Gained...trying to keep focused.

Tom imminent here too - not weighing in again until it's all over!

when i feel down i do something active . it makes me feel better afterwards even though i had to force myself to do it . ive had my days during the week where i gained four lbs but lost it all by the next week.. it was usually just a water retention issue .

dont feel down there are plenty of people here who have lost weight so it does work you just got to keep possitive

As long as I KNOW that I did well with my food intake I IGNORE the scale. Tell the scale that it is a Liar. I only chart my low weight when I am writ ing it down because I know that I can go up as much as 6 pounds in just water weight alone. So if I have a day where I ate something salty or had a hard workout on weights the muscles are retaining water and I just ignore the scale. I KNOW that it will come down eventually if I just keep sticking to my food plan.
Keep going, Keep going, you are doing great and you can not let a little ole scale be the judge of you .Its just a tool we use in measuring progress and right now it is not doing a great job at measuring, so use what you know. You know you ate well. Thats all that matters.

Especially at the beginning the weight seems to fluctuate a lot until your body gets used to a new way of life. So be patient with it and yourself. It does get better, I was pretty frustrated the first month but then it settled out and now I am either not losing or losing, the gaining part seems to be past. Also, as I am sure others will say, TOM, salt, not enough water, and irregularity can all cause you to gain "temporary" weight.

Eat your exercise calories
You should eat back your exercise calories.
Simply stated MFP has already figured out your total calories you need to eat per day to lose 1lb etc. a week.
That's WITHOUT exercise. You'll notice that when you actually add exercise in, the calorie limit goes up.
Why? Because it's telling you to eat your exercise calories.
Large deficits aren't really good to do because while you will lose weight, what kind of weight will it be?
In many cases you'll lose lean muscle tissue which LOWERS your metabolic rate even more.
Then you have to eat even less to compensate for less of a calorie burn to continue to lose the same amount
of weight each week.

Be efficient.
Exercise hard and eat back the calories. The hard exercise will RAISE your metabolic rate and burn more fat at rest.

I never weigh myself when it's that time of the month, but weigh about a week after I'm finished. I know i ALWAYS put on about 5 extra pounds and as long as I stay on top of it, things will go back to normal. Don't lose heart!!

What gain and loss are we talking about? I like numbers.
If it's about 2-4 lbs then forget it. If you kept your diary under control then this is only WATER. It is going away in the next couple of days. Keep sodium under control as well.

It's water; ignore it. I now weigh myself every day. That way I can see exactly what's going on and not think that because I weigh 4 pounds more this week than I did last week, that that's all fat. It's not - it's water, and I know it is because the scales have shot up 4 lbs overnight. In my eyese, weighing yourself daily is far more benficial than doing it weekly.

TOM is usually water weight (more water in, more water out), but I totally understand how the extra fatigue can hamper your workouts. Do what you can and stay on track with your calorie goal (even with the PMS munchies LOL). My OBGYN suggested some supplements to take the edge off the PMS, yours may be able to do so as well. And like everyone said, just don't weigh yourself that week.