avoid all trigger foods. Ice cream too, I cannot eat it in moderation. I can however, eat just a few potato chips. Other than my trigger foods, I eat what I want.

Medical conditions not withstanding, theorhetically you can eat whatever you want and still lose weight as long as output is greater than input (calories consumed are less that calories expended).

However, what you will find is that those items like cookies, ice cream, 'junk' food, etc. are so high in calories that you can't eat much before you max out your calorie count for the day. Then you find yourself hungry and raiding the pantry at 5pm. Fruits, veggies, and other 'healthy' foods often (there are exceptions) tend to be lower in calorie so you can eat a greater quatity of those items in a day and feel full and are less likely to go over your calories. This is what I have found anyway.

My advice is to take small steps. Make one change at a time. Make sure it is a change you can live with for the rest of your life. Get that one change under control then make another one.

I used to drink a lot of soda. That was a lot of calories I was comsuming by drinking and I knew there was a more efficient way to use those calories. First I cut back to two sodas a week. Then one. Eventually I found I didn't even need that. I still do have soda on occaision. I eat out and rarely order sald. I don't eat low fat or 'diet' items and yet here I am almst 70 lbs lighter than when I started.

It's about a lifestyle change, take baby steps...you can do this!