Do you eat your exercise calories earned?

Last year when I was losing all my weight I stuck to just 1200 calories/day no matter what. Now I am eating back my exercise calories. I was told to compare my body to a car. The more it goes the more fuel it needs. I feel so much better now when I do eat back.

If you're using MFP's daily calorie amount, then you are supposed to add your exercise calories to that number and eat them. When you enter in your exercise, MFP will add them onto your daily total.

If you calculated your BMR, TDEE, ect, and already figured in an activity level, then the calories from activity are already added in, so you don't add anything additional when you exercise.

I almost alway eat back the calories that I burn exercising. If not, I'm starving and begin to lose energy. I have had no problem losing 1 lb per week doing that but everyone's body is different.

One more thing to add...for me, knowing that I would have more calories to eat was a motivator to exercise longer and harder and that has definitely helped me to lose weight and to be much healthier.

I do the TDEE - 20%, so I don't eat them back. My rule is eat them if you're hungry and if you aren't, then don't.

I eat most if not all of my exercise calories earned.
I have around 20 more pounds to lose and I can't seem to get the balance of eating correct now that I am close to my goal and feel like I should be able to eat what I want...I digress

I eat about 1/2 and stick them in a saving account for Sunday;-) I have been eating at maintenance for over a year.

Ooooohhhhh...I like this idea! I do my long run on Sundays to make up for all the food I gorge myself on!

When I was losing I ate back about half because it's so easy to over-estimate calories burned and under-estimate calories consumed.

Now that I'm in maintenance, I sort of level load - don't eat back all my calories on workout days, but eat extra on non-workout days thereafter. This is especially true when I do a day-long weekend mountain hike. No way I'm eating an extra 1500 - 2000 calories that day, so they spread out over the next several days.

I do this ^^^^. I seem to loose more steadily when I eat some back but I also leave room for possibly overcalculated exercise.

Yes. Most of the exercises I do I have used a heart rate monitor for, so know pretty well how many calories I am burning and add them accordingly. Sometimes I eat them all back, sometimes not. I don't stress about it too much.

Right nowm I eat around 1600 cals a day, as recommended by my dietician. If I exercise that day I may go over a few hundred. But honestly sometimes I burn 800-1000 extra calories, and I can't eat more! I mean I guess I could order a large fry and sundae and call it a day but I am going for not only weight loss, but also quality eating. I already am full off of what I eat, and have tons of energy especially compared to before I started my lifestyle change. Honestly if I ate back my exercise cals, BMR and all that I'd probably be eating 3,500 cals a day, and I can't see doing that unless I bulked it up with less healthy food, or higher fat foods and oils like avacado (which I know are not bad for you). Bottom line:my body says feed me I do. If I am satisfied and eat a balanced diet according to the my pyramid servings, then I don't shove stuff down I don't really want. Do what works for you, I hope this helps in some way.

When I started out my nutrtionist had me start at a 1500 cal a day ( I weighed 226lbs). I weight trained 3 day week for the 1st 3 months (1/2hr.) then would do cardio (1/2 hr) inbetween days. She told me not to put my exersice in and not to eat my calories back. I am currently weight training 2xweek and cardio same amount of time and I am at 1300 calories. In 6 months I have lost 48lbs. I do use a heart rate monitor durring all work outs to keep track of time, calories burned and heart rate durring.

No Sweetheart,
do not do that if you do, its like exercising for nothing. You should eat your calculated calories for the day only,
meaning what your body would burn without any exercise. then workout to reduce that counting daily calories. Exc; My natural calorie daily is 2140, so I eat 2140 exercise 1400 calories. This gives me -740 for the day, not bad. Aprox. 3500 calories to a pound of fat. On a five day workout week I've been losing around 1.5lbs per week. Hope this all helps.

I used to not eat them, and saw decent results...

Now I definitely eat them--my lifestyle has become more "active" I guess you could say. I bike to and from work each day (6.4 miles total) and usually run, swim, or walk or something as well--I kept my activity level at "sedentary" and log the biking and the other cardio and eat ALL of those babies back. I wasn't planning on it at first, but I got so hungry!

General consensus is: Do it.

It never works for me. I'm not finding any experts that really advocate it (unless you're trying to put on weight.)
So. No.
Not unless I want to gain weight.

I just started, so I know im not really one to give advice. But so far im not eating the extra calories I burn because I figure Id be eating everything i just exercised off, you know? Just a thought because im trying to do lose the same. Good Luck!

You need to change your though process and relationship with food if this is how you feel. You need to look at it as fueling your workout, and fueling your day to day activity instead.

No Sweetheart,
do not do that if you do, its like exercising for nothing. You should eat your calculated calories for the day only,
meaning what your body would burn without any exercise. then workout to reduce that counting daily calories. Exc; My natural calorie daily is 2140, so I eat 2140 exercise 1400 calories. This gives me -740 for the day, not bad. Aprox. 3500 calories to a pound of fat. On a five day workout week I've been losing around 1.5lbs per week. Hope this all helps.

Wrong, that is not how MFP works.

MFP give you a caloric intake assuming no exercise to lose your goal amount of weight/week, once you exercise your body needs more fuel to get through the rest of the day.

See my first post and this example:
As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.