Upping my Calorie Target

I've gotten quite a few concerned and persuasive emails that have convinced me to up my calorie target, at least for now.  I continue to be confused about ultimate calorie targets.  There definitely seems to be a school of thought that it's absolute calories, within reason, that determines how long you will live and how healthy you will be, and that within that, everything else is tweaking.  It seems like the question of "within reason" is where people disagree.  I am persuaded by the argument that weight loss should not be too fast, otherwise you end up a dead rat, so I am upping my calories to slow my weight loss, which has as of late been too rapid.  I think upping my calories will also give me some room in which to experiment with the big changes in my diet I'm attempting: raising protein and fat levels.  And it will help me deal with some major social eating occasions that are about to occur due to my 30th birthday celebrations which apparently will last all weekend.  I need to do more research to determine what I think is an essential nutrient level (and I need my software!  I am about to fly to California to get it from the factory myself!), and then to determine what calorie level is best for me. 
 
As always, suggestions are welcome! 

All this talk of upping my calories made me hungry.  For lunch I ate:
 
2 cups of lettuce -- 20 (so expensive at salad bar!  but so fresh!)
Three small tomatoes, taken together about the size of one regular -- 40
4 tbsps Trader Joes' hot and smoky chipotle salsa -- 20
Most of my 220 calorie harvest hodgepodge and "cream" of broccoli soup -- let's call it 220 for now because I will eat the rest before the day is over
Little fruit salad -- 150
Tofu, tomato and green pepper thing (contains 1 tbsp of seseme oil, divided among four portions) -- 80
 
That's 530 just at lunch (though I will actually finish the soup later, so it's not really all at lunch, but I can't figure out what to call the divided portion.)  Add to that the 180 from earlier in the day and I'm at 710 so far today. 
 
Of course I feel stuffed, but I will no doubt be hungry again by later tonight.  I'd better be because I still have a long way to go on protein (the tofu portion had not much protein as the entire four serving dish of which I ate one serving was only a half a block of tofu.)  I actually made a bizarre protein shake (it's green, I'm going to drink it alone to avoid grossing out co-workers) with some of the stuff I bought last night, and that will give me 23 grams of protein for 200 cals.  With four for the tofu, that's 27 plus 17 from earlier today in the egg and cottage cheese, that's at least 44 today.  I forgot to check the harvest hodgepodge for protein because I assumed it would be minimal, but it has snap peas so who knows?  I'll have to dig the package out of the trash to look.  This getting enough protein is hard!  Bring on the eggwhites!  At least they're not green... unless you carefully noted earlier reference to green eggs and ham.
 
Going to be low on fat today, probably no matter what I do, unless I dissolve a protein powder in oil and eat it whole, which seems unlikely and like it would not taste as good as olive oil and balsamic vinegar on celery.  With a dash of dried oregano, that tastes like a fancy appetizer you would get at an Italian restaurant.