For those that count calories or points do you go with net cals or total cals.

for example:
my target calories are 1369
i burned 502 calories today
i have eaten 1241 so my net cal intake is only 739.
i could eat another 630 to make my TOTAL of 1369

or i can eat another 128 and that would make my total 1369 not counting the exercise

which is safer or better?

i'm not really hungry enough to eat another 630 but i could eat another snack...what do you do?

I count total calories... meaning I don't get to eat more because I burned XXX calories today.

I do calorie cycle though, so I'll try to make exercise days "high" days and non exercise days "low" days.

I'm not sure if this is what most people do or not... but so far it's worked for me!

I agree with avamarie. It makes it much easier and it's the most effective. There is no way to know EXACTLY what you burn calorie wise. It is better just to calculate calories--more precise.

I calculate total calories. I do calorie cycling as well, and tend to go a bit higher on work out days.

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You could cycle between 1300-1500. Obviously 1300 on low activity days, 1500 on high activities. I cycle between 1200 - 1800 actually and average 1600 cals for the week.

The calorie counter that I use recommends eating back the calories you burned however I don't do that.
Depending on my loss if I'm at a stand-still I try increasing my calories or increasing my exercise until I start losing again.
Not all our bodies are the same so you need to try and see what works best for you

keep in mind you burn calories just by existing. use a calculator like fitday.com to figure out your basal calorie burn

I don't eat them back. Yesterday I was shooting for 1500. I ate 1463 and burned 640. There was no way I'd eat those 640 back. I just worked my butt off to get rid of them. Why would I want them back? I didn't even eat anything more because I figured I was close enough to 1500.

Different sites say different things. It gets confusing.

I don't worry about the net calories, just keep my total calories below a certain line. If you start making rules like "I can eat more if I work out more today", then things might get sticky. Where's the incentive to create a larger deficit?

My DF did this. He uses TDP like I do and he'd enter his fitness and he'd see he could still eat a certain amount. So he'd eat his deficit. And he slowly realized he shouldn't because the deficit is what makes you lose weight.

Someone asked about, "What's the point of working out if you eat all your calories back?"

TDP has kind of a steadfast opinion on thier forums about eating back your calories that you burn off. Their answer to everything is, "Well, eat more."

I think the general "idea" is, workout/exersise for physical wellness, cardiovascular health and overall conditioning, and weight loss is just an added bonus. But most of us see it the other way around.