Weight Gain: why?

So, here's my story:

I have been suffering from an ED for about 3 yrs and am working on recovery, slowly forcing myself to eat more.  I've been eating 1200 calories a day (too low, I know) for the past couple of weeks but am terrified to increase as, over the past two weeks, I've gained four pounds! Two in the last two days! It's taking all I can to not start restricting again.  Here's where it gets complicated: I was on the patch starting a week and a bit ago but quit taking it yesterday due to other unpleasant side effects.  I also went home for a long weekend and was eating a normal amount of calories for thurs-sun.  So what gives? is

a) my metabolism dead?

b)the weight gain a result of the reaally high estrogen doses in the patch

and what should i do? I'm seeing my doctor tomorrow but need a little "push to eat" for today.

thanks!

p.s. It seems like if I have gained fat it's visceral (underneath my tummy muscles) as opposed to subcutaneous ( on top of the abs). Or is this water weight from the patch?

One reason your body is holding weight and gaining is because you've restricted it for so long it basically is in "starvation mode".  That means that it's going to hang on to just about every calorie you give it and store it because it thinks you are starving it to death.  I know the mere mention of "store" is going to make you panic, but don't.  It will take time, but once your body realizes that you ARE going to feed it regularly it will begin to properly use that stored bit.  By eating so little for so long you have thrown your body into chaos, it just needs time to reset itself.  One way to break this that you might try is to, of course, eat more, push the calories up while keeping an eye on the fat, that way you can eat more for less... your body gets the "bulk" it craves, but you are taking in no more, really, than you were before.  Another way is to exercise if you're not already, that will make your metabolism kick back up in order to pull those stores that your body thinks it needs to hang on to.

Also.. if you are exercising now, that might explain it.  Take a look at your body.  Does it LOOK fatter?  Fat takes up five times as much space as muscle, so if you're building muscle, it will appear that you are gaining if you judge by the scale, when you're really not.  It makes it seem that muscle is actually heavier than fat, but it's because it distributes more evenly instead of bunching and taking up more space.

Not sure if this is helpful, but I hope it is.