Regaining weight help please!

I gained a good ten pounds since I’ve started college. About a month ago I started taking losing my added pounds seriously. At first I did really well, I went from 143ish pounds to 134 in a few weeks. Now I’m back up to 139 and I’ve been adding more exercise to my daily exercise plan; which is stationary bike for about 100 minutes a day burning around 900 calories. I also do core strengthining exercises (crunches, pilates 100, planks..) Plus I do walking/jogging every so often.  I eat well to around 1100 calories a day. Why is my body adding all this weight back on when I’m doing more than I did before when I was in schoo?l (when I hardly exercised at all!)… Please help it’s starting to really frustrate and depress me. Btw i'm eighteen if that factors in anyway.

 Weight tracker…

Last month of semester 143 lbs

Last week of semester 136 lbs

Done school 135 lbs which dropped to 134 lbs

Now after Friday may 1st  I was back up to 138 lbs

1100 calories could be where it's going wrong.  Even the most sedentary teenager should never let their food intake drop below 1500.  If you starve yourself your body reacts as though there is a major food shortage and it will try to conserve energy rather than burn it up.  And malnutrition has all kinds of nasty consequences.

Work out what your total energy needs are using this website aimed specifically at younger people... http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/bodycomp/bmiz2.html and deduct about 700 cals from that total in order to lose weight safely and steadily.   I make it that you need between 2500-3000 cals to maintain your weight so you should aim for about 1800-2000 in order to lose weight.

Incidentally... with a BMI of 22.5 you're not a 'fatty'.... you're a perfectly healthy weight.  Verbally abusing yourself doesn't help anything.

More people will give you this answer, and probably explain it better, but I'll start off by saying that you are not eating enough. It sounds like you are under the impression that 1100 is a lot, or satisfactory, but sedentary females 20 and up need a minimum of 1500 calories per day, and that's just for the short ones!

You didn't mention your height, but even assuming you are short, you still need about 1700-1800 sedentary. But factoring in your exercise levels, your calorie needs are closer to 3000, for maintenance!

So, in short, your body is most likely in "starvation mode", holding onto your few calories for dear life and storing them as fat. This can actually result in weight gain, so I've come to understand.

Plug your stats in here: http://www.bcm.edu/cnrc/energycalculator.cfm CC's tools are not designed for teens.

Undereating can be very serious and you should promtly up your intake before you damage your body. It sounds crazy, but for you, eating more calories will help you lose weight. Good luck!

Thanks for your reply i'm actually 5'6 so about an average height I'd say. I just calculated my bmr to be 1480.9 cals a day then i added in how much I work out so I'm at about 2200 but I want to lose the weight I've gained so I don't need to buy new clothes =) So I think I'll bump my diet up to 1500 cals a day and see how that goes for a week.

You're adding that up wrong.  BMR is what you need to be in a coma.... heart still working, lungs going in and out... no movement whatsoever.  You may then use 700 cals a day when you're working out but you'll also use 300-400 cals a day just doing the normal activities of living.... walking around, doing the shopping, hanging out the washing etc.  So your total energy needs are, as I said 2500-3000 a day and, in that light, 1500 is still far too low.

There is such a thing as 'dieting yourself fat'.  Tends to start off by someone not being overweight, eating far too little, losing 7lbs perhaps, then eating just a fraction more and regaining all 7lbs plus one or two extra ones.   Then they panic,  eat too little, lose 7lbs, eat a fraction more..... repeat until they're genuinely 50lbs overweight and wondering why.

If that sounds even vaguely familiar don't fall into the yo-yo crash diet trap.   Get the 1800-2000 you really need and take it from there.  

thanks your advice really helps. I've never heard of dieting yourself fat, but it definitely makes sense and thats kinda what is happening to me.

well i've been trying to shed off my extra 25 pounds but cud never succeed.To me its been ages i've been dieting and working out .but now i feel just by eating 1100 -1200 calories i've been in starvation mode from last 7-8 months...now if i try to up my calorie intake it even makes me feel more bulkier what to do my height is 167 cm,age:31 yrs weight:169 lbs peer shaped...

As my New Zealand friend would say you have to 'nut through' the bulky feelings and get the calories up for a few weeks to 2000-2200 a day.  If you do it by adding more high-calorie foods (nuts, oils, oily fish, dried fruit) to your meals you they won't be much bigger than normal.  You might gain a little weight short-term but if you persevere that will level off.  Then you can resume weight-loss on 1500 or so and you should see better results.

Also remember that muscle weighs more than fat, so if you're eating right, and working out a lot, building muscle will cause you to technically weigh more, but you'll be in better shape.