I know 1200 is the least amount of food the body needs to avoid going into starvation mode. But is it 1200 calorie intake or 1200 net?

On Friday I ate 1199 calories and my workout was 406 calories. Which was a net of 793 calories for that day.

Should I have taken in calories to compentsate for the working out making it 1200 calories net?

I think it's the 1200 intake, regardless of net, that people throw around as the number to avoid starvation mode. My reasoning is this: the "net" view only really considers calories burned by exercise, and in reality I don't think our bodies know much difference between calories burned from exercise vs from being alive. When you take the latter into account, our "true" net is always a negative number of calories anyway (since the goal is to achieve a deficit to lose weight). So, I don't think net calculated as Eaten - Burned By Exercise means much in terms of avoiding starvation mode - it's more of a tool for those people who are targeting the same deficit each day and thus eat their exercise calories.

For example, say your body burns 2200 calories a day and you target 1200 calories for a 2 lb/week deficit. On days with no exercise, a calorie counting app will show your net calories as 1200, but technically your net is 1200-2200 = -1000. If you burn 200 calories from exercise, a calorie counting app will show your net as 1000, but your true net is 1200-2200-200 = -1200. I think in both cases, since your body received 1200 calories, starvation mode will theoretically be avoided.

Hopefully that makes sense!

I never ever counted "excercise burned calories". To much of a hassle, to inaccurate. I stuck with my 1200 calories of highly nutritious foods, (NO JUNK) and lost weight quickly and safely. Oh, and 2 years later it's still gone!

Many will tell you that is too low, but you can eat a helluvalot of food if you choose wisely and are willing to do a lot of chopping, slicing and dicing!

I agree with Lori Bell .

Where does this 1200 number come from ? My brother asked me just a week ago the same thing, every activity you do burns energy, the more active you are the more you will burn on top of your BMR ( and this varies/depends on gender, weight and height ), honestly i'm eating around 3500-4000 cals a day right now, but seeing as how i'm burning through 5000-5500 a day it's no problem. Just have to maintain a deficit.

Typically i eat around 5 or 6 times a day, keeping the bulk of my intake for late in the evening when i know i will have my cravings, i probably don't go more then 4 hours without having something, still i'm losing weight, i eat probably more now than i did when i was fat, it's just what i eat (cleanly) and regularly that keeps my metabolism burning all the time.

I should note i'm male but still i could not drop food intake so low, i love food and by varying my intake to match my activity level i have found something i can live with every day, i used to count cals religiously, now i just tally them in my head as the day progresses, have most things memorized.

LOL...Males CAN eat WAY more than women and lose weight. My gosh, my husband can eat 4 times the calories I can and not gain weight. Males and Female calorie counts are like comparing apples to oranges.

1200 calories a day is NOT a recommended number just a reminder that falling below 1200 calories a day may rob you of needed nutrients.And it is true men lose more quickly than women, seems like they can lose a pound just walking to the refrigerator.
And a note for resolute, you are 5'10 and male I am 5' and female, the amount of calories we each require varies a great deal

Agreed. I view calories burned with exercise as a bonus, and I don't even try to figure out how much I burned through exercise. It's more important to me to make sure I get my calories in for the day instead of guess-timating how many calories I burned.

Men are supposed to be able to get fit faster. It is their biological job to be active "hunters", while us poor women are the fat storaging baby factories.
A woman needs her extra fat for the fertility/pregnancies and nurcing her body expects to do.

I realize the numbers will fall due to gender and size, still by dropping cals so low you are canabalizing muscle, muscle churns through cals like nothing else, you want to maintain/build muscle, eat tons of protein, make your body burn all the time.

Women seem to think there is nothing to it for a man, i personally put in anywhere from 75 to 100 miles of exercise every week on top of my 8 hour physically intense job including all lifes incidentals, at the end of each day i have a hard time dragging myself to bed, i've earned my weight loss through sheer determination , intelligent planning and fortitude. If i was not so active i would probably need to stay around 2000 - 2500 to lose slowly.

There is no reason one has to eat that few of cals unless you are absolutely sedentary, still you won't be much healthier even if you lose weight.

I've been doing 1200 cals very successfully now for 2 months. No cheats...just uber-healthy eating packed with protein, and low-fats. I shoot for 1200 cals, with 20% fat (27g), 30% protein (atleast 90g) and 50% carbs.

I did this just fine for the first mont, but really started working out more, and was feeling too low. I agonized over raising my intake, until my Dad had a good compromise. On days where I workout and really break a sweat, I add in a 190-cal, 0g fat, 30g protein shake right after my workout. It bumps my daily cals up to 1390ish, but I got off of my plateau and it really seems to be working!

1200 cals on no-workout days
1400 for workouts (workouts should burn at least 200 cals, but not matter how much I go past that, like with Zumba class, I still only add 1 shake.)

I really have to disagree. If your BMR is 1400, and you add in activity...my daily caloric needs are around 2100-2200. A 1,000-calorie per day deficit is healthy, resulting in 1-2 pounds of weight loss per week, on average. Going down to 1200 calories during the weight loss phase is not cannibalizing muscle, especially if one is working out and utilizing those 1200 cals the right way. I can get 100+g of protein daily and still eat 1200 calories. I have put on more muscle in the past 2 months, from clean-eating and strength training, than I did from years of higher calories and aerobic actvity.

At some point, my BMR and lifestyle will put my deficit at 1000 calories per day intake...but that is too low, and I will still eat around 1200 and just lose a bit more slowly.

OP here.
My MBR is 1690, which is the calorie intake I can be at without gaining weight. However, losing is my goal.
Usually I eat 1400 calories a day. And yes, I track workouts because I find it effective. I work out 6 days a week. Always a Jillian DVD and three times a week I train C25K

It's best for me to keep a net of no less than 1100 a day so I avoid that hungry feeling the next day.

This may be true, but your muscles were likely not highly developed before you started working out and eating healthier. After a certain point, you can not continue to build muscle while eating a caloric deficit. You may never get to that point because you may not be interested in building your muscles to that point, but if someone wants to seriously weight train they will not be doing it effectively for more than a few months while consuming fewer calories than they burn. Also, aerobic activity will never result in serious muscle gain, so I wouldn't expect you to have gained much muscle in years of doing it, regardless of your net calories.

Quoted just because it gave me a great chuckle! Great wording.

In response to the OP, no, I never counted the calorie deficit from exercise because as was said, you should be in deficit either way. I always considered exercise as a bonus!

Regarding people getting into the 1200 debate again- what works for some people isn't going to work for others. Let's leave it at that? 1200 worked very well for me when I was in my weight loss phase, and if done with much attention to nutrition (as any eating plan should) can be done in a way to support your muscles. I should know, I've got guns! Different bodies, different approaches!