Progress has stalled. Please help!

Mschmitt1119

So I am currently attempting a recomp. I had started a while back and dropped from 22% body fat to 18% (using accumeasure calipers). At this point my progress has completely stalled. Haven’t lost any body fat in the past month and I’m not sure what to do. My diary is open if anyone wants to check it out. I lift on a push pull schedule and rest on sundays. I aim for 1g protein per lb body weight and rotate some days I do maintenance calories and some I do 250-500 deficits. Anyone have advice or need any more info to help me out?

sijomial

Questions:
If you are alternating deficit and maintenance then how much of an overall deficit are you in? (Or rate of weight loss)

Who is wielding the calipers? How many sites? Are they experienced in their use?

What makes up your push/pull routine? Any particular program? I'm only seeing short duration upper body workouts in your diary.

What is your lifting history? Beginner/intermediate/advanced? Returning after a break or new to this?

Mschmitt1119

Overall deficit it’s about 500-1000 a week. They are single point calipers I’ve used before so me. Ive recently got back into lifting the past like 6-7 months. And my push pull is a variation between a bunch of lifts. They would last longer but work and school take up most of my day. If you want I can upload a list for the lifts I do but Monday Thursday is chest,triceps, shoulders. Tuesday Friday is back biceps. And Wednesday Saturday is abs and legs

sijomial

OK some issues....

You have a very inaccurate method of estimating body fat (self use of calipers limits the body sites you can measure and you can put tension into the areas you measure and get a false reading very easily). Estimating fat/body composition is difficult enough with superior methods.

You are in a deficit, doesn't make recomp impossible but makes it harder/slower and the duration you can achieve it can be limited. I had a good six months at a tiny deficit but then that tapered down to glacial progress for example.

You don't appear to be doing a routine that is optimal from the limited description - I'm guessing there's a lot of isolation lifts which is the last thing I would do if short of training time. Your total volume must be low with such short training sessions.

Like most people new to training or returning to training doing just about anything instead of nothing will give results. But those "results" are more than likely sub-optimal and short-lived. I think there's a reasonable chance you have hit that point despite my reservations about your body comp estimates.

The first thing I would do is pick a properly designed program suitable for your training status (based on full years of training seriously and strength standards perhaps) and one that is time efficient - which is likely to be predominately the big compound lifts.

Mschmitt1119

So push day I do 4x8-10 for flat barbell bench, incline bench, dumbbell flye, shoulder press (dumbbell), lateral raises, close grip bench, and skull crushers. Afterwards I do 3 sets of dips and push ups to failure. For pull day I do 4x8-10 barbell rows, machine rows(attaches to my bench),dumbbell isolation rows, Romanian deadlift, and I rotate on variations for bicep curls. For abs and legs I have so many workouts I rotate in and out in order to fit in my limited time. Unfortunately I’m limited on lifts I can do because I use all equipment in my house because having to go back and forth from a gym I feel will make me have to rush through my workouts. Would it be easier to just do a cut bulk cycle?

sijomial

Doing a cut/bulk cycle doesn't fix the issues of your training regime or time availability.
That would just be a route to get leaner and then fatter again.

Mschmitt1119

What I’m saying is cut until atleast the summer. I graduate in may so I’ll have more time to lift after that