My daily caloric intake is 1200 (sedentary, office job). Today I consumed 784 (before dinner), then I ironically burned 784 calories at the gym... Which left me back at my goal of 1200 for the day. I don't want to eat back 1200 calories! I'm not that hungry. I find this to be a constant issue for me. Someone please help!

You can never know for sure how much you burn. They are estimates. Plus, the fitter you get, the more efficient your body gets, so it burns even less, but no monitor can know that.

So, eat what you are hungry for. For me, I never eat back my calories unless I really truly cannot stand it. That happens about once or twice a month (and I exercise 5-6 times a week).

Now, is it necessary to eat so little? (1200 calories)? No. It's not. So eat at a way that you think you can maintain eating for a long time to establish good eating habits and only eat back the calories that you feel you need to to keep from losing control with eating.

Calories consumed, are easier to keep track of than calories burned.

That given, I do not eat back my calories burned. I really don't even make any attempt to figure it out.

My loss and maintenance is done in the kitchen, and the workouts are for functional fitness, to help me have a better life and be physically stronger for my job, my garden, my farm, to chase my grandkids, and so on. Not necessarily in that order!

I have chosen to make the loss/maintaining one thing, the fitness another thing. 2 different categories.

Just me.

I eat them back. I am a firm believer that no one should ever go under 1200 NET calories (Calories eaten - calories burned = net). Your body honestly needs those calories to function properly. It is okay if you eat 1800 and then burn 500, but eating only 1200 and then adding in the additional burned calories is not a good thing.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I eat back half

Today, I ate 300, then burned 450, and when I got in I still wasn't hungry! After about 2hrs I was though, and had an omelette & a glass of milk. Now I feel stuffed! It's very weird. I've made some turkey burgers ready to cook if I get hungry later, but if I don't... I guess I don't. Still trying to figure this one out. I've been doing Intuitive Eating for a few months, and noticed I'd eat anything between 800-1600 a day depending on my activity level. I'm going to look into the calorie cycling thing.

I do like the idea of eating to lose weight, and exercising for fitness. As it's such a vague estimate, the calories you burn through exercise, it does make logical sense to me

I've always wondered that too... I worry about putting my body into starvation mode if I burn everything I eat. But every site I see is different, and they all conflict.

In all honesty when I'm working out a lot I don't get that same hunger, so it's hard to tell if I should eat, or just stay negative for the day.