I have confused myself

Shameless bump. :-).

So, if my activity level is set to active, which I am, as a mother of three, then when mfp raises my calories I am not eating my exercise calories back or I am?

Each workout for me burns from 300 to 500 each. I work out 6 days a week.

Correct. If you have it set to active, it already assumes you are working out that much. You would NOT eat back your calories. Personally I would rather set it to sedentary, and eat back the calories I earn that way I'm not forced to go to the gym if I dont want to or I cant. If you are on active, you have to go to the gym JUST to keep the calories you are given be the right amount.

make sense?

Shameless bump. :-).

So, if my activity level is set to active, which I am, as a mother of three, then when mfp raises my calories I am not eating my exercise calories back or I am?

Each workout for me burns from 300 to 500 each. I work out 6 days a week.

Correct. If you have it set to active, it already assumes you are working out that much. You would NOT eat back your calories. Personally I would rather set it to sedentary, and eat back the calories I earn that way I'm not forced to go to the gym if I dont want to or I cant. If you are on active, you have to go to the gym JUST to keep the calories you are given be the right amount.

make sense?

Now you've got me confused. Maybe that's why I set to sedentary and log my exercise.

Yes, the baseline activity (sedentary, active, etc.) is a multiplier that adds extra calories to your baseline to include exercise it assumes you are doing in the description given for that level.

Shameless bump. :-).

So, if my activity level is set to active, which I am, as a mother of three, then when mfp raises my calories I am not eating my exercise calories back or I am?

Each workout for me burns from 300 to 500 each. I work out 6 days a week.

Correct. If you have it set to active, it already assumes you are working out that much. You would NOT eat back your calories. Personally I would rather set it to sedentary, and eat back the calories I earn that way I'm not forced to go to the gym if I dont want to or I cant. If you are on active, you have to go to the gym JUST to keep the calories you are given be the right amount.

make sense?

Now you've got me confused. Maybe that's why I set to sedentary and log my exercise.

Yes, the baseline activity (sedentary, active, etc.) is a multiplier that adds extra calories to your baseline to include exercise it assumes you are doing in the description given for that level.

Yes exactly! If you set to sedentary and skip a workout day...no harm no foul...just stick to calories. If you are set to active, it automatically assumes you are working out...so now if you skip a workout day...you actually have to eat LESS then what MFP is telling you, because MFP is assuming you already worked out. (You would not log exercise)

The active or sedentary bit applies to your normal daily activities. MFP does not calculate exercise into that equation. That is why when you log your exercise, the daily calories that you are allowed to eat increase. I am "active", because I walk a lot during the day. However, I also hit the gym on an almost daily basis now.

I set it to sedentary and rarely log calories (if a hike is more than a couple hours... Bike more than twenty miles... Then I'll log about half)

I get to eat almost 2100 calories... I'd be stuffing myself if I ate all my exercise cals...

But basically I came to this conclusion by weighing all the opinions... trying several different options and deciding what I was most comfortable with... This is your journey... Weight loss is not linear... it isn't the exact same for every human... It has common principles that can be applied to the population... But everyone has to find their own "perfect mix" because it has to work for them

Oops, i am sorry, I didn't mean to confuse anyone.

I was just very confused on whether I should change my settings and if I was already eating back the calories.

I have a net of 1200, with an activity level of active. My mfp set goal is to do at least 40 min of exercise a day and burn at least 240. I bypass this everyday except my one rest day a week.

I usually net around my goal of 1200, but eat more around the 1500 to 1800 range (what ever mfp gives) which means that I try to eat the extra calories that mfp gives me, so that means that I AM eating my calories back?

Ugh, I don't know why I am not getting this? I am usually not this dense!

Your activity setting is - as someone absolutely correctly said - what you do normally not including the exercise you would log. Thus if I worked as a waitress and ran around on my feet all day, I might be active, but I would log my exercise on top of that.

HOW MANY DAYS YOU SAY YOU ARE PLANNING TO EXERCISE ON MFP DOES NOT CHANGE YOUR CALORIE SETTINGS. It just is your personal goal. So I hit my calorie goals if I eat what I should and don't go over my net calories (baseline plus added calories for logged exericse). I hit my exercise goals if I work out the time I said I was going to do (20 minutse/day 7 days/week). But that exercise goal does not change MFPs determination of calories over and above my height, weight, sex, weight loss goals, and activity level.