Not losing, now i'm GAINING

Here's my story, in a nutshell. . .back in August I joined a gym. I started walking (slowly) almost every day. I got a trainer. I got a meal plan. I started tracking food. I gave up all caloric beverages, save the random unsweetened iced tea. I used to sit on my butt day in and day out and drink copious amounts of regular soda. Anyway, after a month or so, I was able to walk a little faster, on an incline, etc. In 2 months, I lost 15 pounds. I was eating between 1200-1400 calories. walking min 5/7 days ,with 2 half hour personal training sessions a week.

Fast Forward to October. I added bootcamps to my regime. Now I'm doing 4 bootcamps a week. I'm not walking anymore (other than normal day to day stuff). Still doing the personal training. Same calories. And now I've GAINED 5 pounds. I don't get it. Calories the same. Water the same (gallon a day, basically). I'm not eating back any of my burned calories, even though I do add an estimate of bootcamp burned calories to my fitbit/ MFP. I do that mainly to track days I exercised then anything. I have a feeling my problem is diet but I don't know what else to do. . .help?

If my diary isn't open, I am not sure how to do that. . .Thanks. Oh, and I'm 35, 264(ish, what with the gain), and 5'6"

I took your stats and came up with this: BMR 1916 (this is the amount of energy your body needs to function normally). Ideally, you want to eat slightly above your BMR for effecient fat burning/weightloss. Your TDEE based on 3 workouts a week is 2635 kcals. So if you want to lose 2lbs a week then you should be eating at the very least 2000kcals.

I'm 5'8 and weigh 194 and I'm losing weight at 2000-2100calories per day training 5 days a week heavy weights and 2 days of cardio no more than 22min

This is exactly what I would say. There's a reason you see tons of people who exercise a lot and eat 1200-1300 calories constantly complaining on the boards about not being able to lose weight. I am 5' 3",155 pounds, eat 1600, and exercise about three times a week or less. I've been doing that since May and 31 pounds gone. You also need to recalculate your calorie intake about every 5 pounds lost or so.

I strongly suspect that the people who "eat 1200-1300 calories constantly complaining on the boards about not being able to lose weight" aren't actually eating those totals. Because if they were, they'd be losing weight. Unless they're children.

I'm figuring it is all diet, but I just can't hit 2000 calories of "good" food. I feel like I'm stuffing myself. But I know that part of the overall problem is diet. Thanks for the calculations.

I'm figuring it is all diet, but I just can't hit 2000 calories of "good" food. I feel like I'm stuffing myself. But I know that part of the overall problem is diet. Thanks for the calculations.

Here's my story, in a nutshell. . .back in August I joined a gym. I started walking (slowly) almost every day. I got a trainer. I got a meal plan. I started tracking food. I gave up all caloric beverages, save the random unsweetened iced tea. I used to sit on my butt day in and day out and drink copious amounts of regular soda. Anyway, after a month or so, I was able to walk a little faster, on an incline, etc. In 2 months, I lost 15 pounds. I was eating between 1200-1400 calories. walking min 5/7 days ,with 2 half hour personal training sessions a week.

Fast Forward to October. I added bootcamps to my regime. Now I'm doing 4 bootcamps a week. I'm not walking anymore (other than normal day to day stuff). Still doing the personal training. Same calories. And now I've GAINED 5 pounds. I don't get it. Calories the same. Water the same (gallon a day, basically). I'm not eating back any of my burned calories, even though I do add an estimate of bootcamp burned calories to my fitbit/ MFP. I do that mainly to track days I exercised then anything. I have a feeling my problem is diet but I don't know what else to do. . .help?

If my diary isn't open, I am not sure how to do that. . .Thanks. Oh, and I'm 35, 264(ish, what with the gain), and 5'6"

I took your stats and came up with this: BMR 1916 (this is the amount of energy your body needs to function normally). Ideally, you want to eat slightly above your BMR for effecient fat burning/weightloss. Your TDEE based on 3 workouts a week is 2635 kcals. So if you want to lose 2lbs a week then you should be eating at the very least 2000kcals.

I'm 5'8 and weigh 194 and I'm losing weight at 2000-2100calories per day training 5 days a week heavy weights and 2 days of cardio no more than 22min

If you figure her BMR using the Katch Mccardle method, since her body fat % is so high, her BMR is only around 1400. Body composition makes a big difference for some people with very high or low BF%. A 500 calorie difference in her case.