Hi, I posted this question elsewhere to, but just found this area. I am relatively new to counting calories and I'm not sure if I should aim for between 1,200-1,500 calories TOTAL, or 1,200-1,500 NET calories...Am I sabotaging my efforts by going the net calorie route, or is it right for fueling good workouts??
Any feedback appreciated. Thanks!

I exercise to lose more weight so I do not eat back my exercise calories.

Without expensive lab equipment you cannot accurately calculate net calories, but you don't have to. Start anywhere you want to on the calorie spectrum, because only your results can tell you whether or not eating back your estimated exercise calories is a mistake.

Also to be precise, your net calories for the day is the total calories you take in minus everything you burn, so if your net calories are not zero or less, you will gain.

To calculate true net calories, you need to know what your body is burning during the entire day, not just during exercise.

You don't have to do any math if you just pick a moderate calorie level, observe your results and modify accordingly according to your goals.

I am still confused, when I log my exercise on My Fitness Pal it says I can eat more... Or is that what you mean by eating back my exercise calories Susan?

Maybe that's why I am not losing any weight...Ha.
I guess I will change to not entering in my exercise at all, and just stick to 1,300 calories.
Because I really am so sick of working my butt off and not losing an ounce.

Thanks for your replies ladies. Hopefully now I will see some results.

When MFP says you can eat more calories after you exercise, eating those additional calories means you are eating back your exercise calories. As long as you maintain a deficit, you will lose. I ate back exercise calories and continued to lose. It was nice incentive to continue exercising.

If you want accuracy, get a bodymedia band, I LOVE this thing. Its the armband you see the biggest loser contestants wearing, it will get your your total calories you burn every minute of every day, even when you sleep. I found 1200 cals was too low for me, I was naturally burning 1900-2300 cals a day just with normal activity so I could eat a little more and still have a nice deficit to lose each week. I highly recommend it to anyone counting calories

Awesome, I've heard of that band Sprying, maybe for my birthday... for now, I will try to stick to 1,300 on moderate activity days and 1,500 ish on weight training days...
Thanks for the feedback! I am glad to hear even if I eat back my calories burnt I will slowly lose.

Yep, you can definitely still lose. I've lost all my weight and am now maintaining. If I were to do it all over again, I would have tried to eat more calories and lose more slowly. I think it would have made the transition to maintenance easier. I lost on basically 1300 calories, but now I'm experimenting to figure out what I need to maintain. Plenty of people lose on more calories and my hunch is they are less hungry.