Need Advice!

vcinri

I am a male, 5'9" construction worker with a solid build. I carry most of my weight in my belly. I would like to lose 50 lbs. I lost a lot of weight years ago on a clean 5 meal a day program. (this was the most food I have ever eaten in my life and the weight was falling off.) The program slowed and eventually stopped. I tried many other programs, low cal, no carb, boxed meals and nothing had worked. The past few years the weight started gradually coming back.

I joined a gym in Oct 2013 and do 1hr of weight training and 30-60 min. of elliptical trainer 5x a week. I am also very physically
active during the day with my job.

I gained weight the first 6 weeks at the gym. I feel firmer in my upper body but my clothes are tighter everywhere. I am not a drinker and have been consuming 1800-2000 Cal. per day of healthy food. I have been logging my calories for some time now and started logging on MFP for the past week. MFP actually allowed me more. I was blaming my imperfect weekends for my failure. My weekend cheat would be a once or twice restaurant meal due to my social life but by no means an all out binge.

I have been faithful for the past two weekends and have not seen any changes. I always feel bloated no matter how much or little I
eat. I can usually feel in 2-3 days when a program is working. I have been doing this for weeks and do not feel any better.

Statistically, I should be seeing and feeling great results and I am not.

I am really getting frustrated over it. I see my much thinner friends and family eat far more than me and never gain an ounce.
In 2010 I had complete endocrine testing done and all was normal.

If I had to guess? I have trained my body to run on too few calories and slowed my metabolism. Anything I eat above 2000 cal gets stored. Is this possible? Could it be my net calories are way to low after physical activity??

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks