Confused - am I eating too much?

FOUR days. It has been 4 days. Relax. Have some patience. If you're giving up after 4 days maybe you aren't really ready yet to lose the weight. When you're ready it will happen.

4 days is not long enough for anything. You have to be patient and give it longer.

That being said, even frozen foods can be wrong with their calorie count. Most frozen packages actually weight more than they say. They also tend to contain a lot of sodium which can also cause temporary water retention.

A pint of plain water weighs 1lb. 2 cups. 16oz.

Look at your nutrition. If you're doing frozen meals I'd bet you're well over 2300mg. Also 2 hours of walking if that wasn't a previous habit can cause fluid retention.

Ditch the pre-made food unless you enjoy it. Drink plenty of water. Buy a food scale and eat the things you enjoy in quantities your calories allow. And give your body time to get over "wtf is she doing to me now?"

Ugh.
First things first.
Patience.
Second thing:
understanding your own weight.
Third thing:
Figuring out how much and what to eat.

Chapter 1:
Patience. You didn't get to where you are in one day. You shouldn't be trying to get out to the perfect you in one day either. There are a lot of reasons why this is a not so great idea.

Chapter 2:
You have an underlying weight level and an instantaneous scale number.

Your scale number is influenced by what you wear if anything, how much you pooped, the time of the day, whether you had food with a lot of sodium yesterday, whether your glycogen is depleted or not, whether your hormones are making you retain water, whether your muscles are retaining water to assist in the repair of micro-tears caused by exercise. Your scale number is also influenced by the position of the scale on the floor, the battery level of the scale, any dirt trapped under the scale sensors, whether the scale exhibits fake consistency and a host of other reasons.

Your underlying weight probably changes at a fraction of the speed that your scale weight can change (well it *Should* change at a fraction of the speed)

Solution?

Weigh daily at the same time and place using the same specific garments (or lack thereof), before you have eaten and after you've used the bathroom. Input the data into a free fitbit.com account which you connect to www.trendweight.com, www.weightgrapher.com and mfp (tell trendweight and weightgrapher that you want to maintain, turn off automated weight announcements on your MFP newsfeed). Or use an app such as happy scale on iphone.

Start thinking of your weight level as your weight. An alternative way to achieve something similar is to average out your weight every week and come up with your average weight per week. Fitbit does that for you. No device is necessary to get an account. I am sure they realize that using their app makes you more likely to buy one

Chapter 3:
See chapter 1. 1500 net is plenty low enough for most people to lose weight. Especially if accurately measured.

The aim of the game as far as I'm concerned is figuring out how to be the least miserable while achieving your goal of losing weight. Your mileage will vary and you should experiment.

Many people find that increasing protein to the level of 0.8g per lb of the top end of your normal weight range (or your current weight, whichever is lower), eating 25% of calories from fats (while minimizing saturated fats and transfats), and the rest from more complex carbs while making sure to eat 25g of fiber a day (female) or 38g of fiber a day (male)... is not a bad starting point.

Best of luck.

ETA: the above is not the only way, I am sure. But it is what I know from my n=1

@ConfusedDieter you sound like me when I'm "spiraling" with depression and anxiety issues. It's a horrible feeling. Venting it out here or to a trusted friend/loved one is great therapy.

Please don't take what I'm saying as harsh. There is zero chance you gained 5lbs of fat overnight. Zero. Bodies simply don't work that way. As females, our bodies love to cling to water for 100 reasons or no reason at all. Where are you in your monthly cycle? Not only can those hormones make me gain water weight, but they intensify the number of "spiraling" thoughts.

So, today is a new day. You've got a choice to make. And it's just for today. You can give up, walk away and forget about your weight. Or you can say "screw you ovaries!" and start making a change. If you pick the change, have someone in your family hide the scale from you until next Sunday morning lol! Or if you insist upon daily weighing, get an app like happy scale or Libra to log those weights. It will give you a trend line and after you have several days logged you'll be able to understand more about the fluctuations you see daily.

Then start measuring and weighing your foods. Have a good breakfast and start looking at some recipes for the rest of the week. Get excited about the fun foods you'll cook up. Then weigh/measure and log your meals for the entire week. Try to meet your calorie goals and eat back half of your exercise calories.

I'm a little bigger than you, and likely older. But if you'd like to friend me to look at my diary for ideas, feel free. I still sometimes make poor choices (we all do!) But I do my best to make those fit in my calorie goals. But really, my heart goes out to you...that flappy, self-beating, can't shut the mind up feeling is awful. But by overcoming this initial speedbump will give you so much power over the next speedbump!