Concerned about calories on the MFP calculator.

Well, I know from experience that eating 700 calories a day for an extended period of time is a terrible idea. (I passed out in a restaurant from doing this). You should figure out your BMR which is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of calories you need to eat just to survive. Mine is around 1400. Just type in bmr calculator on Google and you'll be able to figure yours out. Now your bmr is the minimum number of calories you should be eating in a day. If you exercise, I believe in eating back my exercise calories even though some people don't. So for example, my bmr is 1400 and let's say I burn 300 calories exercising, that means I should be eating 1700 calories that day. In my fitness pal, your bmr should be you net calorie intake for the day. I understand how hard it is to up your calories because i used to have a hard time with it. You could incorporate some high calorie but healthy things like natural peanut butter or almonds. If you're not a vegetarian or vegan, eat chicken, salmon, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese,etc. Sometimes I have trouble reaching my calorie goal and I feel like I'm stuffing myself, but I've lost 25 pounds by eating my recommended calorie intake everyday so even though you feel like your stuffing yourself, it works! And also, when I was eating 700 calories a day, I eventually stopped losing weight and I ended up gaining it all back. I had to start all over and now I feel like I have a lifestyle where I can keep the weight off and can live with this for the rest of my life. So, make sure to at least eat at your bmr and good luck with your weight loss!

1200 calories is not a lot or difficult to get to. In fact your one meal of a smoothie, a burger, some fries, and onion rings was probably pretty close to that.

Make sure you are weighing everything you eat. It'll help you see how easy it is to get to that number and make losing weight that much easier.

this seems like maybe you aren't entering the foods correctly maybe or that maybe the servings are off when you enter. Double check your entries and make sure you are getting the "whole" burger...like make sure your not just entering a hamburger patty, make sure all the condiments and "extras" are counted. Plus you may need to rember to snack..add some nuts, fruit and even cheese in there. It takes me at least two meals and a snack to reach 1000 calories.