Ok, I'm going to try again for some advice here.
I lost 145lbs doing a low carb diet. I have been roughly maintaining for a year, and decided to begin to exercise. I've been working out at least 3 times a week since mid July. I have gained around 8lbs
I have not increased or decreased my calories and eat around 1300-1500 calories a day. I have continued to steer clear of bread, potatoes, rice and pasta, but eat a lot of lean protein and veg. I have continued drinking around 3litres of water a day.
Workouts consist of around 30 minutes of cardio (usually the cross trainer because I love it ) followed by 30minutes of weight training. I try to change the machines I use.
Here is a plan of what I did today- 55 minutes cross trainer (Just had my groove on
Followed by
50 leg presses 70kg
40 side arm lifts 10kg
60 inner thigh 20kg
50 abdo crunches 15kg
40 arm crunches 15kg
60 leg extensions 20kg
40 arm pulls with bar 18kg
40 rotary torso turns 25kg
40 rope arm pulls 15kg

These are all on exercise machines. I felt great and am buzzing. I notice that my stats have more or less stayed the same, although I have lost inches off my hips. I look more toned and there is more definition. However I am alarmed at the weight gain, and wonder what I'm doing wrong (if anything)
Also I wonder whether my nutrition needs adjustment to suit the exercise . I try to keep to lean protein and veg, and eat yoghurt for breakfast. I drink plenty of water.
Any advice, tips or tweaks would be greatly appreciated. I love the gym, but am concerned about my raising weight. I know there is a noobie gain, but this seems excessive after exercising for this amount of time.

That's tricky. I'm not sure what is going on.

If you are losing inches but gaining scale weight, then it almost certainly has to be a combination of water and muscle. But it's hard to imagine that you've gained 8 pounds of muscle while eating at a caloric deficit--that is very unlikely. When you calculate your maintenance calories, what range do you get? Or is 1300-1500 your maintenance range? (So low!) Are all of your measurements going down? Are any going up?

This is unrelated to the scale weight problem, but I really urge you to start doing your weight lifting with free weights. It's much better for your body (leg extensions are especially bad for your knees and those crunch machines aren't great for your back) and you burn more calories, use more muscles, etc. Start doing big compound movements instead: squats, deadlifts, miltary presses, rows, chest presses, push ups, planks. You might also want to think about mixing up your rep/set scheme. Are you really sitting down at the machine and firing off 50 reps? You'd be better off doing 3 sets of 10 reps, or 3 sets of 8 or 5 sets of 5, and increasing the weight you use for each exercise on a regular basis.

You could also add some HIIT into your workouts. Say, 2 or 3 days a week, skip your steady state cardio and begin with (free) weights instead. Then do 15 minutes of high intensity intervals on the cardio machine of your choice. HIIT magically somehow cues your body to draw from its fat stores, and it keeps you burning more calories for the rest of the day.

Thanks Dietvet - I am a novice and am trying to work out what the he** is going on. My stats have only changed in the hips where I have lost inches. The weight seems to be creeping on insidiously. I am confused hence the original post. 1300-1500 is a high estimate of calories as well !! I put weight on very easily ! Sigh

Congratulations!!! That is awesome!!!

Personally, I'd get rid of all of these. They aren't useful. Maybe keep the two in bold. I'm guessing arm pull down with bar is a lateral pull. I am not a fan of machines. Nobody needs to exercise their inner thigh all by itself and machines do not allow for natural movement. Except for pulleys which is why I think the lateral pull down is just fine.

The ladies here can help you out, I am sure. Also you could try The New Rules for Lifting and The New Rules for Lifting for Women. Those will give you ideas for what kind of exercise you can do and why you should do them.

Do you mean you've steady gained 8lbs since July? If your measurements aren't going up I'd say you are okay but that's just me. If you take out those high reps on the machine and do some heavy lifting it will have quite an affect on your measurements (in a good way).

Thank you Landonsbaby - I'll give it a try. When you say heavy - how heavy are you thinking?

Heavy means that you should be really struggling by the end of your sets--especially the final set. Start with something like 3x10--the last couple of reps should be really hard.

The other thing is that your goal, every day in the gym, should be to lift more than you did the time before. You won't actually be able to increase the weight (or the reps) every time, but that's what you want to be striving for. Once you can do your 3 sets of 10 with a weight, you want to move up to the next weight increment. This might mean that you do your first set with the higher weight and then your next 2 sets with the lower weight, and then gradually build up to doing all three sets at the higher weight. Then repeat.

Good advice. I tried to ramp up the weights and do less reps today. It seemed hard but satisfying. I am going to keep the faith and keep at it. My body fat percentage seems to have plummeted as well since I started, so obviously changes are occurring that I am less aware of. And so begins the next phase of what it and has been a very complicated, but exciting journey.