Is it possible to be in a Calorie Deficit but not lose weight

I suspect you're overestimating your burn, because if you really were only consuming 600 calories net per day, you'd be losing a lot of weight, and not in a healthy way. Water retention from lifting could be masking any weight loss in the short term.

whatever amount of calories, you think you're actually taking in and what amount of calories you think you're actually burning are going to be secondary to the actual amount that your body is recognizing. If your weight is flat for 4 to 6 weeks and your waist measurement at the navel is not going down then you're not in a weekly caloric deficit

Timeline is important esp since you've gone from zero exercise to lots in a short amount of time.

I would also be interested to see how much total intake you have, not just a discussion of expected deficit. Another issue to tackle would be how you are measuring your expected burn.

The answers are potentially very different between set-ups where you're eating / thinking that you're eating 1500 Cal a day and achieving a 1000 Cal deficit or a set-up where you're eating / thinking you're eating 3000 Cal a day and achieving a 1000 Cal deficit. 7000 Cal deficits on an intake of 10,500 vs one of 21,000

Assuming you're not moving your scale around, that it is on a hard and unyielding surface, that the batteries are fresh and that the sensors are clean and functional, and you're weighing under similar conditions, if after 4 to 6 weeks you don't see an overall downward trend materialize then your WEEKLY / MONTHLY net calories are probably NOT achieving the deficits you believe they are.

However, it is still a tiny bit too soon to call it, especially with new exercise in the mix.

@Craigjessop1 : Just keep at it and it will work!

It sucks that it's such a slow process. I've been cutting since Jan 1 (17 weeks) and I've experienced hunger every single day. I've lost close to 1lb per week on average, but a lot of that was up front. Recent losses have been very slow. It requires the patients of a saint to lose a significant amount of weight. If you search on my posts, you'll see that mine has been in short supply and it's driving me nuts! It was never easy, but easier when I was younger.

PS It's well worth it from a health point of view. All my metrics improve at the lower weight.

This really isn't a thing… If you are in a deficit, you will show a loss over a 4-6 week period.

Folks aren't questioning your honesty, I'm pretty sure.

It's that food logging can be a surprisingly subtle skill and it has a learning curve. If you're starting from MFP or other calculator/tracker calorie-needs estimates, that also requires testing and maybe adjustment. If you're logging exercise separately, which is the MFP way, that's another skill set, and even good brand/model trackers can be meaningfully off in their estimates.

Honestly, this stuff is like a fun, productive science fair project for grown-ups. It requires experimenting, monitoring of results metrics, adjustments of methods, a few failed experiments along the way (that we learn from, and continue). Since we don't know how experienced you are, we're assuming relative inexperience.

Most of us who've been logging for a while - including me and many folks above who've done it quite successfully long term - have had forehead-slapping moments when we realized some systematic error we'd been making . . . not out of dishonesty, but just as a skill/insight kind of thing. IME, folks here are eager to help others avoid some of the pitfalls, but that means we'll guess wrong sometimes while asking questions about what your current practice is. All we know is what you tell us, and we'll have some reading comprehension issues along the way, like regular humans do. 😆

Please don't take all questions/comments as personal criticism. The parts that don't apply to you don't apply. A decision to take it as criticism can shut off a useful source of information . . . at least that's been my experience here over nearly 10 years now, year of loss then 9 of maintenance. Most people want to help, sincerely.

It sounds like you're doing great with using the scale when you can. Riverside is right: I hope you're checking the things that come up with barcodes, because those are also just user-entered items that can be wrong or out of date, not a direct pipeline to current manufacturer information. With really calorie-dense items, I'd still be weighing to see if the package's assumed serving size is close to what I have in hand, because some can be surprisingly far off in weight, too.

A few common things that some folks overlook at first are oils used in cooking, condiments or dressings, beverages, a very few medications or supplements that are calorie dense . . . I'm sure you know you want to be logging every single bite, lick, taste for best accuracy, especially at first. (Long term, with more learning in place, that question of how to log lettuce might get more casual, but oils/butters and things like nuts/seeds are pretty much always a big deal in my world.)

It sounds like you're really dedicated, so this probably doesn't apply to you, but it's also a common problem to see here that people decide to have an unlogged "cheat day" or meal, or skip logging any oopsie meals/days they feel badly about. We always encourage people to log those, too, for complete data. We're all human and figuring this out, no need to beat ourselves up when something doesn't work out, y'know?

On a quick re-skim of your thread, I didn't see where you told us how long you've been at this. The PP saying it takes 4-6 weeks to see a reasonable trend - that's correct. Shorter time, who knows. (I do see that one chart has around a month, but I don't know how consistent that month-ish has been.)

As far as water retention, yes, it will rebalance eventually, and if fat loss is happening in the background, obscured by water/waste weight, eventually the fat loss will accumulate to out-pace any of the misleading water/waste weight. How long that takes varies among individuals, and it will show up faster if there's an actual fast fat loss rate vs. a slow one.

As previously mentioned, muscle gain is less likely in a calorie deficit, and the bigger the actual deficit, the less likely it becomes. Under ideal conditions, a man might consider it a good result to gain a couple of pounds a month of new muscle mass, perhaps half that for a typical woman. Ideal conditions include a good progressive strength program faithfully performed, good overall nutrition (especially but not exclusively ample protein), relative youth, favorable genetics, and a calorie surplus (i.e., weight gain) among other things.

That doesn't mean muscle mass can't be gained unless all of those are true, but high probability it'll be slower than that good result, realistically. An inescapable conclusion from that, IMO, is that no realistic rate of muscle mass gain will outpace any satisfying, readily observable fat loss rate on the body weight scale, over the 4-6 weeks kind of timeline, and likely longer.

Again, I may've missed it on a re-skim, and if so I apologize, but I don't see where you've told us how old, tall, active you are outside of exercise. It looks like you're male, and around 14st something, so maybe 200 pounds-ish for us USA-ians. I also don't know where the 2600-ish maintenance calorie estimate is coming from. If you're average height, not too old, more than sedentary outside of the lifting, it could be reasonable. It's still just an estimate, needs to be tested with that 4-6 week experiment.

Generally, folks above are right: Weight results on average over 4-6 weeks tell a truer story than any estimate from calculators, MFP, or even fitness trackers. It could take somewhat longer for someone who has started an intense lifting program, but probably only if the actual deficit is more modest than 1000 calories a day.

I - and I think we - want to help you succeed at this, if we can. For myself, reaching a healthy weight and reasonable fitness has been a huge quality of life improvement. I want that for everyone, including you.

Best wishes: Success is out there, and it's worth the effort it takes to get there!

I learned early to never use serving size as an entry, always look for either grams or ounces that allows you to accurately weigh things.

your serving size and Joe Blow's who made the entry can be vastly different. Even if you use a gram or ounce entry from the database and it something you'll be eating or drinking often, always double check it on another website for comparison. If those vary then use still another site. I use Chat GPT.