My take on exercise calories (please read if you are new!!)

This is the best explanation ever

I do agree that MFP starts us out with a deficit and perhaps all exercise calories should be eaten. The real problem comes in trying to accurately come up with how many calories were actually burned. I know that I can go for a 45 minute FAST walk in a very hilly neighborhood and my HRM will say I burned something like 450 calories. If I put in a fast walk into MFP it will give me over 600 calories. Which of those do I trust. Personally, I really feel like both are probably overestimates. I don't want to eat 600 extra calories for a 45 minute walk. If I would have been sitting around the house for that 45 minutes I would have burned about 70-80 calories so I definitely need to subtract these from whatever I "eat back". I don't know if everyone does this, but regardless of how badly I want to credit myself with a tremendous amount of calories burned, it doesn't help my weight loss if the number isn't accurate. I usually give myself half of what my HRM says and try to eat that much. It keeps my net calories around 1200. I know that heart rate monitors are the best estimate we have, but even they just estimate. There is really no way to know.
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I always wonder about this, too. I don't want to enter some crazy amount of calories if I may not have actually burned that many. I don't enter housework, or any other activities, unless they are vigorous. I guess no one can know how many calories they've burned with complete accuracy. I eat most of my exercise calories back, but usually not all, just to be safe.

Ok just so I'm clear on this (I just started), I should do my best to make sure that my NET calories are equal to my daily calorie allowance?

At the moment I've got a daily goal of 1360. My food intake has been 1119, exercise took off 543, and my NET is telling my 576. So do I need to get that NET value up to 1360?

This theroy does not work for everyone and I have been trying to track down exactly why. One thing I found was a study explaining why obese people can live off of fewer than average calories during dieting and still not cannbalize muscle. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15615615 Interesting. I also wonder if some of the problem may lie in the calculations of an individuals BMR and how accurate that may be. It can only at best be an average, what if you fall to the extreme end of the average (as I do) in for instance your resting heart rate (very low in my case)? It MUST play into you caloric needs. Anyone here have some real answers explaining why "eating back" calories may not work for everyone I'd be glad to hear it!

That said, I do agree it is the most sustainable way to lose weight (if it works for you beyond the first 10-20 pounds most will lose from simply reducing sodium and comsuming healthier food alone but may mistakinly judge as attributed to whatever method they are applying?) and begin your weight loss jouney. To me it means you get to eat more when you exercise and that would make weight loss easier (for me anyways, I LOVE to eat!). But, where to go when/if it stops working? I have had to cycle through zig zagging cals, adjusting macro nutrients, eating cleaner, working out differently, taking a diet break, decreasing /increasing cals many many times and something different eventually works everytime. Right now I am back to trying the eat back calories theroy and so far I am stuck. Frustrating to say the least.