How many calories should I be consuming?

1200 is way to low in my opinion. Try your TDEE - 20%. So for you, if you sit and do nothing (desk job) and no exercise you should eat about 2000 a day so minus 20% is 1600 a day, plus whatever you exercise off.
I am 4'11 and 121 pounds and I eat more than 1200 calories, but I workout hard. I eat about 1200-1300 on no workout days, but I'm shorter. The less you eat now the harder it will be to lose in the future cause your metabolism will slow down plus you don't want to lose muscle and if eat at too large deficit you won't JUST be losing fat. Been there done that. I tried the super low cal thing for the first few months and yes I lose weight but still have a high % of body fat

Yah well if you exercise 2000 isnt that bad. You can try to cycle it and eat like one day 1600 one day 1800 and one day 2200, just see what works for you. I just wouldn't fall below the 1600 mark and then as you lose weight you can reevaluate your calories. I think honestly the fact that weight watchers and jenny craig has pretty much everyone on a 1200 calorie diet and thats probably why people (at least some that I know) who stopped those programs gained their weight back. I love when my friends who do certain programs give me advice when they haven't lose as much as me, and all I did was use this site and its freeeeee

Eat a BIGGER breakfast! As Americans we tend to do the small breakfast, medium lunch, larger dinner( since we are usually home and can cook) BUT that is the opposite of what we should be doing (Although I am guilty of it too). So make a larger breakfast and get your calories in there. You will probably feel better all day long too since you fueled your body for the day!

I'm new. What is TDEE?

About 6-7 months, and I have been having trouble losing the last 10-15 but slow and steady wins the race. I basically took the holiday season off tho, Still workout daily, even thanksgiving morning lol BUT didn't want to deprive myself so I was just working on maintaining. Now with the longer days and nice weather I am kicking it into gear and just working on eating healthy. Back when i was losing regularly I only cheated like ONCE a month and made sure it was in my calories for the day. Once I got to a healthy weight I kinda became lazy, at least with eating. I didn't gain as long as I exercised so it became too easy to just cheat more often and I am working on that because even tho I am looking better I am not where I want to be!...YET

I'm new. What is TDEE?

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering the same thing.

TDEE - Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is the amount of calories your body burns in a day based on your activity level, including exercise. You do not eat back exercise calories using the TDEE method.

Not to be confused with NEAT (Non Exercise Energy Thermogenesis). The NEAT method is the method MFP uses in determining your calorie goal. It is often easier for beginners who are new to exercise and may not have a routine down...inconsistent, etc because using the NEAT method allows you to add back exercise calories to eat more...so your calorie goal using NEAT might be 1,300 calories to lose 1 Lb per week...but you workout and burn 500...now you're at 800 net calories (bad...too low)...so you eat 500 more calories. Conversely, you can do nothing at all but stay within your calorie goal and lose.

They come out pretty much 6 of 1...MFP gives me a calorie goal of 1,750 to lose 1 Lb per week...on average I burn off about 300 calories per day...so I gross around 2050. My TDEE is 2,550...so TDEE - 20% is 2040...as you can see, both methods result in me grossing about the same calories to lose 1 Lb per week on average.