Eating your exercise calories?

Hi there! I've been eating around 1200-1400 a day and trying to work out everyday (typically burning 500-600 calories per workout) . My question is, should I be eating those calories I burned off? Can someone explain it to me like Im a 5 year old? That'd be great hahah

I posted this in Fitness and Exercise too but wasn't sure if I should have posted it here...so now its in both hahaha

Haha you're some cute *squeezes cheeks*

MFP has you on a deficit, a pretty large one by the looks of it (are you trying to lose several pounds a week?). When you exercise, you burn those calories off. When you eat them back, you still have that deficit you're working with.

You should learn about calculations for your TDEE, your total daily energy expenditure. You can eat anywhere below that to lose.

That value depends on your BMR, what you'd use in a unconscious state (likely over 1200). So basically, when you exercise, you're using all this energy, but you're feeding your body with less then what you would need unconscious. This can eventually lead to health problems if you stick there for a long period of time.

To find out how to calculate how many calories you'd need to maintain read the harris benedict info below (anywhere below TDEE has you losing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris-Benedict_equation

When I lye around and sleep all day I usually eat about 1700 calories. When I exercise it's usually somewhere over 2000. I've managed to lose 30 lbs, it works

Let's say you tell MFP that your goal is to lose 1 lb. per week. In turn, let's say MFP sets your calorie goal at 1,350 -- that's the number of calories you should eat, if you don't exercise, if you want to achieve your stated goal of losing 1 lb. per week.

But now, you exercise and burn 300 calories. If you just eat the 1,350 calories, your net calories for the day are 1,050. That wasn't your goal. Your goal was to net 1,350 calories. Therefore, if you don't eat your exercise calories back, you're being more aggressive than you said you wanted to be. If you do eat them back, then you are trying to achieve your stated goal.

The reason this is important is because when people become overly aggressive, they risk losing not just fat, but muscle too. That's not a good idea -- people end up being what is referred to as "skinny fat." That's where people simply become a skinnier version of their former self. Those people don't look as good as they could have otherwise and, most important, they lose a good deal of strength.