Is it really the secret to weightloss success?

You dont have to eat them all but eat most of them.

I agree, eat them back... but if you are and have been loosing weight like planned and not eating them back I wouldn't change anything until you stop loosing weight doing so and then mix it up and start eating them... it also depends on how many calories you are burning as well... I know if I burn high calories like 500+ it's really hard to eat them all back because exercising almost takes the hunger away, so I add in protein shakes to help with that

I eat back most of my calories, leaving about 100-235 depending on how hungry I am. If I don't eat them back I won't lose.

I've been thinking the same thing. I was alloted 1200 with our working out. I earn about 300 after a workout. Maybe I will try eating atleast 200 of them back to see how that affects my weight loss for the month of October.

i dont ever intentionally eat them back, i eat about 1200-1700 per day no matter what i do, if i eat more than 1700 i feel bad and if i eat less than 1200 i feel bad, i have had no problem losing weight while not eating my calories back, dont get me wrong u need fuel to exercise but i dont do alot of lifting or super strenuos exercise, i jog, walk, mainly cardio exercises. but everyone is different and gotta find what works for you. good luck!

I was not eating them back, but then I read this:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/10589-for-those-confused-or-questioning-eating-your-exercise-calo

and now I'm eating a portion of them back, depending on the day and how much I exercise. The last thing I want to do is lose muscle!!!

So I've been looking through a lot of success story post and noticed a lot of people saying they ate all of their exercise calories.I usually exercise to get down to the my daily calorie intake goal or under and try not to eat the extra calories I earned from exercising because I thought the whole point was to burn it off.So should I be eating the ones I earn?

it REALLY depends on how overweight you are, how much you burn, and how much you have your weightloss set to.

When I was obese and set to 1lb a week (1600 calories), burning about 300 per workout, I didnt' eat them back. Now that I am not overweight (overweigh by BMI but NOT by bodyfat %) I have lowered my loss to .5lb/week and I eat some or all of them on MOST days but not on every day (Depends how I feel). I eat far more calories daily now than I did before because my body needs more calories now to maintain a good metabolism and not cannibalize muscle.

When you have a lot to use, your body is happy to burn off fat to make up for deficits in your diet. When you have less to lose your body doesn't want to let go of fat as fast - you need to slow down your deficits or else you'll just be slowing down your metabolism while your body tries to conserve itself. (you also need to do some resistance training to let your body know that the muscle is important and 'in use' to send the message not to deplete it)