What am I doing wrong?

You're right, I'm not eating my exercise calories back. How could that be causing me to gain weight, though? I don't have an abnormally slow metabolism; the RD said it was right where it should be for a woman my age and size.

I have no idea - if you're not giving your body enough fuel to function, maybe it's hanging on to what's there? Wouldn't hurt to give it a try? Give it at least 4 weeks to see if there's a change. It's not something you'd be able to tell in a few days.

Believe me, I'm no expert! But having put back on 9 of the 14 lbs I had lost last summer, this is what's working for me now. 10 lbs since September. That's just over 1lb a month - very slow but at least it's happening

I thought I knew the "rules", but every day I question my nutrition knowledge. I just got back from Europe so I was eating full fat milk, cheese and cream as well as tons of fatty pastries and charcuterie. Since we were walking every day as well as riding bikes I actually LOST two lbs. The weight loss made me realize how sedetary my desk job is and how important it is for me to make time for the gym every day!

That and it should make you realize the human body runs better when it gets fat. Low fat in general is problematic.

Have you looked at what your TDEE is? Try eating 20% less your TDEE

That's just it, I have no idea what it is. Various calculators have it differing by 500 calories with the same inputs.

I was over whelmed by the numbers..but really they are not usually too far apart..example if TDEE is 2300 and the other calculator say TDEE is 2150 then I set it at 2200...if one says BMR is 1450 and other says BMR is 1600 then I set it at 1500.,,then -20%..anything below those TDEE`s will be a deficit and you will lose weight.

I'm netting under my RMR and gaining.

Eating under your RMR can cause you to gain weight. Your body burns RMR calories if you done nothing but sleep all day..so you need more calories. I learned this the hard way. I ate extremely low for years..it worked for awhile but now Im Insulin Resistant because of doing that. Now my body is against me all the time. I wish someone had of told me years ago to eat more!

I just have no idea what to do and I keep getting bounced around with different vague advice and referred to various websites and calculators which have only confused me more. I need someone to give it to me straight and pretend I don't know a THING about any of this.

Give us your height, your weight, gender, age and activity level.

Give us your height, your weight, gender, age and activity level.

5'6"
126
Female
37
Desk job, mostly sedentary on weekdays but I hit the gym hard 5x a week.
On weekends I'm running errands, cooking, doing laundry, volunteering, etc. Nothing horribly strenuous but I'm not on my butt all day either.

but why do you want to loose more??...that is aTOTALLY perfect weight for your height, gender and age

Give us your height, your weight, gender, age and activity level.

5'6"
126
Female
37
Desk job, mostly sedentary on weekdays but I hit the gym hard 5x a week.
On weekends I'm running errands, cooking, doing laundry, volunteering, etc. Nothing horribly strenuous but I'm not on my butt all day either.

You are eating WAY too little. You should NEVER net under your BMR or RMR -- you are not fueling your body for living, let alone working out hard 5 days a week, and your body is probably freaking out a little.

Here is the range of calories you should consume every day, based on this website (http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/) and the information you gave above:

1583 (bare minimum) - 1762

If you ate that much, you would lose weight. End of story. Eat enough to give your body what it needs to actually "hit the gym hard", otherwise you're doing far more harm to your body than good. Stop netting under your RMR or BMR.

Side note: you also do not need to lose weight -- 126 for your height/weight/gender/age is fabulous.

I just have no idea what to do and I keep getting bounced around with different vague advice and referred to various websites and calculators which have only confused me more. I need someone to give it to me straight and pretend I don't know a THING about any of this.

Basic premise you already know.

You must eat less than what you burn daily (TDEE). At least on avg. End of story.

If you eat a whole lot less than what you burn, your body will adjust, besides the fact you have great chance of burning off muscle mass then, which now requires you to eat even less.
If you slow your metabolism down, going lower rarely works for long, besides just burning off more muscle.
Stress from diet, from exercise, from food allergies, from life, from lack of sleep - all affect hormones and will affect fat and weight loss. You balance out the stresses so it's not too much to lose weight. Control what you can and reduce the stress there, which may allow more stress in other things without effecting you negatively.

It's how you estimate both sides of that equation - eating and burning.

MFP has the eating down, as long as you log correctly everything. Everything.
Spend 2 weeks actually weighing your food if you've never discovered how far off your measurements may be. Calories is per gram right, which is weight. So weighing is more accurate than volume - cups, tablespoons, ect.

Now you need to get the other side of the equation down - burning daily on avg. That's the tough one without being part of a study being hooked up to expensive equipment. So totally estimates on this side. And because of that stress aspect, better to be on the high side first.

The FitBit's and BodyMedia's can do that great - if your daily activity is what they measure well, and they start with actual foundation that matches you.

They use your gender, age, weight, height to calculate BMR - FitBit something close to Mifflin and Harris BMR formula's, BodyMedia Harris BMR formula.

BMR, what your body would like to burn if you slept deep all day long. Since this is literally energy supplied to all the cells, including fat cells, unless we had little perpetual motion machines in our body, this can only slow down so much if you don't take that energy in. Then the body starts slowing down other functions of higher metabolism, skin/hair/nail growth, repair, immune system, ect. Then body activity during the day is slowed down to leave enough for required BMR functions, fidgeting, getting up, moving, ect. Then your performance slows down in exercise so not burning as much there, but that happens automatically too as muscle is not repaired that is torn down.

Those devices use a BMR figure that is inflated when you are overweight. They also balance that out somewhat by using the BMR figure for any time you are not moving, which is not really true. Awake but resting burns more, called RMR, but they don't use this (BodyMedia possible for some). They use BMR for all non-moving time.

BodyMedia at least tries to adjust that estimated BMR by measuring body heat at night with that little heat-flux sensor. Works well for some, not well at all for others.

That base BMR figure can also be estimated much better using a formula that uses bodyfat%, because the energy required to spend on fat and non-fat mass is pretty consistent across genders and age, so only weight and BF needed - Katch BMR.

And Katch BMR for many that are overweight is easily 200-500 below the Harris BMR those devices are using. So they have you burning at an inflated value, despite the fact the under-estimate awake non-moving times.

This issue also applies if you use a TDEE calculator that uses non-Katch BMR and your choice of activity levels.

You may be giving yourself an estimate 200-400 over a better BMR estimate and reality.
And since TDEE in those tables is a multiple of BMR, you just got an really inflated TDEE.
Take a deficit, and you likely in reality have no real deficit in place, because of course your TDEE is much lower than that.

But, even in that worse case scenario, you stay there for a month with many measurements and weight (eating more and exercise allows your body to make improvements that are usually weight gain, which can balance fat loss) - and if you see no movement at all in inches or weight, you drop a couple hundred calories. And you gave yourself a mini-reset.

Whereas if you start to low and metabolism lowers, you get the same effect, you are eating at TDEE. But lower in this state, and body that is already stressed just lowers more to match. Maybe a week or 2 of loss, then nothing. Lower again? Failure again.

Need to unstress the body with no diet, eat at maintenance, and hopefully sooner than later it'll feel like allowing you to create a deficit without slowing down.

Hence the suggestions above to reset.
And take reasonable deficit.
And eat enough protein.
And do strength training.
All things to retain muscle mass, which is what is the main burner of your metabolism, and your daily burn.

I'm going to suggest this of course, to get best estimate of BF% outside a valid test, uses best estimate of BMR, get better estimated of TDEE (be honest), and give reasonable deficit based on activity type and time, and give good macro recommendation. But even there, you can have enough stresses in life that is too much, and have to eat more than suggested. Or it may end up being over-estimated, in which case you'll need to eat less after a while.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/813720-spreadsheet-bmr-tdee-deficit-macro-calcs-hrm-zones

You may also have a metabolism that is way under what is expected and normal. Thyroid problems, or endurance cardio can do that. But as many have discovered, over is just as likely as under.

And if you are trying to lose weight when there isn't much to lose - be prepared for your body to fight it.
If you want body recomp, you ain't going to get any muscle built by under-eating either, body has nothing left to use.

I net under my RMR.

You must net under your RMR by a decent amount. Prior post said you do NOT eat back your exercise calories. and your MFP goal is your tested RMR. What your body would like to burn if resting all day long.

You have messed up your metabolism, plain and simple.

Your RMR can only go down so far for your lean body mass, then other daily activity starts slowing down.

Your RMR may be right on for your age, weight, height - but how does it compare to your LBM, or BF% using Cunningham RMR formula?

You could be well below what it should be measured at.

Also, you may easily be compensating for your exercise calorie burn by burning way less rest of the day. So you burn off 500 extra calories on just exercise, but then you slow down rest of the day by NOT burning 500 calories - net gain of nothing! Might as well have not done the exercise.

And when you did eat more and gain weight, how much in how long a time span?

You do realize that any fast weight you lost when you started was water weight, and you'll gain that back as soon as you go to maintenance, right?
Any fast gain cannot be fat, it is water. Usually proving the point you are undereating because your glucose stores were so depleted they finally topped off.

You realize you seem to be indicating that you are right now eating at TDEE, meaning the amount you eat maintains your weight for the amount of activity you do.
Fine.
Prove it once and for all. It'll take 2 weeks.
Eat 250 calories daily for 2 weeks. 250 x 14 = 3500 excess calories = 1 lb of fat if no other improvements take place.

So eating 250 extra calories should only cause 1 lb of gain in 2 weeks. Reread that.

Now go test it. If you gain more, it's water weight, and you are undereating. Your metabolism is messed up, and your glucose stores are mainly depleted, and you are probably risking muscle loss all the time.

Easy test - 2 weeks.

why did you choosse sedentary if you work out 5 days a week??

You may not be doing anything wrong. Go to your Dr. and get some blood work done your body may be telling you something.

You may not be doing anything wrong. Go to your Dr. and get some blood work done your body may be telling you something.

I already did, twice in 2012. They ran all sorts of tests looking for all sorts of things. I was told that my thyroid function was "low normal" and my LFTs were elevated but I don't have hepatitis.

In one case the doctor threw her hands up and said "I don't know what to tell you. Try eating less." The other, the doctor outright accused me of lying about my activity levels and my food journals.

Are you insulin resistant? Maybe you should check into it.

Last time I had bloodwork done everything came back normal. I don't know how IR would show up on a full metabolic panel, but there was nothing there that was abnormal.

"normal" isn't always normal in a good way. A fasting blood sugar over 85 can be an indicator of insulin resistance. Doctors don't always tell their patience about insulin resistance, they usually wait until someone is pre-diabetic, or full blown dianetic to tell them to do something.

The doctor did not order a fasting blood glucose test. They tested my blood glucose along with lots of other things within 2-3 hours of me eating, and it came in at 80.

Have your thyroid checked.

Most likely it is the type of food you eat. Maybe your taken in to much bad carbs. Get a carb counter and stay at 15 to 20 carbs a day. If that don't work try no carbs long enough to reset your metabolism. Good luck ( I know the flustration

I have heard of "low normal" thyroid and people have gone to an Endocrynologist (not sure of spell..thyroid doctor) and they put them on medicine for it..may want to check with thyroid doctor.

I can't find an endocrinologist in Dallas who will see me without a formal diagnosis of some metabolic disorder, which I don't have.

If anyone knows of an endocrinologist who will see me, that would be great. I'll call them immediately.

Go here:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

Since you are lifting, don't just pay attention to the calorie stuff, set your macros by this too. If you don't eat the macros properly, you are wasting that lifting. I'm not sure why your doctors aren't just telling you that your weight is fine, focus on body composition if you want to make some changes.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html is probably a calculator you would like.