sedentary or lightly active versus exercise cals to eat

Your activity level chosen should not include any exercise, just what you do daily on a regular normal basis.

For example I work in an office and am a wife and a mom have a house to keep etc...I get in about 9k steps a day without exercise so I set mine at lightly active...

I then do exercise on top of that...I log that purposeful exercise...

If you are lightly active without exercise yes eat the exercise calories back...at least 1/2 of them...if you are sedentary without exercise change your activity level to sedentary and eat your exercise calories back...at least 1/2 of them.

Same here. I am a teacher with two young kids at home. I don't quite do 9K steps, but I set at Lightly Active, too. The idea is: You got to your weight while in your current position/activity level. Your set activity level is an adjustment to account for what you already do. Your fitness exercises, walks, whatever should be above & beyond your general activity level.

You'll notice once you set your level to anything above 'sedentary' you start the day with an exercise deficit. I wear a fitness tracker (FitBit, but there are a million out there.) and due to it tracking my movement, I usually get on the positive side of the exercise before lunch.

As for additional calories you earn from your fitness exercises, the general consensus is to eat about 50% of them back in order to fuel your muscles and allow them to heal after a workout. Some people eat them all and still have success, though. Everyone is different. For some this whole process of settings is a guessing game until they find the combo that works.

Like the others are saying, if you are picking lightly active rather than sedentary based on the exercise you do, you wouldn't also eat back the calories from that exercise.

However, it's quite common for people to think they are sedentary (without exercise) when they are not, because MFP just focuses on your job. I have a desk job, but I walk a lot in my daily life--to commute to work and to do errands and so on (because I live in a city I tend to walk far more often than I drive and often walk a pretty good distance). Thus, I realized after some experimenting that I am at least lightly active even before exercise. Similarly, lots of people end up doing a lot of running around after children or perhaps do a lot more around the house than I do or for other reasons walk more than they think on a daily basis. A Fitbit or pedometer picks this up well, but if you don't have one do give thought to whether you are really that sedentary.

If you mark yourself down as sedentary, that's when people log more of the daily activities, and I think that makes sense (although better to use a Fitbit or correct your activity level).

Because I include it in my activity level I don't count any calories from walking as exercise, but when I do additional exercise (like cycling) I would count it and eat (some of it) back.

If you've selected the right activity level then you should be fine to eat back exercise.

What I mean:

I believe MFP uses the Harris Benedict equation for calories burned in a day. If your BMR is 1500 and you're sedentary MFP assumes 1500 x 1.2 = 1800 spent. If lightly active, 1500 x 1.375 = 2062 spent.

So someone w/ 1500 BMR gets an extra 262 per day if lightly active rather than sedentary. If you sit on your bum all day and don't burn 2062, then you're not going to get the results you expect.

Main key is to be sure to be at least as active as you claim, IMO.