What is your bmr? either your cut is too big or your activity level is incorrect if it is above 1500.

What exactly is the weight gain when you eat over 1500?

Do you know what it is?

Is it fast gain, or it takes a long time?

Guess which one fat gain is. 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.

Both! Slow and fast. Every time I come off a diet and eat like a regular person [even if it's below 1700 calories] I gain like 5 pounds quickly and then whatever I've lost slowly. The most I've ever weighed is 152 and the lowest is 125, but I lose 15 and gain 15 all the time. The past year I didn't really watch my calories and was probably at 1600-1700 a day and I very slowly gained 5-7lbs.

Then you absolutely need to do a reset. 100%. Really no other option. You need to eat at TDEE for 8-12 weeks, but I would recommend 12. Or longer. I did two resets, one for 8 weeks and then another for 5 1/2 months since I gained weight when I cut calories. Your metabolism is damaged if you're gaining weight when you "eat like a regular person." I've been there! Please, read the reset stickies and start today! And throw out your scale! You will be gaining weight. Know that up front. Feel free to FR me if you want some support! :flowerforyou:

Oh golly. I only want to lose ten pounds, I really don't want to gain weight

Well...if your metabolism is damaged, you will gain weight at first. Or you might be one of the lucky ones who doesn't gain when she ups her calories! Do you weight lift?

I gained 21lbs during my second reset but lost bf% and inches...so it's not the worst thing in the world to gain if you're building LBM.

Well let me rephrase. I could care less about the weight number- i have a scale that measures body fat and muscle percentage. If I can muscle and lose fat and inches thats A-ok with me. I currently am doing cardio 1x a week and strength 1x a week. I'm too busy and tired to do anymore. With finals next week I'll have a bit more time over the summer to kick it into gear. If I start more strength with the higher cal do you think I'll gain less? Also its hard for me to gather activity level because it changes weekly...can I just eat at the sedentary cals and then add in cals for the cals I use on workout days?

You can't accomplish your goal with your stated routine.

You don't eat enough that even if you did manage to overload the muscles enough to need improvement - your body doesn't have enough left over to do so.

At this point, the best you can do is retain what reduced muscle mass you already have. Your dieting so far has obviously reduced your muscle and LBM, such that you have a TDEE lower than what could be expected and possible.

But do you want to make it worse by losing more?

This is how a life long battle with yo-yo dieting starts, losing muscle mass.
Reach some goal weight. Think you can eat at "normal" levels, gain fat because it's excess calories really at this point.
Diet wrong again, lose more muscle mass.
Less window for error.
Just eat low now with suppressed metabolism. Now every splurge meal and big weekend and vacation time is nothing but excess for fat storage.

Think about that life - is that really want you want?
Hope it scares ya - it should.

Eat at reasonable deficit, get enough protein, and all your workouts should be strength training.

All things that will help retain muscle mass.

To get your best estimates of bodyfat, BMR, and TDEE level (be honest with your activity), and log progress, use this.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/961054-spreadsheet-for-bodyfat-bmr-tdee-progress-tracker

When you have more time, you can increase the lifting, because at this point, that's the only thing you should be doing besides walking to have a chance to increase LBM, maybe even some muscle mass.

You don't eat enough that even if you did manage to overload the muscles enough to need improvement - your body doesn't have enough left over to do so.

At this point, the best you can do is retain what reduced muscle mass you already have. Your dieting so far has obviously reduced your muscle and LBM, such that you have a TDEE lower than what could be expected and possible.

But do you want to make it worse by losing more?

This is how a life long battle with yo-yo dieting starts, losing muscle mass.
Reach some goal weight. Think you can eat at "normal" levels, gain fat because it's excess calories really at this point.
Diet wrong again, lose more muscle mass.
Less window for error.
Just eat low now with suppressed metabolism. Now every splurge meal and big weekend and vacation time is nothing but excess for fat storage.

Think about that life - is that really want you want?
Hope it scares ya - it should.

Just to give you some encouragement, this is where I was before EM2WL. It was advice like this that lead me to up my calories and eat like a real person.

My background:
I yo-yo dieted all through high school. Severely restricted calories (500-700 A DAY) with "binge" days (maybe 2000 calories) once or twice a week in college (2005-2009) and after college (2009-2011). I got married in October 2011 and weirdly started eating around 1800-2500 calories a day and weight lifting. From February-June 2012, I somehow managed to lose 28lbs in 14 weeks during a doctor supervised medical study, realized starving myself was DUMB, which is when I found EM2WL.

I would highly highly recommend upping your calories to TDEE. You will not be as tired once you have eaten more food for a while. I am incredibly busy, work four part-time jobs during the day, and sing professionally on nights and weekends, so I understand busy. I couldn't fit in 2 workouts a week before EM2WL because I was so dang tired all the time. Now I work out 4-6 days a week because I have the energy to fit it in. It took time for me to get to this point. It didn't happen overnight. After a few weeks of eating more, you might have the energy to get in two strength training sessions a week. You never know!

Just eat more, be patient, trust the process and you'll get where you want to be!

heybales- what do you mean by a narrow window for error?

When you are really overweight and a lot of fat to lose - you can do a whole bunch of things wrong and have success - because it's not a big stress your to your body.

When you have less, those things done wrong now have bad effects. Muscle mass burn, no loss, slowed metabolism, ect.