Calories!

Ummm...yeah. No one should eat under 1,200 calories per day.

You should eat your exercise calories back. MFP has already built in a weight loss to the calories of your goal. If you picked 2 lbs, it tells you how many calories to eat to achieve that. Eat your exercise ones back (and be honest about them), and just try to stay +-150 or 200 and you won't have a problem

Hey Mamahafner!
Gotta tell ya that you are doing well so far. It's not an easy change to make and I'm glad to see that you are starting this up with us!
The first thing I want to find out is how many calories is it alloting you everyday? If it's 1200 you have to eat all of those calories just because that is the absolute minimum that your body needs just to function normally without storing converting everything to fat for survival.
The other thing that you might want to do is to click on the "MY HOME" tab at the top and then go to the "GOALS" tab underneath.
Under "Your Diet Profile" you will see the 3 most important items on that page:

"Your Calorie Goal"
"Daily Calorie Deficit"
"Projected Weight Loss"

Lets look at this Backwards to understand it better >

Projected Weight Loss > This is the number of pounds you selected to try to lose every week. (For the example lets use the maximum of 2lbs.)

Daily Calorie Deficit > This is how many calories the program has automatically removed from the number of calories you should be eating for your height to maintain your weight based upon the projected weight loss. (If you change the number of lbs you want to lose per week form 2lbs to 1lb you will find that this number goes down allowing you more calories every day, it also means you lose weight a little slower).

Your Calorie Goal > This is the number of calories you are alloted to you every day in order to lose weight. If you take this number and you add the Daily Calorie Deficit to it you the number you get is the amount of calories you need to consume to maintain your weight.


So The best thing to do is to first look at your calorie goal... if the goal is 1200 and you have it set to lose 2lbs per week, you have got to eat all 1200 calories or your body will go into starvation mode and it will store everything it can as fat in order to survive.
There are 2 things you can do to change this goal so that you can make it easier for you.
1) You can change the Projected Weight Loss - reduce the number of lbs you want to lose every week and it will give you more calories you are allowed to consume. That is the easy way out, but it also means that you lose weight slower.
2) Work out more and make sure you put in every exercise you do in the exercise diary. This is important! By adding exercise to your day you are burning up more calories than you need to in order to lose weight, when you add those burned calories to your exercise diary it will automatically adjust your alloted intake for that day.
For example, say you go to the gym and you burn off 220 calories in an hour on the elliptical. When you come back here and log that information, go and check your allotted totals you will see the message "You have earned 220 additional calories from exercise today" You will also see that your calorie goal will now say 1420, the other values will go up too (all with the exception of sodium).

I hope this helps. Just keep in mind, if your goal is 1200 calories then you have to eat all 1200 just to keep your body working. The best thing you can do is to do whatever it takes to increase that goal and then you can enjoy a little more without worrying about going overboard.