Do you eat your exercise calories or leave them alone?

Heck Yes I eat 'em! Well, some of them, anyway... I try to burn enough calories during the day to create a LARGE ENOUGH deficit, so I feel like eating a little "poorly" , I can without throwing my diet off. Works for me.

Leave em!

I usually eat most back ;-)

Educate yourself about TDEE and BMR, and yes eat those exercise calories. That is part of MFP's plan. When you chose the activity level, MFP created your deficit based on that. So it is important to eat those calories back, otherwise you will be depriving your body!

The idea of eating your exercise calories is so that you eat less than you burn, but still get enough nutrition to be healthy. If you're eating 1200 and burning off 500, you aren't leaving a lot of fuel for your body.

The 1200 minimum is mainly becasue it's difficult to get all of your body's needed nutrients (not calories/energy needs) on less than that. If those 1200 calories are healthy calories, you're probably good to go.

Having an extreme caloire deficit isn't good either, but a small(er) person with a low bmr doing lighter exercise is just fine on a 1200 cal diet and not eating back exercise calories.

I eat 1200-1300 on weekedays and generally don't eat my exercise cals back unless I'm really hungry, and then it's usually just a 100 cal snack. This allows me to eat a bit more on a Fridya or Saturday (closer to 1800) and still see good losses for the week.

I work a desk job and am not exercising a ton right now, though. As I increase that, my calories will probably increase slightly.

I on the othe hand feel I have earned them so they are mine to eat, and I do.

I totally agree I personally just eat when I feel I need to eat and do my best to get an hour of exercise a day, more if I can manage it. I think it's more personal choice and can't you just deduct your exercise calories from your normal calories, so to speak?

I don't have 'exercise calories'. I use a Fitbit to track my total expenditure. If I do some workout the Fitbit doesn't track, I don't worry about it. It's usually kettlebells or cycling and it's not that huge a burn in the big picture.

The 'facepalm' pics are just so adorable and inoffensive. /sarcasm

Nope. Mine are already figured into my calorie goals.

I eat 1900 cals every day, whether I work out or not. I just make sure I bust *kitten* when I work out so that I can justify having an active lifestyle.

It comes out to about the same if I used MFP's method....1200 cals + exercise cals or my TDEE - 20%. For me it's a mental thing...I did not like having to workout so that I could eat more. On non workout days I would feel so deprived.

I do this. I set my calories manually to TDEE - 20% and eat that amount every day whether I exercise or not.

Okay, I might get people a LITTLE offended, but this is the best way it works for me.

I drink 8 glasses (or near, or a little more) of water each day.

I exercise, but I don't add the exercise onto MFP, simply because I can't find it...
but only eating what they give me is my plan, if I need a few extra calories, then I'll add some exercise.

I, unlike most people on this forum, do not think it necessary. Eat if you're hungry! I end up eating like 80 - 100 back after intense workouts. My goal is 1200/day.

I personally don't agree with the "eat if you're hungry" attitude that a lot of people have toward weight loss. I believe that you should NEVER let yourself even get hungry. I call it "staying ahead of the hunger" which works well for me. My metabolism is "off the chain" nowadays; I eat every 2 to 3 hours a day. I'm rarely hungry when I eat, because if I waited until I was hungry, I'm guaranteed to overeat. (By "hungry" I can only compare it to my previous eating habits when I thought I was hungry all the time or would wait until I'm nearly about to pass out from hunger then would sit down and eat large meals consisting of obscene size portions.) So yes, I do eat back some (or on other days, most) of my exercise calories. Because for me, it is more important to eat on a regular schedule. Ten months later, I've lost 50 pounds ... AND COUNTING!