Belly roll, but doctor said to stop losing weight? Help!

cafeaulait7

The deficit really hurts the progress of weight lifting and defeats the purpose in your case, though. The only reason people lift weights on deficits is because they don't want to lose muscle as they lose weight.

So you're wanting to keep the same amount of muscle as you had, then? But your body problems stem from a ratio problem. You don't have a normal amount of lean body mass. You need more (or skinny fat is the problem). You don't need a lower scale weight.

I think you should do a recomp, like everyone suggested. That means maintenance calories. The deficit changes the situation very much when it comes to muscle growth, yeah. It has to grow, and 1200-some calories isn't going to feed anything extra.