How to change the calorie count?

It takes all of your stats into account and gives you a very specific goal tailored to your stats which should help you achieve your goals. The only situation where you get a goal that does not match your stats and goals exactly is if you are trying to lose weight faster than what the system will support for where you are starting out. For example, if your goal is 1200, that is the absolute lowest the system will go without you overriding it, and it may or may not reflect the rate at which you asked to lose weight. If you click on 'my home' and then click on 'goals', you can see a quick run-down of how your profile is set and also an estimation of how much weight you should lose per week based on the goals MFP has given you. (look toward the bottom right-hand of the page after you click on 'goals'). If you look at that info and feel like it says you're not going to get any results at all (which is possible if you are already a very small person and MFP gave you 1200), you actually can override the calorie recommendation and put in your own number. On the page you'd be on after clicking 'goals' you can click on 'change goals' and then choose the custom option in order to put in your own calorie goal manually.

I would not recommend just pulling a number out of the air though. Going too low can kind of backfire on you if you're not careful. Well, some people do well on lower calories but others hit a brick wall. There are some other websites where you can put in your stats and activity that will give you a goal that actually includes your exercise - check out freedieting.com and their calorie calculator and see how their numbers compare to what MFP has given you.

I will tinker around with it. I just feel like my calorie goal is too low. I have 100 pounds to lose and it's telling me to take in 1440 calories a day. A body needs 1200 just to sustain it's metabolic functions. I'm a big girl and just for argument reasons lets say I take in 2800 calories a day. So it wants me to basically half what I take in. I'll lose 1 pound in three days! And then I might lose a bunch of weight but then I'll just plateau because I have nothing lower I can go down to (calorically speaking).

How did you set your weekly weightloss goal? If you set it to 1 lb per week, it's only taking 500 calories per day off of your maintenance needs. If you set it to 2 lbs per week, it's taking 1000 calories off your daily maintenance needs. If you are looking at that 1440 calorie goal and feeling like it's not realistic, there are a couple of options. 1 is you can exercise to earn extra calories. Since MFP's goal is putting you at a deficit before factoring in exercise, if you *do* exercise you effectively burn off more than necessary for that deficit so that means you can afford to eat a bit more. Another is you could change your weightloss goal to a slower rate - i.e. if you are set to 2 lbs per week you could scale it back to 1 or 1.5 lbs per week, which would bump up your calorie goal and might feel more realistic/manageable for you.

Thanks for your help. I ended up changing the pounds per week goal like you suggested. It bumped me up to 1940cal. which I feel is more sustainable. I figured exercising would alter things too. Again, thanks!

You are very welcome. :-)