Scale weight increasing despite deficit and exercise

[Leafyleaferson]

From 1st September I have been on 1500 calories daily and mostly getting 130ish grams of protein.
Ive been back in the gym 4 times a week strength training and hitting 10k steps daily on average.
usually this is what I do when I’ve gained some weight and it falls off.
why oh why am I 2lbs UP from the beginning of September? I have never been the weight I am now. I’m really confused.
in the gym I’m getting noticeably stronger and I feel ‘tighter’ and not as conscious of my belly. I’m in the same size clothes I was in 8lb ago.
I have tracked via myfitness pal and logged weight daily and weekly averages are going up not down! What can I do now? I really don’t want to reduce my calories even lower as I cannot function on 1400 and find my overall energy and gym performance suffers.

Most likely it’s a combination of building muscle mass and potentially water retention.

Also if you’re pre menopause, I’d expect fluctuations of a couple of lb around your period that can throw even averages off.

Depending on your age, it gets harder to lose weight, it was easy for me in 2018/19 at 39, much harder now at 47.

A lot also depends on your starting weight, the more you have to lose, the easier it is (at first).

You’re doing all the right things, even if you calorie calculations are a little “out” (because it’s hard to be precise), keep going, don’t be disheartened.

It's not unusual. Muscle weighs more than fat. Keep at it.

Too many calories. It is impossible to be in a deficit and not lose weight.

Have you worked out what calories you should be on? I’m 5ft 3, weigh 61.8 kg and on 1350 calories a day and lose about a pound a week. Thats with 100g protein and 8,000 steps a day. I’m a bit inconsistent with weights.

There are diseases/conditions which affect your body and weight. They can cause pain (depending on the stage/woman) and in the past, people were blamed for overeating or not moving enough. Lipedema (spelling?) is one, but there's lots of serious and minor reasons, Don't let your doctor ignore you-one woman who had put on weight and got ignored by the doctor/people blamed her had something that was very serious.
The days of saying that weight is a choice, not bad luck, should be over. Sadly some people congratulate themselves simply for being lucky, and don't care about those doing everything right, but suffering through no fault of their own.

I’m 5’5, 39 and today weighed 9st 8 which is 6lbs more than in May. I’ll see how this week goes and consider lowering calories and see if that makes a difference.
thank you for the advice

Are you tracking every single thing that you eat and drink? Are you weighing things? Maybe try 1400 and see if it starts to shift.

Muscle weighs more than fat, so building muscle and losing fat can make your scales weight increase.

You’re a healthy weight then, gaining muscle, probably losing some fat from your description? Is there actually a problem here?