1600 cals for weight loss?

find out your TDEE and figure from there, you def could lose with no exercise at 1600 calories. Is that the best way to lose weight ? probably not. try eating what you are now and add exercise

At 5'3" and a starting weight of 254 lbs, MFP started me at 1720. Two things:

1) I told MFP I was sedentary and wanted to lose a pound a week.
2) I immediately took it on myself to get out and walk for at least a half hour every day. As I got used to it, I made the walks longer and, after I was somewhere in the 230s, it became 'Either I walk for an hour or I do a half hour on the Nordic track skier in the basement'. We're now up to 1-hour walks OR 45 minutes on the skier daily PLUS some resistance exercises with a fitness tube every other day.

Upping my activity and initially not eating back my fitness calories translated into a 2-lb/week loss for me.

These days, I'm 41 lbs lighter (43 by my doctor's scale, but different scales give different readings and I'm only counting the one I get from mine on Sunday mornings), my calories have been cut to 1520, I'm eating back about half of my exercise calories, and I'm losing between 1 and 2 lbs/week. (Note: I am also 81 lbs above goal, so 2 lbs isn't overly aggressive yet. I'll probably need to adjust around the 75-lb mark, based on what I've read lurking in these forums.)