Gained 4 lbs

I may be wrong here but if you were on 1200 calories a day and did not eat your exercise calories you were not giving your body the fuel it needed so maybe it entered starvation mode. Now that you are eating more your body is hanging on to every little bit thinking you are going to go back into starvation mode again.

I could be wrong like I said but that is my best guess.

You are so close to your goal you should be eating more anyway. I am no expert but have recently upped my calories from 1200 to 1560! It was a crazy jump that felt weird. I expect to lose slower as my goal has changed from 2lbs a week to .5lbs a week. I would say to change your goals in MFP and see what it says use that and eat back some if not all your exercise calories. I had no problem eating them on 1200 cal per day but it is harder now that I have upped my calories and added at least 200+ exercise calories. Some days I can do it and other it seems near impossible.

Hopefully someone else will chime in as I am still getting use to the calorie increase.

I may be wrong here but if you were on 1200 calories a day and did not eat your exercise calories you were not giving your body the fuel it needed so maybe it entered starvation mode. Now that you are eating more your body is hanging on to every little bit thinking you are going to go back into starvation mode again.

I could be wrong like I said but that is my best guess.

Should I just give it time and continue to eat the extra calories? I'm almost afraid to.

I tend to agree with all of this although I haven't been in this situation before so I don't have any personal experience with this. According literature I've read (Bob Green, Tom Venuto etc.), I'd say give it time. Your metabolism has probably slowed down to adjust to the lowered caloric intake. Now with increased caloric intake you may initially gain some weight, but keep at it and keep exercising. Your metabolism should increase and you should start loosing weight. Again - no personal experience, just hoping....

i agree with the majority on this one ......but GO SABRES !!!!!!!!!

In how much time did you gain the 4 lbs? Are you sure you actually gained weight and it's not just water weight or the weight of the food you ate recently? Another thing is that sometimes we underestimate how much we eat and overestimate how much we burn. It could be possible that you didn't calculate your calories correctly.

That said, it takes 3,500 calories to gain a pound. Unless you doubled your calorie intake, or unless this 4 lbs gain was over several weeks period of time, I find it hard to imagine you could've actually gained.

4 lbs in 2 weeks. I didn't drastically increase my eating so maybe its water weight? I guess I'll wait until Thursday (my usual weigh in day) and see how this week goes because I'm starting the Insanity nutrition plan today

That seems unlikely. I bet the scale's playing tricks on you. Also, Insanity comes with a recommended calorie intake and recommended recipes. I suggest you give it a go! My friend did it and lost 12 lbs over the course of the entire program without even following their diet (180 days, I believe?), but he's also got about 50 lbs to lose. He was eating way over his calorie limit. If you eat how they suggest, I think the program can really work. It burns an insane amount of calories, so you really have to keep your body fueled.

i lived the same situation...still living it....6 yrs ago i dropped down to 1200 cals a day and lost wt. i've been teaching aerobics for 14 yrs and heavy wt training the last 6...and was bulimic for 20 years...clean the last 6 since i started tracking my foods daily. now with that backgroud being said....i hit a wall 3-4 years ago. afraid to eat more and put on what i lost, i kept it there trying to add more cardio and wt training, changing my routines every 4-6 weeks. i still have another 30-35 lbs to drop to be where i want to be. i finally sat down with nutritionist and she drilled me about starving myself.....i decided to try upping my cals and see what happens. as of Jan 1 this year i went from 1200 to 1500 for 2 months. didn't gain a pound but my energy levels increased and my muscle building routines are building mass like i want ....finally! now since March 1st, i added another 300 cals to my diet per day. muscle mass out the *kitten*!!! i'm loving the results!! hit numbers on my bench press (2 weeks ago) that i've been working on for the last 2 years! my weight has hovered 2-3 lbs up/down. i want to panic but this time im not, im letting my body work for me. is it frustrating??? absolutely but well worth the try. i was on a heavy lifting routine with less cardio for 5 weeks. took off last week with the wts and now doing a high rep/low wt with added cardio starting today...with more yoga. chaning from a powerlifing routine to a body bulding one, i should start showing some more results in the way i want! i dont know your background but i'm sharing what is working for me. my diet is clean, has been for years but just not enough. it was hard to say it's ok to eat more but im adjusting. im up to 1800 cals a day, may even try more. try adding more cals to your diet and give it time. my nutritionist said it may take months before my body to adjust to the fueling and respond the way it should. im not giving up! hope this helps!