how many calories are smaller women having?

I think that little is just nuts. I don't understand why they give you that few. As you lose weight you're gonna have to reduce your amount of calories and really you're not supposed to go under 1200. I would bump it up a little bit more than that so that you have wiggle room to reduce as you start plateauing. If I were you, I'd bump it up to enough to only lose 1 lb per week and then exercise enough to lose the 2nd lb.

I'm 5'1 and 188lb and just completed my first week with Myfitnesspal. i was wondering what steps smaller women are taking in order to lose weight? As a smaller person i have restricted myself to 1200 calories and 45 minutes of exercise daily. Is this sufficient to lose weight? any other advice?

With your current stats, your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is 1655, which means that to keep your organs functioning properly, you need to NET at least 1655 calories every day until you start losing weight, and then that amount will go down. At a sedentary level with little exercise, your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is 1987. (Search BMR and TDEE calculators and you'll find lots of resources to keep up with these numbers)

Personally, I vary my calories frequently and eat between my BMR and TDEE on any given day (with holidays, I've gone over a couple of times recently, but it hasn't hurt my weight loss one bit). At 5'3" and 140.6 lbs, my current BMR is 1429 and my current TDEE is 1715. When I exercise, I log it and eat my exercise calories back because I set my diary to 1440 calories so I don't want to fall below my BMR by netting lower than that number. I think someone else on here already explained how to figure out your NET calories.

When I first started on MFP a couple of years ago, I did the 1200 thing for a while and completely stalled out after a few short months and started gaining back. It was incredibly frustrating. I gave up for a while, and then came back ready to try out the BMR and TDEE thing and I've had more continuous success with this method. I'm giving my body what it needs to function properly and it's thanking me by getting rid of the excess.

Do what you think is best for you, but I highly recommend staying above your BMR (1655).

I have been averaging 1200 a day, for about two months and lost about 1lb a week. I am hungry! I don't want to continue eating like this. It's not enough food to maintain on a long term basis. I can't socialize with friends, eat proper meals with family or have a normal day without obsessing with over-eating.
I know the answer though. Since I do almost zero formal exercise and am quite sedentary, i will now start with increasing my activity levels and up my calories to see if I can still lose at 0.5-1.0 lb a week but eat around 1600-1800 cals a day.
I worked out what my calorie levels are like for an ideal day of what is for me normal eating and it's around 2000 a day. I really would like to be able to eat that much and maintain a goal weight of 120-125lb at a height of just over 5', age 40 and thyroid problems! ( tbh thyroid counts for about 10lb gain for me, not more than that)

I am 5'1 and started at 169.8 lbs back in August. I work out six days a week. I completed Body Revolution the week before Thanksgiving and I weighed in at 149.8 in the beginning of December. I am up between 1 or 2 lbs from the holidays right now.

MFP has me set at 1200 calories before exercise. I eat back all my exercise calories and had many weeks where I went over one day to eat out. Sundays are my off days so I only get 1200 calories but I do not find it too unmanageable really. It one day where I just really watch my portion sizes.

I am 5 foot, and I do not count calories. I count carbs, fats and sugars.

I am 5'2. My intake average is about 1300-1400 calories. I started at 120lbs 3 weeks ago and today I weighed in at 118.5b lbs.

My cardio workout is only 30 minutes long, 5x a week. I wanted to keep it simple as I was pretty much inactive prior to December.