Under the Calorie Goal-Why is it bad?

I highly recommend you check out the group Eat more to weigh less, I think you'd find a lot of answers to your questions there.

Look for some credible sources on the starvation mode myth. You are fine if you are under your caloric goals. I highly doubt you will starve yourself into shutting down your bodily functions.

The best way to lose weight is to make slow changes to your lifestyle that you can sustain over a long period of time. For a lot of people, you can't just diet and exercise temporarily until you're at your goal weight and then go back to your old habits. You have to make changes you can stick to forever.

Your body needs a certain amount of calories to survive, this is based on how active you are. The reason most places do not recommend losing more than 2 pounds a week is because its hard on your body and organs. You need to look up your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). It varies based on many things, height, weight, age, exercise, how active you are ect. I stil dont think it is very healthy to do just the minimum to survive. Its not about dieting, its about permanent life style changes. Learning how to eat and educating yourself on how to maintain once the weight is off.

According to everyone cheering everyone else for being under their calorie goal, I'm pretty sure it's a good thing

I don't know who has been telling you to eat crackers all day, but I think that is very bad advice. I'm not a low-carber, but most crackers are just wasted garbage calories. If you need to snack to add calories, try to do it with nutritious foods- fruits, vegetables, greek yogurt, nuts, hummus, peanut butter, and the occasional crackers.

From what Ive found... going too far under your calorie goal will just slow down your metabolism, plus it can leave you feeling tired and grumpy.
Just look at what you are considering eating before putting it in your mouth. I try and limit processed food.
Just eating crackers is a bad idea...
Try and eat a balanced meal.
If you need snacks try peanut butter, fruits, veggies, yogurt, nuts,. Things like that and you will feel better and be healthier in general. crackers are empty calories which will also prob hold too much sodium.
also whenever you cut most all from your diet... even if you do lose weight from it, once you start introducing food back into your diet you will just regain the weight.
Best bet is all things in moderation.
Good luck to you

This is just me personally but if I don't eat all my calories one day on accident because I wasn't hungry, I don't worry about it. I usually end up having a day somewhere in the week where I'm super hungry and go over a bit that makes up for it and it seems to average out.

As far as just eating bananas or crackers, the thing about that is you'll end up getting more cravings and being hungry which can lead to some crazy over eating over the long term. Plus your body needs good nutrition. Better to try and eat somewhat healthy but still have the foods you love in moderation than to eat all just one thing.

Oh and also I got a food scale pretty inexpensively. They are pretty quick and easy to use when you're putting stuff together and I found I was shorting myself on some stuff, going over on others. The first time I used it I was like "wow THAT's an ounce of shredded cheese? I can have alot more on my salad than I thought" lol

Ive had a look at your diary, eating more than 1000 calories below goal is not good. The 'calories remaining' at the bottom of your diary should be as close to 0 as you can get.
Your goal was set as a healthy loss for your height / weight, if you consistently under eat by so much you will lose muscle, which means your body burns less calories, which means you have to eat less and less, see where this is going???

Your sugar is ridiculously high, your fats and protein are too low. Macros are just as important as calories, it can be hard to get it right at first but its all down to planning. I ususally log my diary the night before, I will start with dinner as thats the biggest meal, then lunch, then breakfast and snacks. You will soon learn which combinations work best to fit your goals - eg if I am having pasta for tea, I wont have a sandwich for lunch as they are both high in carbs.

You need to eat more proper foods rather than just yogurt, fruit and cereal!!! Foods that are 'low fat' are usually high in sugar - your 'low fat' yogurt alone has way more than your daily sugar count. Foods that are 'sugar free' usually have lots of added chemicals.
Try to eat things like chicken, turkey, lean beef, fish, naturally lower fat cheeses like mozzarella, cottage cheese, ricotta, feta etc, whole grains (brown rice / pasta / cous cous / quinoa), lots of vegetables & fruit (5 portions a day is the minimum, try to get more veg to keep the sugar count down - fruit is good but in large quantities the sugar can add up), healthy fats like olive oil, nuts, avocado.
My diary is open if you want to take a look for meal ideas x

Exercise is important too, it has so many health benefits other than weight loss - even if you feel like you cant do much at the minute, a walk around the block is a good starting point, when you can do that easily, walk 2 blocks etc.
You should look at starting some weight training if possible. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so by building muscle it will be easier for you to lose the lbs. Dieting without exercise will lead to muscle loss and it will get harder to lose.

Your sugar is ridiculously high, your fats and protein are too low. Macros are just as important as calories, it can be hard to get it right at first but its all down to planning. I ususally log my diary the night before, I will start with dinner as thats the biggest meal, then lunch, then breakfast and snacks. You will soon learn which combinations work best to fit your goals - eg if I am having pasta for tea, I wont have a sandwich for lunch as they are both high in carbs.

You realize this was the OPs FIRST diary and is probably already a significant change on what he's eaten previously? Yes macros are important but you don't criticize a drowning persons stroke technique.

Your sugar is ridiculously high, your fats and protein are too low. Macros are just as important as calories, it can be hard to get it right at first but its all down to planning. I ususally log my diary the night before, I will start with dinner as thats the biggest meal, then lunch, then breakfast and snacks. You will soon learn which combinations work best to fit your goals - eg if I am having pasta for tea, I wont have a sandwich for lunch as they are both high in carbs.

You realize this was the OPs FIRST diary and is probably already a significant change on what he's eaten previously? Yes macros are important but you don't criticize a drowning persons stroke technique.

I do realise that, I ate absolute crap before joining MFP, but my first diary was at least attempting to follow the goals MFP had set me - starting out SO wrong is not going to help OP.
I didnt mean to criticize, my overall post was intended to be helpful, I thought explaining an easy way to meet macros rather than just saying 'you must eat XXX, dont eat XXX' would help OP see its not as hard to do as he may think.

This!

Ive had a look at your diary, eating more than 1000 calories below goal is not good. The 'calories remaining' at the bottom of your diary should be as close to 0 as you can get.
Your goal was set as a healthy loss for your height / weight, if you consistently under eat by so much you will lose muscle, which means your body burns less calories, which means you have to eat less and less, see where this is going???

Your sugar is ridiculously high, your fats and protein are too low. Macros are just as important as calories, it can be hard to get it right at first but its all down to planning. I ususally log my diary the night before, I will start with dinner as thats the biggest meal, then lunch, then breakfast and snacks. You will soon learn which combinations work best to fit your goals - eg if I am having pasta for tea, I wont have a sandwich for lunch as they are both high in carbs.

You need to eat more proper foods rather than just yogurt, fruit and cereal!!! Foods that are 'low fat' are usually high in sugar - your 'low fat' yogurt alone has way more than your daily sugar count. Foods that are 'sugar free' usually have lots of added chemicals.
Try to eat things like chicken, turkey, lean beef, fish, naturally lower fat cheeses like mozzarella, cottage cheese, ricotta, feta etc, whole grains (brown rice / pasta / cous cous / quinoa), lots of vegetables & fruit (5 portions a day is the minimum, try to get more veg to keep the sugar count down - fruit is good but in large quantities the sugar can add up), healthy fats like olive oil, nuts, avocado.
My diary is open if you want to take a look for meal ideas x

Exercise is important too, it has so many health benefits other than weight loss - even if you feel like you cant do much at the minute, a walk around the block is a good starting point, when you can do that easily, walk 2 blocks etc.
You should look at starting some weight training if possible. Muscle burns more calories than fat, so by building muscle it will be easier for you to lose the lbs. Dieting without exercise will lead to muscle loss and it will get harder to lose.

So...macros? What The Hell? I am a gamer and macro's are terms we use for using keys to instantly do something that they weren't intended to do. I don't think that same term applies here. A little explanation could help me out there

Being a gamer too I thought the same thing, lol. But whenever I see something I know I have to go google :X If I'm understanding its just the word used for fats, proteins, sugars and carbs?

Anyway I'm pretty new to the site and always used another site to log my food but after Em's comment on comparing to MFP I had to go look. It's pretty neat that they have it pre figured out based on calories. I don't see me being super strict on that yet though, it'll make me crazy. But it will be nice to see if I'm going way overboard in one area continually.