Gained 1/2 lb somehow, feeling discouraged...

Basically I'm just getting back into the swing of things, but I'm already feeling discouraged as I didn't lose any weight this week but instead gained 1/2 lb... I will admit that I did have a day of terrible overeating as I was in the ER that day for 6 hrs and didn't care too much about what went in my mouth once I got out.

However, my week of calories averages out to 2120/day including the overeating...  my goal is 1900/day for moderate activity and maintenance is 2400. As you can see even with my overeating I'm still below my maintenance calories, so why on earth did I gain 1/2 lb? Is it possible that my calories are too high?

The only thing keeping me a little encouraged is that I did lose 3/4 inch from my waist, but the scale has gone UP so I am frustrated!!

You can always recalculate if you think the calorie levels are off. I always use sendentary setting because I work from a desk a lot..did you maybe overestimate your usual activity level?

Anyway, you lost almost an inch off the waist, so that has to be a sign that your body is beginning to respond, right? changing body composition is part of it all.

I think everyone goes through trial and error with all these calculations before finding what is accurate for them.

At first, it gave me some insanely high number, and I thought..what??

Recalculating helped, and confirmed what I'd thought. Bottom line for me is 1200 calories for loss, and once i get there..to maintain..I can't go past that by a lot.

I entered starting and ending weight as my goal just to see what CC recommended for maintenance..it said 1200, so yeah.

It can be confusing, I think.

You'll hear different opinions depending who you ask.

you only went up 1/2lb you could be retaining water. You can average 2 lbs gain or loss a day. Give youself some wiggle room. I range my normal weight to be somewhere between 139.5 and 142 after that I get a little flustered but i know its just water retention.

The scale is an extremely blunt instrument. Daily and even weekly readings don't mean very much at all. I think people should only weigh-in once a month. Our weights fluctuate by several pounds within a given day.

Once a month I measure by BF% with my scale (not a very accurate way to measure I know!) to do this I stand on my scale once in the morning and once at night.  Yesterday, I gained 3 pounds over the course of the day and I woke up weighing 4 pounds less.  A half of a pound is nothing to fret over - your body naturally flucuates.  You should take your weight measurements with a grain of salt - don't fret unless it's a substantial gain (5 or more pounds)

Thanks for all your replies; I've never actually assigned myself a "range" of weight but I did as one poster recommended and weighed myself in the morning and again at night, I seem to have a range of about 3 lbs that I fluctuate between so I'm going to stick with that.

But now my question is: how do I know when I have truly lost weight? Should I just add 3lbs to my weight every week and use that number instead of the actual number I see on the scale? Thanks!