Trying to loosen vice grip on calorie intake. Help please.

The first thing I would do is throw the scales in the bin and instead visit your local gp once a fortnight and use the scales there, that way you are not focusing on those numbers.
Then I would add calories slowly, 100 at first for a week or so, weigh in, see what's happening, increase again by another 100 and repeat.
Increase heavy lifting to build upper body strength.
Focus on a weight range rather than a set number. Your numbers on the scales will fluctuate from day to day.
Don't worry about getting fat again! You have proven to yourself that you can lose weight so just give yourself a break and just play around with your calorie intake until you find something you are comfortable with.

I haven't read the other posts, so I'm sorry if this is redundant; if you are eating at a deficit of your maintenance calories, you will never be putting on muscle. The reason you can see your abs now is because your body has eaten away all of the fat that was covering them, not because you have built them bigger. If you've ever seen a body builder during the "bulk" phase they look very pillowy and squishy, they don't have defined muscles like what you see on the stage until they reach their "cut down" phase. You can't cut-down all the time, it's not sustainable and your body will be eating away at your muscles and bones at this stage because you have no fat left. That wreaks havoc on your metabolism!

In saying that, in my admittedly unqualified opinion, you absolutely have crossed the line from weight loss into disordered eating. This terror and paranoia you are feeling is not healthy for your mind and you already know it's not healthy for your body. I think the best thing for you would be to talk to a psychologist who specializes in disordered eating to help give you the tools you need for food and exercise to be a *part* of a full life rather than the only thing filling your life.

When bulking you would typically set protein LOWER than cutting, not higher.

Your body won't be trying to use protein in place of carbs for energy, so you don't need quite as much because what you have can go straight to the muscle, as such.

When bulking you would typically set protein LOWER than cutting, not higher.

Your body won't be trying to use protein in place of carbs for energy, so you don't need quite as much because what you have can go straight to the muscle, as such.

I've never done a bulk, so I haven't spent hours reading up on it - please enlighten me.

That logic makes sense, sort of, but usually when I see blogs/food diaries from people bulking, they still seem to be eating chicken and veggies (and steak, and protein shakes, with the occasional pint of ice cream thrown in), just in extremely large quantities. You need X amount of calories for energy (which can come from carbs, as you say), but you still need a base amount of protein for your body to properly function. Wouldn't you want more on top of that to aid muscle growth?

Put into macro terms, if 1g/LBM is for cutting, what's for maintenance, and what's for bulking?

The people eating protein in extremely large quantities are likely taking anabolic steroids - which allow the body to make use of considerably more protein to build muscle a lot faster.

I've been reading up on bulking recently.
Something like .7-.9g/lb LBM should do it. However, with bulking calories it's probably also not a big issue to go a bit higher too. My intention when I start a (c)lean bulk is to go for about .8g/lb of total body weight. I'm not 10% BF, so that should easily cover the upper region. Will try not to go too over that just so I get more carbs etc - but won't worry if I do on some days.

I'm not sure your body needs a massive amount of protein to 'function' - fat is more important in that aspect as far as I know.
Protein is mostly linked with muscle. It's not an optimal energy source, so your body will try to use carbs if it can I believe - while cutting you're short on carbs. While bulking you should have plenty around.
The levels we are talking about well above WHO guidelines etc.

For the OP - a bit late now, but a barbell isn't about getting 'superbuff', it's about achieving your goals quicker, WHATEVER they are.

A rack doesn't take up much space then a couple of builders trestles can be put away so the bench is probably the biggest thing.

Well my scale is a Wii Fit board so it'd be silly to trash it... The good thing about it though is I have to turn on the tv, wii, boot up the program so it's not like it's in the bathroom where I'm tempted to step on it every time I pee.

As far as going to the GP every two weeks.... I live in America and I'm not rich. :laugh:

Definitely up for some heavy lifting though. Think I'm going to get a barbell set, LOVED barbells in strength training in highschool.

If you go to your doctor's office & just tell them at the check-in desk that you'd like to use their scale, they'll let you back and not charge a visit. There's nothing billable about stepping on the scale. Someone will likely walk back with you to make sure you don't see or hear any other patient info, but that's it. I do that at my doc's office probably once a month and once every three I have them check my BP. They are happy to do it; they are glad to have a patient who wants to know.

For what it's worth, I'm glad that you came into MFP and asked for help. You are on a very dangerous road where you are right now and I'm glad you want to change it. Best of luck!

If I hit my protein, fat, and carb targets for the day and have more calories to eat to hit my target then should I eat more protein, fat, or carbs?

Does the calculator account for all the exercise I do, or do I factor that in as well?

That link I gave you has a bit where you put in how often you exercise per week.
Once you have done that, it gives you a total amount of calories to eat per day, depending on if you set it to maintain, lose fat or to bulk.