I gained a pound!

You might be eating too few calories if you are netting less than 1200. Also sometimes when you start working out your muscles hold onto fluids to repair themselves and that looks like weight gain. I would eat a little more to ward off starvation mode and to make sure you are fueling your body appropriately!!

You did not gain muscle. You dont' gain muscle on a caloric deficit.

Eat more. You're not eating enough so your body is hoarding what little food you're giving it. A fire will burn out if you don't give it enough fuel.

"I've eaten less than 1200 calories per day"

There is where your problem lies.

You need to eat more.

You have to remmeber that if you are just starting to do weight work, your body will gain mussle mass before you will see any difference on the scale. I am a slave to the scale and had to learn not to be. I worked out for a month, 4-5 times a week and only lost one pound. I started to measure myself though and I was getting smaller, just not weighing less. Mussle weighs more thatn fat. So just give it time and don't get discouraged by the scale. SHE can be ruthless at times. Keep it up your doing great!

I am not a medical professional and I realise that it totally depends on how much you have to lose, but I am not a huge fan of eating back all of my exercise calories. I try to have an average net of around 700 calories a day. And I eat...a lot. I think that as I get closer to the overweight BMI and out of the obese I might have to revise my thinking but I do not think there is a blanket answer. Some people succeed by eating back every single exercise calorie, others succeed by eating less.

I think if you are in this for the long haul you have to accept that there are going to be times when you gain a pound or two. I have been up 2 for the past 3 weeks. It is frustrating, and I am changing things up a bit, but I am focusing more on how I feel, and the fact is that eating sweets and giving up on the exercise is not an option for me. I can't do it, I have come too far. Even in the beginning though, just the decision to change my life was something I was not willing to sabotage. But it is hard. Please dont get discouraged.

You might have gained some muscle mass since you've been working out everyday. Muscle weighs more than fat.

In a week? Please.

I'm having the same problems. I can't help but hate it, but my mother says that some days you hit a peak but eventually it will go down again

Muscle does not weigh more than fat.

You did not gain muscle in such a short amount of time, and on such a huge deficit.

Eating less than 1200 calories per day consistently is a terrible idea for most people.

Regardless of what your net goal is, you need to eat back the calories you burn during exercise.

If you want to lose weight in a healthy way and preserve whatever muscle you already have, you need to eat more and set your goal to lose only 1 lb per week. Obviously, starving yourself did not work in the past since you said you gained weight back. It doesn't work for most people.

ETA: Don't freak out about a 1 lb "gain".

Just because the site says eat 1200, doesn't mean you need to. Bump it up to 1400 for a while. & are you eating back your exercise calories? When you weighed were you sore from working out? Your muscle retains water when it's trying to repair it's self [when youre sore]. Hows your sodium intake been? Is it almost that time of month? Lot of factors. Don't get discouraged.