Girls- How many calories does everyone eat daily?

On days I dont exercise I net 1200 to 1300 sometimes more,on days I do exercise 800 to 1000

For those of you saying you're eating 1200 and not losing... it means you need to eat MORE... there are SO many people on this site who think it's 'counterproductive' and stupid, but there are also SO many people on this website who have UPPED their calories after hitting a plateau and then STARTED losing again! It could be a simple matter of you aren't fueling your body properly and just need to eat more to lose more.

IMO, it's probably because they are eating more than they think and not burning as much. Tom Venuto wrote a great article about this last week. "Mythical girl" that claimed she couldn't lose weight on 1200 cals a day gets put into a controlled environment where she actually GOT 1200 cals a day...and she lost weight.

And although I can't prove it, I would also wager that when people stall they probably "up the ante" a little bit and start paying a bit more attention to what they are actually doing: i.e. tracking better, eating better, upping their exercise intensity, etc. I know that I do!

For many reasons, even if you are tracking everything, it is still very easy to underestimate what you are eating and overestimate exercise (unless you have an HRM, and even those are only as good as the information you give them.). I would also argue that the nutrition density of the calories plays a role too. big difference between 1200 cals of overly processed foods and 1200 cals of a balanced diet.

i see a lot of girls setting their goals at 1200 and i often wonder if its because that is the lowest MFP recommends on here.

Guilty.
Before I got here I was eating less than that, but all at once. I only ate once a day. Eating 1200 is scary for me. Eating 1200 net is even more scary and seems wrong to me. But I'm trusting what the seasoned veterans of weight loss say and doing it anyways.

Please remember that MFPs calculator is a "dumb" tool - meaning that even if you should not be aiming for 2 lbs loss/week, because it will be unhealthy and unrealistic, due to where you are in the process, it will still try to help you get there (within the 1200 lower limit.) Choosing too high of a loss goal is a common mistake and causes a lot of issues. Pleeeease don't just arbitrarily pick 2 lbs/week just because it's an option. Pick the right settings for YOU and your body.

Here are some threads that may help in determining healthy, realistic cal goals/deficits.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/186814-some-mfp-basics

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

I would rather take my weight off slowly over a longer period of time to make it more maintainable and this site suggested a very non-restrictive goal of 1810/day, variable with exercise. I need to take off about 80lb, I'll get to goal in about a year and a half at the rate of one pound lost per week. Calorie counts of below 1500/day do seem awfully restrictive to me, personally and I'm not sure I could keep that up life-long. Especially if I was exercising alot. 1200 seems really, really low and I'm almost positive anything much below that would be medically unadvisable period, but I noticed that alot of people here have 1200/day as goal. But I'm not a physician or a nutritionist. I suppose if a person was naturally a small-framed person, they would have lower calorie needs. My aim is to weigh 140, which some would consider heavy for themselves, but is just perfect for me being 5'5 and having a sort-of stocky frame (or "big-boned" as they used to say, lol).

1200 and I eat my exercise calories.