High deficit, very slow weightloss.

I was in the same boat as you. felt like I was not losing- and what I did was I upped my calorie intake to reflect my BMR with a 300 cal deficit. And since then have started using a nutrition coach who calculates my macro targets weekly.

There are some things to think about though: 0.5lb per week is a lot of weight to lose if you've already lost 'water'.
With your exercise, are you building muscle? Muscle takes up a lot less space so you may not be losing weight as fat is going but you are gaining muscle.

I stopped tracking exercise completely and try to hit a daily goal- making it easier to plan meals- I have 4 higher cal days and 3 lower cal days. I weigh myself daily but the ONLY reason I do this is to allow my nutrition coach recalculated my macros based off my weekly average. I am losing weight very slowly, but the changes to my body are crazy.

Ive recently obtained a diploma in nutrition too so I am knowledgable in food as fuel sources- and I used to weigh 270lbs so I do know what Im talking about (most of the time)

I suggest you up your cals a bit, when youve conquered that then look more closely at your macros- Are you eating too much of a particular macro?

my diary is also open if you want to take a look

Building significant muscle at a calorie deficit is extremely difficult. It is hard to put muscle on even at a calorie surplus, doubly so for women. It is highly unlikely you have put on muscle, at least not so much that it is masking your fat loss. It is far more likely that your muscles are retaining water which can mask fat loss. If you are not using other measures to track your progress, you should probably start now with body measurements and photos. The progress with them is measured over several weeks, but they can often show you progress even when your weight is not changing. At this point you are losing, so maybe some fine tuning with your tracking (verifying the database entries you are using, avoiding generic entries, and making your own recipes [again verifying the entries you use in putting the recipe together] might take you from .5 pound to 1 pound a week.