Eating back excercise calories - whats best?

1200 calories is not some magic threshold. It only seems to apply on MFP.

If you're hungry, have something to eat. Don't stress.

Some say no, some say yes, some say all, some say a few.... im restarting my diet, and TDEE -30% gives me 1470 calories , but that is basic excercise, im a retail shop assistant at least 6 hours 4 days a week, often more. Exercise is a mix of walking, crosstrainer, WiiFit, rowing machine, EA active on Kinect, and will build up to more swimming and jogging as my cardio improves. Yesterday was my first day, and im aiming to burn around 400calories a day minimum, building up. If im eating 1400 cals, but burn 400, should I at least eat 200 cals, so not below 1200? The more I read, the more confused I become!

Thank you!

Using the TDEE method means your exercise is calculated into the calorie allowance for the day. Using that method you do not eat back your exercise calories. Also, a 30% deficit is very extreme with only 50 pounds to lose. Maybe start at 20 - 25 % and see what happens in 4 - 6 weeks. Good luck.

Yeah what everyone else has said about TDEE method including your exercise calories.
I found this site great to helping me workout my TDEE as it has exercise in hours performed per week and not intensity.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

Set your activity level based on your job/daily activities rather than your exercise.
Log all of your exercise as accurately as you can on MFP. You could use a heart-rate monitor if you are really worried about accuracy.
Be as accurate as you can with your caloric intake.
Eat the target calories MFP has given you (i.e. eat back all of your exercise calories).
If you lose the amount of weight per week that you are supposed to then everything is right. If you lose too much/not enough each week then eat more/less calories until you are losing the amount you are supposed to be.
If you are just getting started you will lose a bit more in the first few weeks from water weight, and later on you may find that you don't lose anything for a week or two, and then lose extra the week after that, rather than a set amount each week, so don't be too quick to change things just based on one week's weight loss.
Presuming you caloric intake is accurate, this method will give you probably the most accurate way of working out how many calories you are burning off (although, of course, the amount of calories you burn off each day/week is never exactly the same, so it's always just an estimate, but this is hopefully a rather good estimate).

Thanks!

My TDEE -25% with light excercise is 1864 - i'll up cals a bit and give it a go, im hoping to drop 3 dress sizes by end of May, as im a bridesmaid in June - 3 stone would be nice, but if im toning, itll look like ive lost weight when I haven't. Ive found my diary from when I was losing weight last year, and was eating 1600cals, burning 2500cals a week in exercise, I lost 24lb, then stopped due to depression, and it all went back on, that was in just over 4 months, so cross fingers, thanks everyone!

If you did well on 1600, you could always start there and have occassional spikes, understanding that you have a few hundred extra calories as a buffer.

If you are using the TDEE method you don't eat back exercise calories that is already build into your allocated calories. As for you goal of 3stone or 42lbs by May I think that might be on the unrealistic side tbh works out about 2 1/2lbs per week give and take. When you first start you might get 2 1/2lbs but that will settle down to a steady 1-2lbs so I would say in 16 weeks a good figure to aim for would be 16-20lbs loss.

Now as psu has said you can actually be smaller without having to lose a large amount of weight just by incorperating some proper resistance training, its not really worth picking up a 2lb dumbell and curling it for 40 reps will do nothing, look up starting strength and new rules for lifting for women and you will thank yourself down the road.

I kind of eat them back, if you don't you notice the weekly progress bars in the app will say so many calories under target, mine says 3200 at the moment, what i do is, if i go out at the weekend drinking or i have a meal out, or party i use them to cover these social activities, if i have no social things on i just lose weight that little bit quicker.

Makes dealing with those things easy to fit in to the system

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1058918-fell-off-the-wagon-please-help

methinks we've been down this road before.

Curse you search feature!!! Curse you!!! LOL