Confused regarding calorie targets and exercise :/

I'm 5'4 and weigh 140lbs and want to eventually get back to 112lbs, although at the moment my goal is 120lbs. 

Using the calculator it recommends that I eat 1200 calories however that would be quite a struggle for me, except on days where I'm just not hungry...which are about once a week.

So if I eat more than that but exercise, will I still see results?

For example, if I ate 1700 calories, exercised enough to burn 500 then would the overall be 1200? Or does that not work?

Because I think 1200 is unrealistic for me personally, I'm happy to eat around 1600 and exercise if that doesn't ruin my goal. 

But also, would the exercise push up my general activity level and change my calorie target? :/

I would much prefer to exercise more and eat more, but I want to be as accurate as possible with my calorie information otherwise there isn't much point in attempting to keep track of it all. 

Thanks for the help! :)

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Question regarding my activity level and calories needed

Hey everyone!  

When I go to college, I had free access to the pretty nice campus gym, so I would workout 4 days a week.  Usually over the summer I get a gym membership.  I have a busy job, however.  I work at Chipotle (its a mexican fast food type restaurant) and it is VERY busy.  I work 40 hours a week but my shift is usually 4 to midnight closing.

I was going to purchase my gym membership, but I was pretty hesitant to do it because I don't have much spare time outside of work, it costs a decent amount, and I actually am so exhausted after work I wonder how many calories I am actually burning.

I was just wondering if you think my job is exercise enough, or if I should increase it.  I don't know if I should even count it as exercise, but it sure as hell feels like I'm getting a workout.  My legs ache the next day.  I work 8 hour shifts and i get one half hour break.  The rest of the time I am serving customers in mass amounts quickly as possible, frantically making burritos.  And I usually close, so that involves scrubbing the tortilla and quesadilla press clean and cleaning out the food wells, doing dishes, etc.  

I am a 5 foot 9, 20 year old female weighing in at 135 pounds.  I was just wondering what others input is.  Am I fooling myself by telling myself I'm burning a significant amount of calories and that work is a workout, or am I not giving myself enough credit?  How many calories do you think I should eat, what do you think my activity level is?  Help!

Thank you for your time!

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