1200 cals + exercise= GAINING WEIGHT?!

You say you are eating your exercise calories back but your diary says otherwise. At the moment most days you are eating 1200 then minus your exercise of 350 you are netting 800-850 cals.

try the 5:2 it really works!!

Thanks for all of the responses guys... I don't know about eating more. I'm a bit fearful of it but I suppose it's worth a shot. My biggest fear is that the only way I can actually lose weight is going back to the 700-800 calorie thing since that's what worked for me before.

I forgot to mention, I actually do eat back my exercise calories. So I actually will have around 1300-1400 in a day, for those of you who said I didn't.

If you do that, you won't be losing fat. You will be losing lean muscle mass and end up looking fat regardless of how skinny you are. Start lifting heavy things, and for pity's sake eat more! <333

Thanks for all of the responses guys... I don't know about eating more. I'm a bit fearful of it but I suppose it's worth a shot. My biggest fear is that the only way I can actually lose weight is going back to the 700-800 calorie thing since that's what worked for me before.

I forgot to mention, I actually do eat back my exercise calories. So I actually will have around 1300-1400 in a day, for those of you who said I didn't.

just increase by 100-200 cals a week with cals from good nutritious foods or healthy fats, and try it out for a few weeks. your body is getting more efficient and also as you slim down, it just gets harder to lose.

but definitely do not cut down to 700-800 cals, that is just not a sustainable lifestyle - it may have worked for you before, but it cannot work in the long term!!

Her diary is open and she is def not starving herself. So let's not say to eat more just because she said she is at 1200 cals. Most days she is eating more than 1200, and it doesn't look like she is netting under 1200 either...... The answer is not always hey you need to eat more!! Check out Road maps or whatever. Some people are actually just different.

Not sure what it can be, maybe your metabolism needs time to change? How long have you noticed weight gain? Are you doing Strength training? This could be temporary.

How far back did you actually look? Just the past 2 days? Look back further....go in depth with her log and you will see why people are saying eat more.

Although it is completely counterintuitive, eat more=lose more, especially if you are working out a lot (or a little). I got stuck at 205 lbs (49 lbs loss) and could not bust through for many months. I tried going low cal (average 1400 cal / day) and actually gained weight and inches. And felt like crap. How could that be? I think my body went into starvation mode and lowered its BMR to compensate for my stupidity. It thought it was starving and took action. That's when I started tracking calories via myfitnesspal and decided to up the daily intake to 2,000 cal. That has restarted weight loss and now I'm on track again for my goal weight of 185 lbs.

For the lean gains question, you should eat right after your workout. Eat a lot. Waiting until noon completely screws up your metabolism and will make you loopy.

Wow. I could have written this. We are weight loss twins. I have been stuck as well but now working with a person who gave me a Metabolic Assessment I am eating MORE and losing again. go figure

Newbie here.... Please educate me. What do TDEE and BRM mean?

The simplest answer is that you're eating more and exercising less intensely than you think.

Here's the problem with this religious mantra 'eat more to lose more' - this *might* be the issue if she is not losing but just maintaining her weight. But she says herself that she is GAINING weight.

There is no possible way she can gain weight (actual mass, so excepting transient inflammatory weight) by eating less than her total daily energy needs. None. That would be violating some fundamental laws of physics.

The refrain 'you're not eating enough!' is MFP dogma, but it cannot apply when someone is gaining. I have my doubts it applies when people are maintaining, too, but that's not relevant here.

To the OP - perhaps you have a very efficient metabolism and you don't need as many calories as you think. Another MFP dogma is '1200 calories or DOOM!!!'. But if you're eating that, working out and still gaining weight, you are not expending more than you're consuming. Simple as that. Perhaps you're eating more than you think.

If you have a history of undereating you may have minimal muscle mass, rather than a 'broken metabolism'. I would suggest you see your doctor and discount a medical reason for your weight gain, then start working on rebuilding your muscle mass. Transient weight gain might be necessary in the short term to permit your body to gain some muscle.

But I would not to leap to the conclusion that increasing your intake further will result in weight loss. It doesn't add up.

Contrary to the suggestions that you're not eating enough, I'm questioning the calories in the foods in your diary.
They may be correct, I'm not familiar with a lot of the brands but...

The low fat mayonnaise. How much is a serving? Although the Hellmans website says how many calories per serving (which matches what you have) it doesn't tell me how much a serving is (useless info in that case imho) and if the jar itself does say, how much are you actually putting on?
Same goes for the chicken deli slices. I'm more used to seeing 30cals per oz so 3 slices for just 25 grams total seems too good to be true to me...
The same goes for a lot of the other foods...

This^

There is a lot of foods listed in the database here that aren't anywhere near correct, So if you're adding them to your food log without actually checking to make sure they are right you'll be off your calorie count which could explain the weight gain.