Worked my *kitten* off all week and feels like nothing in return

Patience is a virtue on your weight-loss journey 😉 our scale weight is influenced by so much more than just our bodyfat. Water retention from added exercise, water weight fluctuations related to a menstrual cycle, fluctuations in the amount of food waste in our system, fluctuations in sodium and carb intake, water weight fluctuations from stress, ...

Also: if you're weighing weekly, you might have actually weighed less at some point this week, and today might coincidentally be a higher day.
Personally, I weigh daily and enter the weigh-ins into a weight trending app (Libra in my case, for Android, for Apple there is Happyscale) to look at the long-term trend beyond the fluctuations.
Weighing daily isn't for everyone (some people find it difficult to see the up and down fluctuations) but it's something to consider.

I'd also say: if you're making things so hard on yourself that seeing progress on the scale is the only thing to keep you going, slow down a little. Aim for a smaller calorie deficit, slow down the changes you're trying to implement in your life,... What you need most of all for weight loss is consistency, and consistency is easier when you're not suffering 🙂 (I'm not saying this is your case, not enough info for that, but we do see this often in newbies here)

Hey, you're doing well! 1/2 pound with only 18lbs to lose is very good! Plus you're doing new exercises? then you're probably experiencing water weight gain from muscle repair. So you might in fact have lost more body fat than what you see on the scale. So keep at it. Try to relax. And remember: it's not a race. Thus try to make it as easy for you as possible. Weight loss doesn't need to be hard

You need patience and you need to keep your expectations realistic. Losing weight is a slow process and a week is a drop in the bucket. Throughout this whole thing you're going to have weeks with bigger losses, no losses, smaller losses, and gains. That's the way it works in reality because weight isn't just fat and body weight can fluctuate. You are comprised of roughly 55-65% water and that will always be in flux all on it's own but can also be exasperated by exercise, stress, more or less carbohydrates, sodium, etc...not to mention just regular old hormones. You will also always have varying degrees of inherent waste in your system from consuming food and beverage...this shows up on a scale.

Weight loss and weight management in general is a trend over time...like I said, a week is a drop in the bucket...this is most definitely a marathon kind of thing and you need to wrap your head around it. It looks like this plotted on a graph over time...for everyone...





Also, there are a lot of benefits to regular exercise...it isn't just for weight loss...in fact, it's not even usually a major player in weight loss...but it has numerous health benefits and should be looked at something that should be done into perpetuity and sustainable, not just killing yourself with to lose weight.