Is there a way to lose bodyfat with just EXERCISE (including cardio, strength training etc) alone?

Many people don't enjoy counting calories, which is why so many fad diets and diet programs exist. Some like weight watchers just substitute points, and you're still counting and logging. Others like Atkins and Paleo try to restrict foods that many people over eat and/or are calorie dense.

I find diets that restrict foods difficult to follow, but you could definitely try swapping out some of your "normal snacks" (sorry, I don't think you actually said what you typically eat) with veggies or maybe a serving of potatoes for a serving or two of veggies. Many of the diets I mentioned above give a freebie to veggies because (depending on how you prepare them) they are relatively low calorie for a high volume of food. Essentially you can fill up on fewer calories.

For some people, eating intuitively works. They try to only eat when hungry, etc, but for a lot of other people, we're on this site because following our hunger cues got us overweight. Since you did lose weight with fewer calories, you should have a good idea of what correct portions are and what 1700 calories in a day looks like. You could try emulating that and see what happens for a month. Then, reassess after you look at what your weight does.

But, I agree. I added in weight lifting and walking, and I started to be a lot more hungry. I get to eat more food because I've greatly increased my daily burn, but if I added in the exercise without calculating my new TDEE and limiting myself to my new calorie goal, I likely would have gained weight.

Also, when first adding in exercise, you can often gain weight, so take a few pound gain with a grain of salt. My doctor actually suggested I not workout when I first started to lose because seeing the scale go up (usually do to increases in cortisol and water retention due to muscle repair) can be so disheartening for people that they give up before really even starting.

You cant outtrain a bad diet.

Wait - so the 3 minutes it takes in a day to count calories is more effort than the 2-3 hours a day it will take to exercise off your bad diet?

Everyone keeps saying you can't out-train a bad diet as if it's automatically assumed the diet will be bad. One can out-train a good diet that has no calorie counting. If he is aware of how much he usually eats and makes effort not to eat more than he does he will eventually lose weight if he includes some good burns into his routine.

Calorie counting has been fantastic for me. I do not find logging annoying, but we have to accept that some people do. As long as he burns more than he consumes, it does not matter which method he uses to get there.

Using TDEE that was calculated once is also inaccurate. Since this number can vary if you did more or less, there could be an overshoot of how many calories that should be subtracted to lose the weight. Use the most conservative activity data to (no exercise that day) to calculate this number then subtracting off 300 or so and then you may see the 1 lb loss. Otherwise, you may be discouraged that you didn't lose the pound.

P.S. Are you also drinking enough water? If you are hungry, drink water first to see if it is thirst or true hunger and it doesn't even count towards calories so you can drink as much of that as you want!

So first of all I think what you're really asking is whether or not it's possible to lose weight without tracking calories.

It certainly is for some people but it may not be possible without some other form of restriction somewhere, and/or without taking the time to develop habits around food that facilitate weight loss.

I do think that short term tracking is highly beneficial to help this process along as it can help you become aware of proper portion sizes.

I also think there are going to be preferential aspects of dieting that will differ from person to person so it can become difficult to recommend a framework that is going to apply to everyone. That being said, I've been experimenting with this both for myself and for a couple of clients. I've blogged about it here and you can feel free to take a look at it just in case you get anything of value from it. I don't claim this advice to be universally applicable to everyone -- this is just a general set of ideas that has been helpful for me and a few others, and I'm sure I'll add to or modify this as I get more experience doing this myself and coaching others:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/SideSteel/view/methods-without-logging-697613

I've lost approx. 10 percent body fat in the last year while staying the same weight. Blah blah blah about whether the measurement system was 100% accurate...I don't care. My pants are a smaller size, my veins are popping, and my pictures look totally different. I have also gained a lot of muscle. I followed a program called Eat to Perform (google it). Basically I eat starchy carbs around my workouts and try to eat 1 gram of protein per lb of body mass per day.

I Crossfit 3-4x per week, powerlift 3-4x per week, take an olympic lifting class, do yoga 2x per week and run or hike 1x per week. So, I work out a lot. But, I eat at maintenance, which for me is about 2600-3000 calories per day. I tracked my macros for several months. Now I pretty much eat intuitively. I had been calorie counting for many years, so there are no surprises for me in terms of calorie counting. If I wait til end of day and then log to check, I am always very close to where I thought I was.

As an aside, during this time, my bench went up 60#, my squat went up 100 pounds, and my deadlift went up 115 pounds. I PR'd a trail race that I do every year as well and hit some new PR's on my Crossfit baseline test, 500 m row time, etc.

If you like to exercise a lot, this might work for you.