"Eating back" your exercise calories

Theoretically if you calculate calories burned correctly and you are set up to lose 2 lbs/week you should lose 2 by eating all exercise calories. That being said it is difficult to estimate caloric burn accurately without using a Heart Rate Monitor and even then you would have to back out the calories you would have burned anyway. That being said in the absence of better estimator I would suggest eating about 75% of exercise caloires.

I've been struggling with the same thing. Not sure what the answer is. I'm going to attempt a week where I don't "eat" back 100% (will shoot for 50%) and see how that goes.

Yes, you should be eating these back. I aim for 50-75% of them, to leave some room for error. If you are eating them back and find that it slows/stops your weight loss, then chances are you are either overesimating your exercise calories (which is very likely if you use the gym machines or MFP to estimate) or you're underestimating what you are eating, or both. Here is a longer post I did awhile back about this topic.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/117726-eating-exercise-cals-slowing-your-weight-loss-read-this?hl=exercise+calories+slowing&page=1#posts-1605512

Like I said, I eat most of mine back and have been steadily losing weight. Other things could be stalling your progress (other than the overestimating that I mentioned above), such as too much sodium, not enough water, not enough sleep, and eating too much processed food, too much sugar, etc. If things aren't going well right now, you need to look at all of this - I find I lose weight best when I drink LOTS of water and eat very little to no processed food, which keeps my sugar and salt intake under control by default.

I'm trying to make it my rule to eat at least 1/2 my exercise calories back so my metabolism doesn't get all messed up. I've had good success with this.

I eat 'em! 75-100% of them! 1400-1500 NET calories/day these days.

I did NOT eat them when I started. 1200 cals a day & tons of exercise. I. Majorly. Effed. My. Metaoblism. and have been struggling to get it back up to par for 8 (yes, eight) months. After a month of being satisfied with maintaining my weight with how many calories I was eating, I'm back to losing mode. I lost 55 pounds my first ~4.5 months with MFP. Then, screech, my metabolism died. I've lost 25 in the last ~8 months while steadily increasing the amount I eat to maintenance & (in the last 1.5 weeks) back down to ~1500 net..

If you're calculating your calorie intake correctly, you should be able to eat roughly what MFP recommends (including exercise calories, if those are calculated correctly) and lose the amount you elected to lose when you set up your MFP account. If you're not losing an **average** of that much weight (obviously certain factors will affect your loss from week to week, so take the average over as many weeks as possible) then something is off somewhere either with your calorie intake, exercise calories, or your metabolism.

I've found since joining and seeing I'm allowed 1200 calories plus whatever I work out in order to lose weight, I've actually gained about 4lbs. Before that I was doing around 1500 calories a day, over a little or under didn't matter, & just working out. No special diet or anything, just following 1500 calories. Another site recommends I eat 1700 a day. I'm frustrated beyond words today.

I have another question about this....I work out in the evening the majority of the time. I use a HRM to monitor my calories burnt. By the time I finish working out it is past 8pm most nights. I've heard the rule about not eating past a certain time, so I'm stuck in this dilemma of do I eat back some calories because my body might be in starvation mode or do I not eat for fear of my body packing that all into fat. I try to incorporate more calories throughout the day because I know i'll be working out in the evening but most nights I still need to eat more. Last night I played softball and burnt over 1000 calories in two games. I didn't get home till about 10pm but felt I HAD to eat something because I had dipped well below 1200 cals for the day.

It sounds like you already know the answer - incorporating more foods throughout the day in anticipation of your workout. On softball nights, make sure you eat a very good breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It takes work to train yourself to do this - but it's worth working on. Don't stress over not eating ALL of your exercise calories - I aim for 50-75% of mine, since most people overesimate exercise calories anyways. Also, I've heard that the "eating at night" thing is a myth. Personally I have no problem eating at night - granted, I don't usually eat huge meals, but I frequently snack before bed and it doesn't cause discomfort/problems sleeping or stall my weight loss.

I have another question about this....I work out in the evening the majority of the time. I use a HRM to monitor my calories burnt. By the time I finish working out it is past 8pm most nights. I've heard the rule about not eating past a certain time, so I'm stuck in this dilemma of do I eat back some calories because my body might be in starvation mode or do I not eat for fear of my body packing that all into fat. I try to incorporate more calories throughout the day because I know i'll be working out in the evening but most nights I still need to eat more. Last night I played softball and burnt over 1000 calories in two games. I didn't get home till about 10pm but felt I HAD to eat something because I had dipped well below 1200 cals for the day.

That rule is a complete myth so no worries
I would just watch WHAT you eat at night .. some of us crave sweets or other junk food at night so be careful