confused about calorie intake while weight lifting & cardio

If you're using MFP as directed then your calorie goal is already a huge deficit from maintenance before any exercise whatsoever. You don't have to shoot under that goal..you put all of that info into MFP for a reason...so the calculator can do it's job and calculate your estimated calories needed for weight loss.

you put all of that info into MFP...and your activity level is NOT supposed to include deliberate exercise...just your day to day stuff...and then MFP figures out what your maintenance would be WITHOUT exercise based on those inputs as compared to statistical averages...then it takes a cut from that for weight loss...500 calories for 1 Lb per week and 1000 calories for 2 Lbs per week with 1200 calories being the minimum threshold as it is pretty well inadvisable to go under this threshold.

so...just as an example, let's say you put all of you info in and activity level of light active because maybe you have a job where you're up and moving around a bit or do a lot of cooking and cleaning, etc...BTW, I have a desk job and I'm still light active on MFP without my exercise...and you put to lose 1 Lb per week (this is actually what I would advise unless you have a lot of weight to lose) and MFP spits out a calorie goal of 1,500 calories.

this means that MFP is estimating your maintenance without exercise to be 2000 calories (1,500 + 500) and 1,500 calories represents a 500 calorie per day deficit. now let's say you go workout and burn a solid 400 calories and you log that....with MFP, that activity hasn't been accounted for in you activity level and thus not accounted for in your calorie goal so you get those calories to eat back and you would now have 1500 + 400 = 1,900 gross calories but your deficit remains the same because now your theoretical maintenance calories have also increased to 2,000 + 400 = 2,400 calories and 2,400 - 1,900 = 500 calorie deficit still.

You just have to be extremely careful that you're not overestimating burn when using this method and databases, including MFP are notoriously inflated for calorie burn. We just don't burn that much. This is why I actually prefer the TDEE method and just including some estimate of my exercise in my activity level and just eating a set amount of calories.

Thanks, for your response. MFP has me taking in 1200 calories. I have a job where I am either sitting at a desk, driving in a car or standing for long periods. I did not figure in my activity of going to the gym or working out. After adding my daily food intake and gym activity, I usually have a calorie deficit of anywhere from 50 to 150 calories. I figured this was good as I know the calorie burn probably isn't accurate. I just wasn't sure if what I am doing is correct. I didn't want to stick with this and not see much in results in a few months time. I feel I would be setting myself up for failure if that is the case.

Once again, your calorie deficit is the 1200 calories...you don't shoot under that goal...if MFP is giving you 1200 calories then that means your theoretical non-exercise maintenance is around 1800 - 2000 calories. You should eat back exercise calories....

and again, your calorie allotment is a GOAL...it is something to be achieved, not shot under.