gaining when i should be maintaining

hi guys, i'm hoping some of you can give me some educated insight on my little conundrum.  i'm a fairly active person - i run/elliptical anywhere from 3-6 miles six days a week, incorporating plenty of intervals and the like, and i do about a half hour of weight lifting six days a week as well. i'm not 100% sure what this makes my activity level, but calculators estimate my calorie burn at anywhere from 2034(moderate) -2346(active), and i usually take in about 2000 or so.  i'm a vegan excluding the occasional (bi weekly or so) fage yogurt, and i eat clean foods.  there are no artificial sweeteners or other substances in my diet.  at this calorie intake i should be maintaining if my activity level is moderate, or even losing if it's active, but i'm definitely gaining - about four pounds on the scale, and my clothes don't fit as they used to.  what could possibly be going on?  i have a hard time believing that i'm lightly active given how much i work out, but perhaps that's the case?  should i cut back to 1800 calories? 

try setting your calculator to sedentary - and then manually log all your extra activity youll find it's more accurate

Hard to say without knowing your stats, but that's a lot of gym work on 2000 calories, I would suspect your lucky if you netting over 1000 calories a day. 4 lbs is nothing and it could be many things not related to actually putting on either fat or muscle, and not having a time frame only makes it more difficult to give any advice. I would normally advice a person to increase activity to create a deficit, but not here. I might even say to you, take a break for a week....and of course most of this is diet related. imo

I have the same problem. Work out six times a week - one hour cardio + weight training, and eat about 1500 calories per day. My instructor suggested it could be muscle build up.  Also you could be retaining water generated from too much cardio. I swapped two gym sessions for aquaerobics and feel much better. The weight is still on the increase but the clothes size is coming down. Make sure you drink 2-3 litres of water a day as it helps

Good Morning everyone,

TGIF!  Well I did my weigh in today and I'm kind of torn. I lost weight!  I'm down to 149... I know that's alot in a week.  I was just 154 last Friday. Now I know why I fit into my size 9 jeans. My goal is still 145 but I didn't think I would reach it so soon. My guess it was the intense exercising, bike riding and my intake of 1300 to 1400 calories. I'm 5 ft 8 I don't want to lose that much weight . Its bad enough I have a thin face and lean arms. Don't get me wrong I'm happy its way better than 172 when I started in march.

I'm going yo increase my intake and continue working out to maintain but I still have so much toning to do. Beggars cant  be choosers. I just don't want to look like skeletor

Later ,

Eve

When I first started maintaining I kept losing weight too. I would eat mexican food, cheese burgers, french fries, chinese food. TONS of food I was so stuffed, but the scale kept going down. I talked to my doc about it and he told me that my body will level itself out when it finds it's right weight.... Eventually after a good 3 weeks of stuffing my face I settled at 120 pounds. Now if I eat a cheese burger or tons of chinese, you bet I'll gain weight :)

Maybe it was your body leveling itself out...

thanks guys, i appreciate the input.  as far as stats i'm 5'7" and currently 124 (was 120 two weeks ago).  i by no means look bad at my current height and weight, i'm just not sure why i'm gaining on the calorie levels and activity that i complete.  i'm definitely going to start trying to drink more water as i'm really not sure how much i take in every day, and while i'm in training and would hate to take a break from running, but i'll try increasing my calories for a few weeks to see if it makes a difference - if not i'll go back to weight loss numbers and then try to figure out my real activity level/maintenance stats.  thank you everyone