Calorie deficit but no weight loss.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Here's the thing: A calorie goal from MFP or an outside TDEE calculator does not determine your calorie deficit. The so-called calculator, MFP or other, just gives you an estimate that amounts to what the average loss would be over a period of weeks, for an average person of demographic characteristics similar to you, who logged everything exactly perfectly, and correctly set their "activity level". ("Demographic characteristics" = whatever data about you that you told the so-called caluculator.) The same is true for a fitness tracker, except that the estimate is more personalized based on things the device can measure (heart rate, arm movements, etc.), none of which are measurements of calories directly.

It's kind of impossible for all of those conditions to apply. It can be close enough to be workable, but:

Your actual weight loss is what defines your actual deficit, under your personal conditions (including average logging accuracy), and then only when averaged over 4-6 weeks on the same activity and eating regimen (whole menstrual cycles for premenopausal adult women).

If you lost 1kg (which is 2.2 pounds), your personalized daily deficit estimate so far is ((2.2 pounds times roughly 3500 calories in a pound of body fat) divided by 30 days in a month), so about 257 calories daily. You can improve that estimate by using the actual number of days, since you said "around a month". If you add that to the actual averaged number of calories you logged daily over that same time period (assuming you logged every day), you'll get even better estimates going forward.

It's like a fun science fair experiment for grown-ups, if you can look at it that way.

The so-called calculators' estimates just give you a starting point. Once you have enough personal data of reasonable accuracy, use that instead. For most people, the calculator estimates will be close, because most people are close to average. They'll be a meaningful amount off - high or low - for a smaller number of people. They'll be surprisingly far off for quite a rare few. That's just the nature of statistical estimates, y'know?

I agree with Lietchi that you're on track, since you wouldn't want to be trying to lose fast with so little in total to lose, especially if you also have muscle-mass gain goals. (At BMI 25.9, you're just slightly overweight, by the technical definition of "overweight". BMI isn't perfect for individuals, but it's highly unlikely that at 6'3" and 207 you have lots of tens of pounds or kg to lose.)

As far as muscle gain masking fat loss: Under ideal conditions, a man would be getting very good results if he gained 2 pounds of new muscle mass in a month. Ideal conditions would include relative youth, favorable genetics, a well-designed progressive weight training program (one suitable for a mass gain goal) faithfully performed, overall good nutrition (especially but not exclusively adequate protein), relative newness to training, maleness, and a calorie surplus (i.e., a context of weight gain).

I'm not saying you can't be gaining muscle mass while not completely optimizing all those conditions, but the fewer of those conditions apply, the slower or less likely is mass gain. You can certainly be gaining strength more quickly, if new to all of this, but early strength gain tends to be neuromuscular adaptation (better recruiting and utilizing already existing muscle mass) rather than new muscle fibers being created.

What new/added exercise does do is increase water retention for muscle repair, and that can mask a little fat loss on the bodyweight scale . . . but at a month in, as a male, you're probably reaching the point where fat loss should have finished playing peek-a-boo with water retention from regularly-scheduled similar workouts (i.e., not increasing workouts).

You're doing fine, truly. Just keep keeping on. Losing slowly will increase your chances of gaining muscle. You'd be better off with a real and well-designed progressive strength program, probably, if mass gain is an important to you, and if your current kettlebell routine isn't that (as I'm guessing it's not, based on how you describe it, but I'm guessing.)

Best wishes!

yirara wrote: »

Ugh, not a good day. I mixed up kg and lbs. loss of 0.5lbs per week or 2lbs per month is perfectly fine for someone who is only just about overweight.