Probably unstressed your body finally getting the calories it wanted, and dropped water weight.
Or body was holding on to water in fat cells awaiting more carbs it really desired, and once it got more felt it could drop the excess water.

Taken a diet break lately, like every 6-8 weeks depending on the severity of your deficit from potential TDEE?

I seem to recall lots of cardio, which just begs the body to store carbs, if it can.

Happened again today. I went up a couple of pounds, ate 2,000 yesterday and actually went OVER my carbs and back down again this morning. LOL. Heybales you are amazing, YES, I am an instructor so I teach a ton of classes. Tons of cardio/Bodypump. I actually just lost the 10 pounds I gained in a WEEK in New Orleans back in May, and I leave tomorrow for Charleston, SC...the land of bbq and fancy restaurants. I'm actually petrified to take a workout week off again and eat more because the 10 pounds I gained was actual weight. It stayed on for months...not sodium. Not much I can do though except try and keep things in moderation.

Which TDEE would I choose? my SUPER active TDEE or a much lower one since I won't be working out non-flipping stop? LOL

Always eat correctly for your level of activity - so you must adjust.

The time taken to lose fast weight gain isn't what makes it "real" or not - whatever that means.

Do you mean you somehow think the 10 lbs was fat, hence the difficulty to lose it?

It can take a long time to lose water weight too, but you realize how much over maintenance you would have to be eating to gain 10 lbs of fat, right?

Majority of yours is water weight probably associated with constantly elevated cortisol levels because of the diet and exercise in your life.

Them is the choices, gotta live with it and the results they bring.

That would be like someone running in the heat a lot, blood volume increases because of it, and complaining of that water weight gain.
Well, either stop running in the heat, drain some blood, or realize that's the effect of your choice.

I'm pretty sure I believe you have a mightily suppressed system from eating so little with so much exercise, so the effect there is eating more is topping off carb stores and probably some fat stores, then you go back into normal diet/exercise mode and body clamps right down and that prevents burning that or fat off as fast as could be possible.

But the studies have only shown a max of 20-25% suppression of TDEE, so it just means you have to keep cutting out calories until you lose weight.

Obviously the body at that point isn't going to make much improvement from exercise that requires even more energy to be used with, if already slowing stuff down in general.

You'd probably be better served following the cut/bulk method, just not literally eating more to bulk. But eat at potential maintenance for 2-4 weeks, then cut for 2 weeks with reasonable deficit, repeat.
That's probably going to be only way to get your stress hormones under control.

We have reservations at Cypress and The Ordinary....and one other place...can't remember. Home Team BBQ is seriously legit stuff on the outer skirts of CHS. I went to C of C and my husband it from CHS so we know exactly where the good stuff is!

Love Cypress! There's a hot new place on Sullivan's called the Obstinate Daughter. I would also recommend The MacIntosh on King St (not new but maybe new since last time you've been here).

Great link to the article on the Female Athelete Triad, Heybales. Thank you! I have certainly found it true for myself that I need to eat WAY more than I ever thought I could with the plus that I'm building muscle, getting measurably stronger, have more endurance than ever AND am losing fat (slowly). Keeping good track of what I eat (so that I eat enough!) is key for me.

I made an appointment with my doctor for Monday. I'm on cycle day 61 with again TOM symptoms but not TOM. I eat around 1800-2000 calories a day, but even still TOM is missing, nails are thin, I've been trying to lose the same 5 pounds for literally 4 years. I'm going to ask for a full blood panel, have the thyroid checked, and if they will get cortisol checked as well. Something ain't right.

I haven't had any injuries and I have a lot of muscle, but I'm just confused. super. confused.

Keep us posted on your results!