I don't understand "eating your exercise calories." Help?

First off, congratulations your work out.

Now as to your question. I guess the first thing, is that everyone is different. What works for one person or even a great number of people, may or may not work for you. Top that off with a LOT of recurring myths and conflicting studies and it's a wonder we all aren't just standing around scratching out heads. But is a generally agreed upon statement that you want to keep your calories in a given range to lose weight. This means exercise or not, you want to meet that range. It is much easier meeting that range with proper calorie intake rather then burning it off. In fact, unless you are using tools (like a heart rate monitor) figuring out just how much you burn from exercise is a bit of a guessing game. So to more clearly answer your question, no you don't need to eat what you burn, unless you are concerned about going below your range.

As to why you didn't lose weight immediately after exercise is answered by the fact our weight fluctuates. It goes up and down by pounds all the time. And 600 calories is a great result for a work out, but it is also only roughly 17% of the calories you need to burn for a pound. If you notice any immediate drop in weight after exercise the it is most likely water weight lost from the exertion of exercise. Exercise isn't so much about the calories you burn immediately, but the over all and cumulative effect you get over time. Not only the fat burning effects, but also the increase in your metabolism, stimulation and boosting of your cardiovascular system and just the over all boon in your general well being.

I am unfortunately not a nutritionist or fitness buff. I am pretty new to this to and trying to figure it all out myself. The above is just a little of what I learned.

Your goal shouldn't be to burn off what you have eaten. That's absolutely not healthy at all. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to function properly and if you go below that, you'll go into starvation mode. Women should not go below 1200 calories a day (though not all women should even go down that low). Those are NET calories though, not calories you have eaten. If you work out, then you need to increase the amount of calories you ingest so that your net calories do not go below 1200 or whatever your goal is.

According to your food diary, your daily calorie goal is 1310. You've only eaten 1227 calories today, which is still in the safe range, but you have also burned off 681 calories from exercise. That means that your net is only 546 calories. That is not NEAR enough to maintain proper organ function and your body is going to go into distress if you keep doing that. You're body is going to try to hang on to what weight it has because it's going into starvation mode.

If you don't work out one day, then you should eat 1310 calories. If you do work out one day, then make sure that your net calories equal to AT LEAST 1200 calories.