i think this is getting out of control

okayy so im extremely frustrated..i lost 65 lbs. gained back ten. lost them again, and now im afraid im going to gain it back again.

i had been losing weight on roughly 1500 cal a day the past few months.
then i hit like 127 and decided that i wanted to maintain at that.. but as soon as i started eating more it seems tht not only was the scale going up.. but i also have been going a little overboard with how much ive been letting myself eat..

im 5'6", 19 yrs old, i workout about once a week (now that its summer, since i work 5x a weeeek and i work alllll the timeeee...during school it was more like 4-6x a week)    and i WAS losing at 1500..

lately ive been having trouble balancing my calories.. and ive been going back and forth like 1300  one day 2000 the next.. its terrible.. but its been averaging out to about 1700-1800+ cals a day...and the scale is upp... a lot...?

so did i destroy all that hard work?  i feel like giving up bc it took so long to get to where i felt good maintaining and it seems like tht was a complete waste...

how much is too much?

anyoneee?  :(

being 5'6, you should be able to maintain on 1700-2000 calories easily, if your weight is increasing then maybe you aren't at the ideal weight for your body. i'd say eat 1700-1800 consistently because clearly you're hungry and consistency might prevent the urge to eat more than usual. having super low calorie days like 1300 while in maintenance is likely to make you feel hungry, which could explain the higher calorie days. anyway, i hope this helps a bit and let me know what you decide to do. good luck :) 

Well 30 to 40 % of weight loss is generally lbm (muscle) unless you know that and protect yourself against it. Suffice is to say most people eat a fairly high carb diet and don't lift weights or enough weight to ensure that. Anyway what has happened during this time period is your metabolism has lowered so the body can find homostasis and keep the body healthy......muscle is the least of it's priorities, and actually it's why it's the first to go in a deficit. What the body will try to do with the extra calories is store it as fat and glycogen, except now it's done on less calories that before you went of your diet. I would suggest if adjust your macro's to reflect a higher protein consumption and either replace cardio with weight resistance training ort add some in...........this will at least signal the body to build muscle as opposed to just storing those extra calories as fat......next time you go to lose weight stay high protein and weight lifting and at least the weight you do lose won't be muscle and your metabolism won't be effected either.............what your doing is yo-yo dieting, not good.

thanks guys!

chrissy- i hope you're right, i think im definitely going to try to see what happens if i start eating a little bit more..i really hope i can maintain 127-130.. and i reallllly hope it helps me stop the binging :(  thank you so much for the advice.

 neanderthin- after i gained the ten lbs back around xmas, i saw a nutritionist and she put me on a high protein, lower carb plan. and ive been following it pretty accurately to get those ten lbs back off... so i dont know if thats really the problem :(

I think I might be having somewhat of the same problem- zig-zagging calories has turned into eat a ton one day, make up for it in exersise and resitriction the next few days, averaging out to being around 1,500-1,700, numbers at my activity level that should still come out to be a deficit.  However, it really just seems to cause me to feel icky and retain massive ammounts of water.

When I stick to eating more protien, fruits, and veggies it doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.  I'm also on the path to find a good caloric intake level- good luck!!!

I think the replies above are right on the money.  I don't eat a high protein diet, I aim for a correct protein diet, with error toward eating a little more protein than I need, not lower.  By eating enough or sometimes a little extra protein, I rarely feel hungry, and usually only because I'm past a meal time.  Also, by keeping carbs low, it keeps the cravings down and prevents water weight gain. 

So, by making sure you get enough protein everyday and keeping carbs low (eat lots of high fiber veggies), your weight will remain pretty stable.