putting on weight easily post diet

it will settle just takes time and unless your eating 3500 calories, your not really gaining weight try and ignore the scales, the weight can change for all sorts of reasons

1400 may be too much for you. Not saying it is - but it may be.

Finding your true TDEE is an exercise in trial and error because everybody's metabolism is different.

However you should be aware that if you were overweight for any number of years, a calorie's not a calorie. It's more like 1.2 calories. This is based on science, the work of Rudolph Leibel, et al, at Columbia. The New York Times published an excellent survey of the current knowledge, highly recommended, FYI:

http://tinyurl.com/laq3ncp

Generally speaking, for folks starting on maintenance, it's a good idea to take the TDEE number the online calculators give you and multiply it by 0.8. That will give you a more realistic number to start with and you can adjust from there.

S

highly unlikely 1400 is maintenance...

You don't have it listed anywhere on your profile and not in your post, so how tall are you? If you're shorter, you traditionally do not need as many calories as someone of average height. So any advice people might give you will very greatly without a gauge of how tall you are.

I'm 5'2 and with a sedentary lifestyle at the moment, I vary my calories from anywhere between 900-1400 and don't gain weight. Once I start going above 1600, I notice I do start packing it back on. However, from what you're saying it doesn't seem like you're actively gaining fat so much as water weight. Either that, or you're underestimating how much you eat and how many calories you burn. I've definitely done that before. It's easy to do if you don't really measure how much you're eating.

edit: should be noted that eating at the range I do, I lose max 1lb a month, so it's not like I'm starving myself and weight is falling off. Different bodies and lifestyles need different things.

Are you sure it's actual weight gain and not bloating? Because you keep saying bloating and a few pounds can easily be retention.

You are 5'7". You're not going to gain weight on 1400 cals/day. I'm surprised you're not still losing.

hi, from september to february i was eating only an average of 1200 calories a day + exercise burning approx 200 calories a day. i weighed 122lbs in february. Since february i've been eating 1400 a day and im finding im gaining weight and feeling bloated. does anyone know why/if this will stop?

were you eating those 200 calories from exercise? or were you netting just 1000 cals/day? You'll probably be experiencing weight gain from water and glycogen as a result of increasing your calories. This isn't fat, so don't freak out about it. I don't think 1400 cals/day is above your maintenance - that's the kind of number most people who lose weight on - so I don't think you're gaining fat. Feeling bloated may just be because there's more food in your intestines.

What you'll probably find is that after a while the weight gain will settle down (the weight gain stops when your glycogen stores are full), and you'll actually start losing weight again (more slowly) after that, because I'm guessing you're still eating at a deficit. Stay at this number, and don't eat less, as the long term problems caused by eating too little aren't worth it. It's a lot healthier to eat more and lose weight slowly. If you don't want to lose any more weight, then add 100 cals to your calorie goal every week until you hit a number where your weight is stable. Don't stress about day to day weight gains/losses (these are due to water weight) - focus on the overall, long term trend. Fat is gained and lost slowly. Jumps in weight from day to day are from water weight.

ive gained about 4lbs since upping my calories but i was eating around 1200 for 6 months or so, im now at my goal weight and i want to maintain but its very difficult, most of my weight seems to have gone on around my stomach and im getting very bloated- is this likely to be water weight?

more than likely glycogen aka water weight.

but as chocolate pointed out, since you have been netting 1000 calories for so long you probably have metabolic damage that has slowed your metabolism down ..

I would actually suggest slowly increasing your calories 100 a week until you get to 1700 and then see how it goes….if 1200 was one pound per week loss, then 1700 should be your actual maintenance level….

This. 1400 calories is very low for a 19 year old who is 5' 7. I'm a 51 year old moderately active woman who maintains on 2000-2200 calories a day.

There are reasons we discourage low calorie diets. With patience and determination you can nudge your body to maintain on a higher calorie allotment. Best wishes!