In my first week and gained weight--help talk me down?

don't get discouraged, I've gone thru the same, and likely most people have. You will find that you go up and down, a lot based on water retention. Plus I don't know if you are exercising too, if so you could be putting on some muscle and replacing fat. Anyway, stay at it for the long haul. I started 3 years ago and have lost 60 lbs, without being completely fixated with it. I do know that I feel better, have more energy, my BP is down a lot and I look better. Stay at it, you will see results.

I have friends who flex 2 lbs in a day. So, I wouldn't worry too much.

Don't drink too much water, drink enough to not begin to feel thirsty. Drink before you exercise, drink before you go out for the day, drink during all your meals, but don't drink before bed time. :P That one always wakes me up at night.

The 8 cups of water is really a myth, there's scientific basis for it. I did some article research (I'm a biomed scientist) and I couldn't find proof of it. In other words, everyone's body is different, drink to YOUR body, not what the AVERAGE is, because as we like to say in physiology: No One is Average when it comes to metabolism. That's why they call it an average, they combine everyone's stats and put it together.

Now if you're having trouble losing weight, the question would be if your caloric intake too low? Too high? Not enough carbs or protein or something?

I've bounced back and forth and I've noticed that whenever I do that, it's because I did *too much* of one thing and not enough of the other:

Example 1 - Too much cardio, not enough strength... not increasing my muscular strength gave me less endurance and I was slower to work up to the ideal cardio I wanted to do. Musculature help support our bodies.

Example 2 - Too much carbs or too much protein... not enough carbs makes me irritable and moody and lessens my desire to maintain a healthy eating pattern or do cardio. Not enough protein makes me feel like my teeth is rotting from the inside out from all the carbs and my meals get boring real fast.

So now my goal is to keep up the "balancing" act to get it right this time

How do I know I'm not doing something wrong?

You know you're not doing something wrong by creating a plan and following it.

You're a woman, the weight gain could be due to your cycle. Are you watching your sodium intake? Are you exercising?

Stay within your calories, watch the sodium, get a few good sweaty workouts in and the scale will go down.

Strength training does help with weight loss as it gives you more muscle to burn fat. However, eating over MFP's daily alloted protein doesn't mean much as MFP has protein set low with carbs being the highest macro. You can change that if you'd like.

The thing I've been keeping an eye on lately is my sodium intake so that I can drink extra water accordingly.

Your period ending is probably exactly why you gained weight. I always track my weight and loss during that time of my cycle so I know how much to expect to come back off within a couple weeks. I have heard of women gaining as much as 10 pounds during their cycle and often at the end.

You don't necessarily have to eat at the same time every day but it seems like a good idea. I had to set myself a food schedule so I make sure I get enough to eat in a day. It is extremely helpful to schedule food if you have a hard time meeting calorie goals. However, if you are working 7-3 one day and 3-11 another, it would be way too difficult to keep your food schedule that rigid. Instead, you could do breakfast within so much time from waking up, snack 2 hours later, meal in another two hours, snack 2 hrs later, meal, then final snack. Something like that goes off your time awake instead of rigid by the clock.

It is definitely too soon to tell if your goals need to be readjusted. However, in case I am wrong, here is a really informative link for you to check out:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/61706-guide-to-calorie-deficits

You really ought to try eating back your calories - however. And this is a big however - if your calories burned are estimated by MFP and not by your own heart rate monitor, I'd only eat about half of your calories back because MFP's calorie burns are stacked a bit high. If they are from your HRM, try eating as close as you can. A serving of peanut butter is 2 tbsp and is 200 calories. Nutella is the same. Last time I was over 500 calories from goal I grabbed a tortilla and put a serving of each on it. Tasted just like a Reese's peanut butter cup and wasn't so filling I was stuffed.

Once you start eating and exercising (keep in mind your calorie deficit will get smaller as you get closer to goal so you will automatically have more calories to eat the smaller you get) you will eventually start feeling hunger signals. You'll end up eventually working out just so you can eat more. This is a good thing.

Also, if you plan a work out like that, you can make your meals and snacks earlier in the day more substantial so you aren't stuck eating 700+ calories at night when you are already full.

I eat more frequently to keep from getting hungry and parcel out my calories over those meals - altho sometimes I miss the satisfaction of eating a well rounded 5 course meal and there's no proof that eating smaller meals over time is a bigger benefit to eating a single meal a day, it definitely improves my mood throughout the day when I'm not a ravenous hungry b**** and start yelling at people to get their work done.