Gaining eating maintenance calories

You're eating at a surplus if you are gaining that much weight and sustaining it.

Hi, please help!
For the last 2-3 years I was eating 1200 calories and on some days fasting. I weighed 60kg.
I was given advice to eat more so I did the calculators which said I should eat around 1600 calories to lose, 2200 to maintain. I've been eating around 1600-1800 calories for 5 weeks now, and I have gained 5kg!

Should I cut my calories lower? My clothes don't seem tighter but I can notice I have put on weight when I look in the mirror.
Any help would be appreciated!!

Have you lost weight for the last 2-3 years?

Are you logging correctly (weighing everything and only measuring the liquids)?

Whilst starvation mode does not exist, if you chronically restrict without reefed periods your metabolism adapts somewhat, so it could quite well be that you require less then an average person of your height and weight. You could get your BMR tested or experiment with your calorie levels to see what works for you now.

You're eating at a surplus if you are gaining that much weight and sustaining it.

That.

You've been at a low level for a long time. There is some amount of metabolic adaptation as a result. Were you losing or maintaining at 1200? Adding 500 cals a day = about a pound a week difference from what you were at before.

There will be some weight gain in water/glycogen etc when you go from a low level to a higher one. If you continue to gain weight it's simply too many calories. Either don't add quite so many all at once or eat at your new level and raise your activity level a bit.

This is one of the problems with sustained long-term 1200 calorie a day eating, eventually you either go to a higher level and have to wait for your metabolism to catch up or stay at 1200 forever.

It sounds like you need to cut your calories back a bit. Whether you're measuring absolutely accurately right now or not, the amount of food you've had was a bit too much for maintenance.

Having said that, I doubt that all the weight you gained is fat. If I eat at a deficit for awhile, and then switch over to some small surplus, like say, 200 calories... I'll be about five pounds heavier in a week. It's not fat-- I'm not eating nearly enough to gain that much fat. I've been told it's water, glycogen, etc... just your body sort of getting back to normal.

But that wouldn't account for 10+ pounds, I wouldn't think. Sounds like you need to eat a bit less.

Thanks for the advice everyone- I do exercise daily, including weight training. I've maintained weight on 1200 calories for years. Eating 1500-1800 daily is supposedly meant to be below my maintenence and should be for weight loss.
I am sure I am counting my calories correctly- I use the log daily.
To maintain the calculators say 2000-2200, I don't go near this amount.
Again, thanks for any help I really appreciate the advice everyone has shared.

Because your metabolism has decreased a lot from starving yourself for years. I would personally keep eating what you're eating for another month or two to boost your metabolism a bit, then decrease to 1400... then you should be able to lose your extra weight, then be able to maintain at 1800 or something... but I'm not dietitian.

Figure by eating more I would speed up my metabolism seeing as I'm quite active. Have more energy eating more too

If you are quite active, then you didn't slow your metabolism down. At least not to a meaningful degree.

I'm 5'9" 145 lb..workout 3 days a week, with 2 days cardio on non lifting day.. How much is my maintenance calories?? I think is around 2500-2700.. Am I right??

My workout is around 45-60 mins, and I'm doing hiit on my cardio 15 mins..

I had a similar experience at the end of last year -- I'd been eating 1300-1500 literally for years and finally had to make a choice to gain some weight because that wasn't sustainable for me anymore. I took a month to work up to 2000, then a full month at 2000 before everything leveled out and I stopped seeing crazy fluctuations. During that time, I didn't see a size change but the scale went up and down a lot. Here are a few things I figured out:

1. Don't focus just on the scale! That's only one data point. Take measurements and pay attention to how your clothes fit -- at the end of the day, you're the only person who sees the number on the scale.
2. Try to rely on objective data points, like measurements, more than your own eyes. People who under-eat for years usually don't have good relationships with food, and that extends to our own body images too. (I'm basing this on my own experience, so it may not be 100% true for everyone, but I'm betting it's pretty close to the truth). If you know you're eating more, there's a good chance you will "see" weight gain even if your body isn't physically taking up more space. Measurements won't lie to you.
3. Focus on any and all positive effects of eating more calories. I almost immediately had more energy and my workouts improved very quickly. I also didn't realize how much constant, low-grade pain I was in until it stopped.
4. Be prepared for your appetite to do some weird things. If you've been eating at a higher intake for 5 weeks, you've probably gone through the worst of it, but every time I up my calories I have a week or two when I end up constantly starving.
5. Most of the first few pounds isn't real gain. It's water retention and glycogen replenishment -- you have happy muscles, probably for the first time in a long time! Let them be healthy.

If you want to drop your calories down for a little while to shed some of the extra weight, that's okay, but please don't go back to 1200! You know that's not healthy.