Started exercising....gaining weight

Are you 100% sure you are tracking your food intake correctly? Don't forget about the little stuff like butter or oil in a frying pan, or mayo on a sandwich. Also don't ever guess volumes or weights of foods, use a scale and measuring cups.

Also are you eating back all of your exercise calories that you earn? Myfitnesspal is famous for giving a false sense of security with the amount of calories that it says you burn. For example, I am 224.8lbs, if I plug into MFP a 12.5minutes/km walk for 45 minutes I would burn 252 calories. If I were to wear my heart rate monitor and go for a walk at 12.5(3mph) for 45 minutes I would be around the 100 calorie mark. For me to burn 250 calories I have to do 30 minutes of very intense HIIT on my stationary bike and by the end of the ride I have soaked through the front and back of a Tshirt.

If you are eating back exercise calories try to limit it. If you aren't eating back calories, and you are 100% accurate on your calories in because you are measuring, you need to drop your calorie intake. Maybe you have your profile set to Active, and it should be lightly active, maybe its on lightly active and it should be sedentary.

What amount of weight loss do you have it set to? If its only 1 pound a week, set it to to 2 pounds, and it will automatically lower your daily amount.

The whole idea behind MFP is calories in, calories out. Every 3500 calories more that you burn then you take it, you will lose a pound of fat. I can only speak for myself, but I have been eating at my calorie allotment for 70 days (trying not to eat back exercise) and i pretty much lose at 2 pounds a week. Four weeks is too long to not even see a pound difference, somethings being done incorrectly.

One other little thing that helps me out, is drink a lot of water throughout the entire day. Aim for 2 liters a day at the start and go up from there. Don't try to drown yourself by drinking too much but chances are you arent drinking enough.

ukstern wrote: »

It sounds like you've started exercising quite strenuously - if you're new to exercise, be careful you don't overdo it as this can lead to injury. If you've become active then you'll be building muscle and, as muscle is denser than fat, although your scales may have changed you will gradually notice a change in shape and loss of inches (hence your clothes are fitting better). I realise it can be disheartening if the scales aren't changing so it would be a good idea to start tracking your measurements and even taking photos every couple of week to document the changes in your body. Also, make sure your calorie intake accurately reflects the weight you need to lose as under eating and obsessing over calories will do more harm than good in the long run.

If eating at a deficit and working out more than normal, this physically can't be happening. If you run at a deficit you will lose fat and weight. You can't eat reduced calories and build muscle and lose fat, it doesn't work that way. There are hundreds of threads on this site explaining that. The best you can possibly hope for is to hold onto the muscle you already have while losing weight on a deficit. There is a reason that people who lift go on a bulking cycle, they eat huge amount of calories to support the new muscle, then they go on a cutting cycle to get rid of the extra fat that accompanied the muscle.

The OP has been trying to lose weight for 4 weeks and its not working, I'm sure that it will be something small that only has to be tweaked a bit and she will be off to the races. We just need to get to the bottom of it.

And lose weight? Don't forget about that key point. All while not lifting weights.

ukstern wrote: »

Depending on the calorie intake, it is perfectly possible to build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

And it requires a ton of work including a progressive overload resistance program, not cardio.

OP, when you start up or increase the intensity of a workout program it is totally normal to retain water for a few weeks which can mask scale progress.

It's highly...highly doubtful if you're getting noticeably smaller that you are building muscle at a 1:1 rate you're losing fat.

Are you accurately weighing, measuring and logging everything that you eat and drink?
If you are, you should definitely be losing only eating 1200 calories per day. Perhaps you should talk to your doctor to rule out any medical reason for not losing.
I had a lot to lose too and ate 1200 calories, I lost 20# in the first 4 weeks. But, I did not exercise until I had lost 100# due to bad knees.

Like above, if you've just started exercising strenuously, your muscles are retaining water to repair themselves