Do you always eat your Excercise calories?

I usually eat most of mine. I want to work on keepin about 100 left over, for error.
However, lots of people use a certain amount of their exercise calories.

I always eat mine, but I only ever have about 250 workout cals, tops.

I try to most days just because I like to eat but sometimes when i have long runs (i'm training for a marathon). So on sundays when I run like 10-16 mi, there's just no way for me to eat all of those. I eat good foods, I stop when I'm full and I log my food to make sure i'm hitting at least my BMR (before the subtraction for lbs losing/wk)

so if my goal for the day w/o exercise is 1380 cals.
my BMR calculated is: 1380 + 500 (1lb/wk loss) 1880

so on days where I exercise above that 1880, i always make sure I'm eating at least 1880 if I can't eat ALL of my exercise calories.

Just make sure you're not going below your BMR consistently and you should be okay!! If you spend days and days below that your body will start to store!

Okay so if it says my BMR is 1561 I need to be eating AT LEAST that much every day? Then if I work out....add on to that a bit?

I think so....
I need to be below my BMR then on a regular day....

Ok....
So BMR is 1561
MFP set me at 1200 (I want to lose 2 lbs til I am out of obese range)
I re-adjusted my goals to 1400 cause I was STARVING with only 1200 (+exercise calories)
Should I bump it up even higher?

There are so many terms and initials thrown around, it does get a bit confusing to me. The way I see it, when you sign up you give basic body information and typical daily activity. Based on this, mfp determines how many calories you need to maintain that weight WITHOUT exercise. Then, once you've set a goal weight, mfp subtracts the needed amount of calories from this total to lose that amount of weight in that amount of time. But it will only do this within reason. If you exercise on top of this, you burn more calories than you normally would and, if you don't replace them, this COULD possibly take you below what is safe or desireable. That is why we input our exercise and mfp adjusts our calories for us. I suppose if you have a firm understanding of the math involved, its possible to safely tweek these numbers. I am too dumb for that. I DON'T fully understand all the math. It, quite frankly, makes my head hurt. I did notice that my target calories WITHOUT exercise are slightly lower than my BMR. I try to stay as close as possible to what is calculated for me, including exercise calories (plus or minus about 100). Its worked so far for me, but its also only been a month. Additionally, my biggest exercise day only sees an additional 267 calories, which is nothing like trying to get in 1500 extra HEALTHY calories. Anyone could go to Pizza Hut and top off their calories, but to make it all balance out nutritiously...I don't know how these long distance runners/bikers etc. do it!

I'm trying to prepare myself for a 5k so it's hard to eat all of 750 exercise calories a day, plus the 1440 that MFP figured for my desired weight loss. I just try to make sure that calories in-calories out equals 1200 at a minimum.

That's what I mean by confusing. According to mfp, BMR is not the calories needed to maintain weight. It is the approximate number of calories needed to keep you alive for a 24 hour period, not counting those required for exercise OR typical daily activity. So, it is significantly below the calories required to maintain, especially if you are particullarly active in your daily activities. So, using me as an example, my BMR is 1836 calories a day. If I subtract the 500 for a pound as suggested, I am down to 1336. But, since we haven't accounted for daily activity, I am a lot lower than 500 below my maintain, so I will theoretically lose more than the pound IF my body doesn't go into the starvation thing everyone talks about. And then, subtract another 267 for my workoput and I am below 1200, that magical no no. So, yeah, I guess you have to listen to your body to a certain extent, but, provided the information being entered is accurate, I think your best bet is to try to stay reasonably close to your target calories.

The more you have to lose, the greater the defecit can be. As you get closer to your goal weight, the defecit should be smaller and the loss slower. I would think that at 1400/day you should be o.k. Bunny. If you are losing at that steadily. You maybe could go up to 1600. What are your maintenance calories?

Not sure, where do I find that?

Look under My Home, Goals, and Calories Burned From Normal Daily Activity.

2110

So if you eat 1610 calories a day with no exercise you should lose about a pound a week. Keep in mind, this number is based on what you entered as your daily activity. Increase the activity and your calories will increase and vice versa. In my personal experience, I have been losing more than the predicted amount, so I think I may have my activity level set a little too low.

I currently have my calories set at 1500 and I am hoping to lose 2lbs a week, just til I am under obese.

So, am I too low? I have my daily activity as light. However, I am about to start an exercise program that's about an hour every day.

1500 sounds good, but if you start doing 60 minutes of exercise every day without adding calories to compensate, it might be too low. It just depends on how many calories you burn in your workout. If you only burned 300 calories and didn't replace them, you would be at that 1200 number everyone talks about and you would be at a total deficit of 910 calories. From what I read in bank's articles, you could probably get away with that. But, the thing is, most cardio workouts for an hour are going to burn more than 300 calories. So you may have to eat a little more on days you work out. That's why I rely pretty heavily on what the computer tells me. As long as I log my exercise and calories accurately, I feel safe eating what the system tells me to.