Why is it when I work out, it allows me more calories I can eat?! Help me understand

I don't understand it either. I've been ignoring the extra calories.

As long as you set your activity level correctly for your daily life WITHOUT exercise, you will lose without exercise. If you do exercise, you should eat back those calories so that you don't lose lean muscle mass. MFP is notorious for overestimating how much you burn so most people only eat back about 1/2 to 2/3 of extra calories.

If you set your activity level to reflect your day WITH exercise (even if you don't do it every day) you should not eat back any earned.

For me: I am sedentary unless I am doing a planned exercise so that is what I set my activity level to. I work out 5 days a week by walking to get my 10,000 steps and 3 days a week I also swim laps and take a water exercise class. Those days I get anywhere from 300 to 900 extra calories. I typically eat back 150-300 of them. The 2 days I rest, I only eat to my target. I have lost 88 lb. at an average of 1.5 a week for the last 13 months by doing this..

SueMcSuey wrote: »

That helped me a lot! Thank you Earl Nabby

You're welcome. I set everything to conservative so I have wiggle room. My loss goal is set to 1 lb a week so I know that, if I don't eat enough exercise calories back, I still won't lose too fast and lose muscle. The 1.5 is a really nice middle ground.

jeniferjune wrote: »

I thought the goal is to burn more than you eat. So I am confused

When people say "burn" more than you eat, it doesn't mean literally you have to go out and exercise off every calorie you consume. You "burn" calories 24/7...for most people, the vast majority of their "burn" is due to the mere fact that you exist...these are your basal calories...the calories you burn simply by existing....you would "burn" these calories in a coma.

Beyond that you have your day to day hum drum...getting up and brushing your teeth...driving to work...cooking and cleaning, etc, etc, etc. If you set your activity level appropriately, MFP is only accounting for your basal calories and your day to day hum drum calories (also called your NEAT...Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). MFP is designed in such a way that you simply eat to your calorie GOAL and you would lose weight, even if you did no exercise whatsoever (not recommended).

So when you exercise, this activity and the energy (calorie) required to support that activity are unaccounted for....to account for them, you log your exercise and get more calories to consume.

One benefit of this method is that people can actually learn how to properly fuel their fitness...this is very important if you really get into fitness as a lifestyle and the more rigorous and intense your training is, the more important it is to provide your body with adequate fuel to support that training...failure to do so leaves people feeling weak and tired and burned out and can also lead to recovery issues. Another positive is that it enables people who are inconsistent with their fitness the ability to lose weight...they simply eat to their goal.

The downside to this particular method is that is can be difficult to estimate calorie burns...and many, many, many people here simply underestimate or are otherwise inaccurate and inconsistent in logging food and they couple that with inflated calorie burns and you get a lot of, "it's not working" kind of threads.