Earning EXTRA Calories from Exercising

You should eat at least half of them back. damn i wish i could get myself an extra 900 calories. I only burn like 300.

In order to meet your weekly weight loss goal (based on a daily caloric deficit) you must eat all of your calories, including the ones you ear from exercise. If your goal is say 1400 calories to lose weight without exercise, then you burn 900 calories from exercise, your total goal goes from 1400 to 2300 and this is to ensure you get 1400 Net calories (2300-900 from exercise). Otherwise you don't get enough. Eating 1400 and burning 900 calories would be the same as eating 500 calories (1400-900) and not exercising, which is not enough to function on.

A day here or there not hitting your goal is okay, but if it becomes a regular occurrence you can have some negative health impacts.

From my understanding, the way you lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in. If you eat up those 900 calories that you burned you will just maintain your current weight.
I would eat a little more to replenish your body from working out, but I wouldn't eat 900 calories more:)
I'm no fitness expert, but that's what I think.

This advice is bad, please read the posts for newbies in the community section. MFP gives you a goal caloric intake to lose weight without exercise, eating he exercise caloires is the only way to meet your weekly goal, by bringing you back to your goal caloric deficit.

exxxxxxxxxactly!!!

eat your face off!!!! make sure you're above 1200 and you're good to go

1200 Net is the minimum you should get, which in this case is 1200 plus the 990 you burned.

Eric thank you for this advice. Though I totally get that we should eat more if we exercise because of how our bodies can't survive on very little, but even I myself struggled in the beginning with thinking that I am eating too much after I've earned 900 calories doing an hour of kickboxing. However, I quickly realized that MFP is designed to get you to MOVE your body and it's really helped me to think of it as the more I exercise, the more I can eat and the less I will feel hungry or dissatisfied while cutting back. This thought process alone has motivated me to actually WANT to work out more than I ever have in the past. I mean really, working out is NEVER a bad thing if you're unfit and out of shape like I am. : ) To be honest, as an overweight person, my allowed caloric intake by MFP is 1700 per day but I can honestly tell you that prior to getting on the MFP plan, I ate probably 3 times that amount DAILY without exercising at all. So now my opinion is if I do earn AND EAT all my allotted calories plus my earned calories, I am still doing better than I was before starting the MFP plan which makes it a WIN WIN situation.