Month of April: Where did I go wrong?

Are you doing the same cardio workout? If so, your body may become adjusted to it and you aren't burning as many calories as you had been when it was new. Switch up your routine next month, and maybe add some strength training.

Could be water retention. Do you measure yourself regularly? Sometimes the scale can "lie" to you but measurements never do.

I'm happy to hear constructive criticism about my month of April diet and exercise.

I *love* the reports function of this website because I'm a numbers *kitten*...I love tracking everything.

I bought a food scale in April and began using it as often as I could. I cook most of my own meals. I have no restrictive diet.

I have averaged 1853 calories per day (in April), and I exercised 15 out of 30 days (burning between 150-400 calories per workout)

My weight was dropping drastically in the beginning of the month (clearly from all the great work I did in March) But then started creeping up.

I'm now back up to about 162-164 pretty consistently when I step on the scale each morning for the past two weeks. I was at 158.8 every day for the first week of April.

I log every single thing I put in my mouth, every day. I try to make my exercise calories as accurate as possible. I usually log LESS exercise than I actually did, in order not to "cheat" myself. I cannot afford a heart rate monitor, so unless someone has an extra one they'd like to mail me for free, that's not an option.

Background:
January calories NET 1550 per day lost 4 lbs
February calories NET 1650 per day lost 1 lb
March calories NET 1570 per day lost 4 lbs
April calories NET 1853 per day gained ~3 lbs

I am 31 yo female 5'4" 162-164 lbs currently (but weighed 159 just a few weeks ago)

BMR: 1427
TDEE: 2,063

I'm right about where you are in terms of having not too much farther to go to the goal weight so I can share your pain. At this point, it's all about the number of calories. Your deficit is very tiny and it's super easy to lose all of it by either eating more than you think or by over estimating the calories you burn or sometimes it's just because you are eating too much.

I looked at a few random days of your diary in the last few weeks and even though you mentioned that you have a scale, there's way too many unweighed foods in there. You are still using cups/spoons, slices etc..You're eating more than you think for absolute certainty.

I'm curious about why you added almost 200 calories to each day when you were practically losing the perfect amount of weight for the past few months? I would wager that you have just eliminated any deficit that you did have and are now quite possibly eating at a slight surplus. Combined with meals out (which inherently introduced more uncertainty in your intake).

The last pounds are always the hardest. You can't have any deviations, you need to be eating exactly what you need, weighing absolutely EVERYTHING. You can't reach your goal weight by accident, it takes a lot of work.

Hope that helps

Sounds like you are on the right track. I definitely agree with measurements being better

Changing your workout substantially can affect your weight for 1-2 weeks.

Your period can affect your weight for 1-2 weeks

Change in diet especially if your extra calories are mainly from carbs or salty foods, can affect water weight and bowel weight (are you regular?) can be affected no matter what the extra cals are from

If you are drinking more water now that its getting warmer that could have a short term effect though better hydration tends to reduce retained water not increase it.

Could be water retention. Do you measure yourself regularly? Sometimes the scale can "lie" to you but measurements never do.