By George I think I've got it!

You don't have it.

lots of people can and do lose weight eating some or all of their workout calories.. everyone is different ..
I am set to eat 2150 a day .. I would need to eat more like 3,000 a day to maintain ..so I could easily burn and eat 300 - 500 +- and still lose weight

alot of times I do eat more around 2500 - 2600 a day (with no workouts) and I am losing weight every week

I know there was a post about calories and eating what you burn and I think I have figured the answer to it. You eat the calories required for the day (say 1200). If you burn 400 you don't eat those back. In other words:

Eat required but not what is burned = lose weight.
Eat required and what is burned = maintain weight
Eat required, what is burned, plus extra = gain weight

I hope it helps and if someone has proof that this is wrong please let me know.

Wrong:
You eat the calories suggested by MFP for the day (say 1200). If you burn 400 you don't eat those back. In other words:
Eat suggested and what is burned = lose your goal amount of weight/week weight.

I also agree with you, it just depends on each individual person though. Not eating back my exercise cals works for me, but I also have quite a large amount of weight to lose so my body has plenty of storage to live off of. Many people eat back their exercise calories because they believe they need to net over 1200 but that just doesn't work for everybody, especially those that have a high amount of weight to lose like myself. I am under the advice of a trainer and nutritionist so I know what I am doing is not unhealthy and I am losing well. Just be prepared for a few replies that aren't so agreeable lol

I know there was a post about calories and eating what you burn and I think I have figured the answer to it. You eat the calories required for the day (say 1200). If you burn 400 you don't eat those back. In other words:

Eat required but not what is burned = lose weight.
Eat required and what is burned = maintain weight
Eat required, what is burned, plus extra = gain weight

I hope it helps and if someone has proof that this is wrong please let me know.

Depends on what you mean by "required." If you mean the number MFP tells you to eat based on the amount of weight you want to lose, and you haven't included your exercise into your "normal daily activity," you're wrong.

There's several different ways to figure out what you should be eating. You can figure out your true maintenance based on your normal daily activity and exercise, and eat a percentage below that. I'm doing that now. To maintain would require about 2200-2300 calories, and I eat 2000 without including the calories I burn from exercise. So I have a 200-300 calorie deficit per day, which allows me to lose about a half pound a week.

OR, I could go by MFP's numbers, which doesn't include my exercise until I log it. I would get about 1600 calories and when I add my exercise, I'd eat between 1800-2200 calories a day... which would average out to the same damn amount of calories either way.

If I went by MFP's numbers and only ate 1600 calories, and no exercise calories, my daily deficit would no longer be 200-300, it would be 500-600 calories. By the math, you'd think that would mean I'd lose more than a pound a week instead of a little over a half pound a week, but the body doesn't work that way. Not when you don't have very much body fat to lose.

Read the post "you are not different" Math is math, calories are calories. If you do not lose your goal amount of weight with eating back exercise calories then either:
You have an under active thyroid (or other hormonal issue)
You over estimate the calories you burn from exercise
You under estimate the amount of food you really ate
You have a lower BMR due to lower than average amount of lean muscle given your age, weight, height, and gender.

Thanks for the tip but I'll stick to what I'm doing, because it is working for me. I do believe everyone's bodies are different and I have had my thyroid checked, it's all good, My calories burned don't matter because I don't eat them back, I log them solely for the purpose of my knowledge.

I know there was a post about calories and eating what you burn and I think I have figured the answer to it. You eat the calories required for the day (say 1200). If you burn 400 you don't eat those back. In other words:

Eat required but not what is burned = lose weight.
Eat required and what is burned = maintain weight
Eat required, what is burned, plus extra = gain weight

I hope it helps and if someone has proof that this is wrong please let me know.

Whether this is true or not depends on what you mean by "required" and "burned".

You must consume less total calories that you burn to lose fat.
You must consume more total calories than you burn to gain fat.

You may gain weight in either of these situations as all weight gained may not be fat.

But if you eat 1199.97 calories in a day your body will create fat out of thin air!