4 weeks deficit, no weight loss. Why??

In addition to the questions above, have you tried changing the batteries on your scales?

How many times have you weighed yourself? I'd suggest that you weigh yourself daily until you see what calorie value causes consistent weight loss. After that, you can try less often if you want. Make sure you understand how salt causes weight fluctuations. Exercise too.

We need more info please. What are your stats? How did you determine your calorie deficit? How much weight are you trying to lose and how close are you to your goal weight? Medications? Stress? Sleep? Female before or after menopause? How accurate is your logging? How are you accounting for exercise calories burned and are you eating those extra calories back?

MrDropchub wrote: »

Not knowing anything about you, or your situation, I'd suggest you aren't eating enough. 1200 is not a lot of calories (That's roughly what a 34 year old, 4'7", 100 lbs. sedentary woman needs to maintain her weight in a day.) Your body is probably hanging onto every calorie it can in the hopes that the famine will pass. Perhaps aim for a more reasonable 500 calorie deficit, and occasionally eat close to your maintenance calories.

Just a thought. (It's the old, "If what you are doing isn't working, try something else," method of problem solving.)

Further edit: I was facing the same thing at first. I wasn't losing, then dropped a bunch after I started adding cheat meals.

Your point about calorie intake is well made: For sure, 1200 (plus all exercise calories!) was too little for me, at BMI well into the overweight category), age 59. I got weak and fatigued, took weeks to recover. No one needs that!

But I think it helps, sometimes, to understand the mechanisms behind cases where weight loss slows surprisingly, at lowered calories, even when logging is spot on (which it isn't always, because logging is a surprisingly nuanced skill, needs work and attention to get good at).

If a person seriously under-eats, especially if continued for quite some time, they tend to move less, perhaps in subtle ways. Even fidgeting vs. not fidgeting, per research, can make a difference of low hundreds of calories daily. On top of that, they maybe rest more, put off effort-intensive home projects/chores, feel like they don't enjoy energy-consuming non-exercise hobbies as much so reduce or stop doing them because "not interested as much as I used to be". Exercise intensity may plateau or even drop.

Even some barely visible physiological changes can happen, like a little lower body temperature (feel cold more often?), slower hair growth (thinning may happen weeks down the road), maybe less battle-worthy immune system, and (at true extremes) even worse.

Those kinds of things can add up, make a person lose weight more slowly than expected, at that (low) calorie level.

On top of that, high stress can cause creeping water retention gains, loosely related to cortisol levels. (That's part of the reason that a "cheat day" can trigger a quick scale drop, for some people in some circumstances - counters the physical stress.)

Creeping water retention hides fat loss on the scale, potentially for surprisingly long time periods.

Stress is cumulative over all sources, whether physical or psychological. Calorie deficit is a physical stress, and the bigger the deficit, the bigger the stress. Dieting (as a practical matter) can be a psychological stressor. New exercise, especially if unnecessarily intense/lengthy/frequent for current fitness level, is a physical stressor. Change (like changing daily life habits) is a psychological stressor. On top of that, many people have stress from job, family drama, a pandemic, or other things.

So, yeah, there tends to be a "sweet spot" for weight loss, differing by individual, where energy level stays pretty high, diet/exercise stress is manageable, and happy weight loss happens best.

This isn't the body "holding onto fat" or "holding onto calories". As Yirara observed, starving people aren't fat. Yes, the body has mechanisms to make it take as long as possible to starve to death, because if we can hang on, maybe the famine will end. But, like I said, it helps to understand the mechanisms.

This is good, less oversimplified than the above:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1

For the true detail geeks, also:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1 (with footnotes!)

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/761810/the-starvation-mode-myth-again/p1