Allowed vs. Earned

I asked my trainer about. I had the same question. In short, it really depends on how much you are burning. Since you are only getting 1200 per day to start with, I would suggest eating those burned calories back. Since I am taller and weight more, I have a larger calorie alotment;1440. If I ate all of my calories back, I would be well over 2000-2100 cals per day on some days. So I eat no more than half of them back. I try to make I stay under 1600 a day, no matter how much I have exercised.

You do have to keep in mind that if you end up having extra calories not used too often, your body will go into a slower burn mode. You also want to make sure you have enough fuel to be able to continue and improve your work out regimen. I usually am not able to eat my full calories if I have a large number of earned calories, but I try to use them if I can to keep my energy up.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again
Check out this link. It has tons of answers to this and other questions. Good luck!

Hi-

So a sort of MFP vet, I'm just going to hit on some of the main point. You should definitley hit the sticky posts for Newbies to read more.

For the most part you should be eating to the calories MFP allows you (including calories earned in exercise). The tool is meant to be used this way (see the equation on your My Home tab)

GOAL FOOD -(minus) EXERCISE =(equals) NET

Your goal, as far as MFP is set up, should be to get your NET calories to match your GOAL calories. The NET calories are a way of taking exercise into account, so that you eat enough to fuel your workout.

Many people get confused when they see extra cals allowed for exercise (it has become termed "eating your exercise calories). The reasoning you should do so is that MFP works a bit differently than most calorie/point counters. Most nutrition plans incorporate workouts into your overall activity level- ie I have a desk job, but if I workout 5 days a week most plans would put me at "lightly active". This would figure into my daily calorie goal - so most nutritionists would probably recommend that I eat 1500-1800 calories everyday, regardless of my workout. MFP has you manually account for specific workouts or anything outside your normal level of activity, so you get a lower "starting goal" everyday (so you continue to lose regardless of whether or not you workout), but when you workout more, you should be eating more.

It seems counter intuitive because people believe that less calories = higher weight loss. But for many, if you do not eat enough on a daily basis, your body begins to shut down your metabolism so as to stave off possible hunger/starvation not only effectively stopping loss but also causing gains anytime one goes even minimally over on calories.

Sorry this was far more than you asked for but the context seemed relevant. Check out the boards (specifically the "NEWBIES PLEASE READ ME" if you need more info or any clarification.

Def check out the links listed by other posters too!

You should eat at least some of them back since you are eating so few calories to begin with, but don't eat them all back because some of your exercise are already counted in your daily burn. I posted a topic that helps you calculate your calorie burn per minute just living so you can subtract that from your exercise calories to get your true work out burn. hope it helps but in short MPF has already created a deficit if you look on your goal section on the right hand side it will say averaged daily calories or something probably in the neighborhood of 16-1800 calories by only eating 1200 you are creating a deficit to loose weight when you exercise you are creating a larger deficit, you can eat some of them back and will still loose cause of the deficit mpf built in. hope that helps too.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/196619-for-the-analytical-types-calories-per-minute