I have a few questions about logging calories and exercise. I feel like on the EM2WL website (I may be wrong) it said something about find the amount of calories needed daily, eat those and don't worry about logging exercise. However, the few friends I have from this group have their calories set, but I see they do log their exercise.

I'm just starting to get a little frustrated (like all new peeps here) and want to make sure I am doing everything right.

I am 5'1" 32 years old and as of today up to 130lbs...ugh. On March 1st Lucia encouraged me to up my cals to TDEE -5% and do it for four weeks. On Friday it will be the end of 3 weeks, and I've gone up 1 pound since then. My clothes aren't feeling any bigger and I'm really trying to be patient with myself but, as we all know that's tough.

I workout about 5-6 hours a week (I teach group fitness classes so there are 2.5 hours of yoga, 45 minutes of HIIT (body weight exercises) and two days of lifting--one day of upper and one day of lower)
I don't waste my time when I work out, I go full force, and leave pretty sore and tired by the time I'm done--with the exception of Yoga.

I guess what I'm wondering is if the scooby calculator says I should eat 2198 based on the info above, doesn't that account for the exercise that I'm doing? Do I need to enter in my exercise on MFP? And if so, how do all of you find the exercise that you're doing? I guess I was always under the impression the calories burned aren't accurate.

I have one and a half more weeks eating at this level, I was hoping to see some progress by now.
Thoughts?

If you included all that exercise in the activity estimate, then it's already included, you would not eat it back. So what the burn says is immaterial really, and depending on activity and how badly setup the HRM is, could be very incorrect too.

If you log the exercise after you've reached your daily goal, it doesn't change your goal and mess up what you are eating to.
Some use a nice even goal, say 2000, so no matter what MFP changes it to pretty easy to figure out how much left to eat.
You can also log a full burn, and then correct it to 1 calorie, but the full burn is posted to wall.
Some use modified version of this method, they include some or no exercise in TDEE, and they do eat it back later, hopefully with same deficit to get full benefit.

So diet is a stress, frequent intense exercise is a stress, other stresses in life too. All bad for fat and weight loss.

Might want to re-think if full force is only workout speed to really benefit from. A gentle workout routine is hardly a waste of time, but actually needed if you really want to get the full benefit from a workout the day before.

If you never allow proper recovery, you never get full benefit. It's actually the repair that makes you stronger, the workout merely causes the damage if you have the energy to do it properly, which then requires the repair stronger.

5-6 hrs not that bad, if done wisely. And you'll need to keep your deficit amount low since doing so much cardio, because that is a stress all by itself.

Thanks for your response. I haven't been logging my exercise, because I just have a general goal of reaching 2198 each day.

As far as exercise and recovery go I am trying to be really mindful of that. I used to be a 6-7 day a week workout girl, but not anymore.
My workouts look like this.

Monday--off
Tuesday: Teach HIIT (15-20 minutes) Teach Yoga 1 hour
Wednesday-- off
Thursday: Teach TriFit (30 minutes of cardio/resistance 30 minutes Yoga) and Yoga 1 hour
Firday-- Off
Saturday--Lower body lifting plus 10 minutes of HIIT On treadmill (45 sec run 45 sec rest) slow (3.0 mph) walk on treadmill 15 minutes
Sunday--Upper body lifting (about 45min-1hour) 15-20 minutes slow (3.0 mph) walk

I feel like this is a nice shift in what I used to do. It's nice to see the word off next to 3 days in one week...but I am getting burned out and I'm ready for the summer semester where I'll cut back to teaching only 2 classes a week.

I will do all I can to get closer to the 2198 each day than I have been. Thanks

Very smart routine setup, that's good to see and what I was hoping rather than daily intense.

One suggestion.
Have you ever done that HIIT routine without doing the lower body lifting first? Like reverse the order some day to see the difference. Of course, now your lifting will be impacted.

HIIT is really a lifting routine for cardio sport. Same method, all out anaerobic effort followed by short rest. Result is strength gain and muscle gain if possible. Same DOMS effect too.
But that only happens if you place enough load on the system, which can't happen with tired muscles.
It would be like doing 100 body weight squats, and then expecting to hit the same weight with normal squat routine right after. Tired muscles failing is different than rested muscles failing under a heavy load.
HIIT was the answer for those only wanting to do cardio to get some sort of lifting like fat-burn. But it's become a fad in it's own right.

I'd suggest since doing the weights already, and you aren't training for a race, skip the HIIT and just do more real lifting.

Do you know what your HR gets up to during the HIIT session? As high as the highs during the lifting?

I haven't found anyone yet that could do real HIIT routine after doing lifting, even the next day if lifting was done correctly.
They end up doing intervals, which is fine for cardio improvements, but it's not the same load and response as HIIT for strength and fat burning.
Mainly just extra stress.

But do your own test and see the difference, wear your HRM and see the difference when you switch order. Though, it's also about impossible to do HIIT on a treadmill, because it can't ramp up fast enough as you could explode in speed. Try it outside one week and see the difference going full blast for 15-45 sec, and should allow recovery time to be about 3 x as long walking. Just like lifting, need that time in between to fully recharge, to allow full press again.

So here is a good HIIT routine. I was a tad tired from day before to truly get the HR as high as it could have gotten otherwise, and when lifting it does get slightly above this too.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/273351372

I log my exercise because I want to keep track of what I do, but enter calories burned as 1 so that it doesn't mess with my numbers.

I do this too- but on a particularly hard work out day I sometimes let mfp give me 100 more calories that way I don't go over calories but still get extra energy. Especially necessary if I go for a long day hike -I will need to eat more calories but hate to see mfp tell me I've gone over.