I used to eat back some of those calories that I exercised and I was on a plateau f-o-r-e-v-e-r.

Started eating 1500 calories or less, did NOT count my exercise, and I've started losing again.

Thanks for all the awesome answers, so I guess my question is: am I eating enough calories? Okay, so I calorie cycle and some days I eat 1600 calories and some days I eat 1200 but am I eating enough calories over-all? I am 5'8" and I weigh around 244 lbs. now and I aim to weekly eat around 10,500 calories, which if I wasn't cycling would be about 1500/day. I am thinking of reducing this a bit more, but I've been reading a bit today (okay, A LOT today) and some evidence says I should increase my intake...what should I do?

are you losing eating that amount of calories? do you have energy to get through your workouts and your day? are you getting stronger overtime from exercising?

if you feel fine and are losing 1-2 pounds a week I would leave it. If you are overly hungry, have no energy or not losing then change things up (more or less calories)

I'm learning it's better to just listen to YOUR body and know the calorie calculators are just a rough estimate on how much I need. When I ate as much as some of them said I wasn't losing or worse gained.

I recently had a bit of a plateau at about 1600/calories a day. Because I am SO active, I could not see myself lower my calories any more. I read a bunch of stuff that suggested raising them. I raised them to about 1850 and dropped my exercise to just an hour to an hour and 15 minutes daily and -- lo and behold -- I broke through my plateau.

I don't know if this works for everyone, but it worked for me -- this time at least.