so I'm upping my intake to 2000...

Alrighty then. So I've been gradually upping my intake for about half a year now...I started at 1500, went to 1700, then 1800, and now 2000. I've been suffering from a binging disorder, and really DON'T want to gain anymore weight unless its pure muscle. (I'm 5'4, 115ish, but am most comfortable at 110. Oh well.) I really, desperately want to get out of BED, and I've been told that this will help me. (I'm lightly active.) I just really don't want to gain anymore weight, unless its muscle. SO. Would it still work if I upped my exercise with the calories, or would I have to up the calories even more if I upped my exercise?? I'm REALLY nervous about this guys...please give me some advice.

How much excercise are you currently doing? I think you would be able to up exercise slightly but not to the point were you are completely negating the calories raise. I'm not really sure though. I'm no expert.

for muscle gain, you need to be eating enough calories AND working out. Hence, I have always been more fascinated with super buff women like the Angelina Jolie and toned models like the Cindy Crawford of the 80s bc gaining muscle is hard, being a stick is easy.

I'm *lightly* active. Although with summer here, I'm probably going to become moderately active.

If I gain muscle, will it automatically replace the fat on my body? Do I have to add heavy cardio to do that? Do I have to diet to do that? How much of a deficit is allowed for muscle gain?

I have heard that you need to eat about 2000cal or more with weight training excersizes to gain muscle and burn fat...

the binging screams that you were still not eating enough for your body, so upping to 2000cal was a great idea, i am really proud of you!

Heavy cardio will allow for no muscle gain--well, if it's more than 90 minutes a week. That's what I've heard at least. Be careful, because too much cardio not only will prevent you from gaining muscle, but might actually cause you to lose some! If you gain muscle, your body will burn more calories [as it takes more calories to maintain muscle than fat], and since you're working your muscles your body won't get rid of them because it thinks it needs them, so it'll get rid of fat. Does that make sense?

You won't simoultaneously get rid of fat and gain muscle. What typically occurs is that you gain muscle from lifting, and then your metabolism speeds up from the etra muscle, so you lose fat.