1900 calories and weight loss?

i work out about 6 days per week, and i've found myself eating roughly 1800-2000 calories each day. usually only about 1-300 of those calories are used up by foods that aren't very nutritious. the rest are from fruits, veggies, whole grains, etc. I feel like I am eating SO much food! Yet, I am always hungry, and usually 1900 calories is just about right to make me feel satisfied for the day. Because of my workouts I generally still have a 500+ deficit, but it still seems that it should be impossible to lose weight eating this much food! Is this on okay amount of calories?

Also... on this site I often read posts from people saying, "I went 500 calories over today and ate 1900 calories!! Oh no!" This worries me because for me, on days when i "go over" (today for instance... I had a run-in with some cookies) i'm looking at more like 2600 calories! On these days I feel like I absolutely must go to the gym if I don't want to gain! Can someone help me figure out if I'm looking at this calorie thing the wrong way? I'm so confused!

P.S. when I first started losing weight I was working out 6 days a week and eating only 14-1500 calories per day. Now i'm stuck on a plateau, which is why i started eating more in the first place. I felt like I was MORE satisfied when i was eating fewer calories than i do now on 18-1900 calories per day. is it possible that i stretched my stomach?

Maybe try eating more protein to help stay full -- fruit and veggies only fill me up for like an hour, and then I'm hungry again! I've started trying A small packet of tuna is only 90 calories and it helps stop the hunger for me.

Also, you might try varying up the number of calories you eat each day. If I eat exactly 1450 calories a day (which I used to do), I don't lose much weight. Now I try to stay between 1200 and 1700 calories, whatever it takes to keep me from feeling hungry that day. I make sure my average for the week is still about 1450 per day though. Since I've been doing that, the weight has started falling off again. Just an idea!

I started out in Jamuary of 2006 weighing 225#. I started my weight loss journey eating 1900 calories a day and have continued doing the same thing ever since.  I now weigh 142.5#.   I am 5'5", 53 year old woman.  If I can do it this way, so can you!

? Peggy <*)))><{ ?

I started January 14th, and I weighed 225.  (Peggy, I hope I do as well as you!)  I am 5'7".  I eat between 1800-2000 calories a day.  I tend to have a 400-500 calorie deficit.  I walk 30 minutes almost every day.  I now weigh 200 lbs.  I'm living proof that you can lose weight while eating a reasonable amount of calories.  I am very careful that what I put in my mouth is healthy, but I do still work favorite foods into my plan on occasion, like french fries, so I'm not doing this by eating nothing but "rabbit food".  If I can do it, anybody can!

thanks for the encouragement! I will play around with all of these suggestions! especially, xrae, about the protein... i don't eat very much protein because the meat at my school's dining hall is sometimes a bit sketchy. i prefer their veggie patties over hamburger patties, but i don't eat them often because neither are very appealing. it seems i am probably not getting enough protein. i think i'll try cutting up some chicken to add to my salad tomorrow. tuna is a good idea as well. anyone have any good ways to prepare tuna besides tuna-salad with mayonnaise? I sometimes like eating it plain right out of the can, but that gets boring. What else can you do with it? I also like to get kidney beans from the salad bar days when they are served. I usually put them on my salad, but what else might taste good?

There are a ton of awesome tuna steak recipes... and I've heard that is actually better than the canned. I personally love Food Network myself... you can search recipes on their website... I'm sure there are a million other sites that you can search for too. You could make an actual meal with most of them... and then have left overs for a small snack on those days you need some of that protein to make you full!