Numbers Don't Seem To Add Up

Hi, so I've been calorie counting since mid-February, started out with an overly aggresive deficit and have since adjusted my intake per the advice I received on CC. My 'maintain' calories per day amount is 2700 and for the past 5 weeks I've been consuming approximately 2100/day for a 600 calorie deficit through diet. I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I'd like because of a couple of back-to-back colds (my little guy just started at his day home last month and has apparently been bringing some 'bugs' home to us). I have been sure to maintain a 1/2 hour brisk walk every work day though.

Now I realize that you can't calculate the amount of pounds you're 'supposed' to lose based on your daily deficit and then expect that exact result but it seems like my progress is nowhere near where it should be. I've only dropped 1.4 lbs in the past 26 days, or in other words, what you'd expect to lose on about a 188 calories per day deficit (less than 1/3 of my actual deficit). Even without any additional progress from hitting the gym, I would think I would have lost closer to triple what I did through dieting.

Any ideas? My progress slowed to a crawl when my deficit was too aggressive and I'm not seeing much (any) improvement even though I corrected my intake over a month ago. The numbers don't add up.

Your metabolism may not have completely recovered from your aggressive deficit.  I recently went though something like this where I think I miscalculated my requirement and was eating a 1500-2000 cal deficit for almost 3 months and not losing.  To break it I took about a 3 week break from working out and didn't count but just made sure I wasn't eating ridiculously.  Now that I'm back at it I am losing again while eating more and feeling better.  Maybe this would work for you.  Just take some time to 'reset' yourself and boost your metabolism. 

Did you get your maintenance calorie level from cc or somewhere else?  Is that for sedentary?  If you post your statistics, we might be able to see what's going on a little better.

Stats: 27, M, 186.2 lbs (as of this morning), light activity

Got my maintenance calorie level from the CC burn meter.

Hmm, you might try using the sedentary setting and entering your activities separately in the activity log.  Sometimes that produces significantly different numbers.  Like the above poster said, your body could also still be adjusting to the change.  Sometimes metabolisms take a while to recover.  I'd wait a while longer (maybe a month?), and if you don't see any change, talk to a doctor about it.  

Also people can over stimate their burn or underestimate their calories or any other form of normal human error. 

I would stick with it another month and see if your metabolism is just needing extra time to adjust.  

After that I'd try being extra careful with intake.  Do you weight everything?  If not try that.    Again give it a month.

After that I'd put my setting to sednetary and manually enter all the major things I do in a day and see if it's possible that there is an expenditure miscalculation.  Give that a month. 

Failing that I'd try lowering your calories another 100 to 200 calories.  Not more then that but you'd still be in a safe deficit if you tried that.   LOL... give that a month.

If all this fails to help show results I'd see a doctor or a nutritionist. I know that's a lot of things and a lot of wait time in between but a body does need time to adjust to any changes.  You also don't want to make too many changes at once because then you will not know what is helping and what is hurting.  

You can also look at what you eat. But I think there are probably those more knowledgable about that then I am.

Good luck and keep your chin up!!  A small loss is still a loss!!

I say set it to sedentary and add in all exercise. 

at your age and weight i think I was eating around 1800 calories and aiming for 2 lbs a week.  What they call sedentary, light, and moderate are not necessarily the same as what I would.  It was far easier for me just to log everything, I mean, you're already logging food, why not spend the extra five clicks to add in two short walks (or whatever your exercise really is).

If you're burning less than you think because your listing active when sedentary is really where you are, that alone would explain the 130 or so deficit that you feel you're experienced.

sedentary male, 27, 186.2 .. I went with my height (5'9): 2300 cal. 

half hour brisk walk... at most I'd guess 2 mi, which is around 200 burn... After that's figured in with sedentary burn as your metabolism is working either way, it'd prolly be around 2400-2450 burn for the day. 

Assuming that's all the exercise you're doing and you're measuring everything perfectly and getting exactly 2100 cals, deficit is only around 300-350. 

Add in the potentially messed up metabolism in the beginning that you were fixing (that may or may not be fixed now).. there you have it.  

While 350 at best should have a better result than what you had calculated your actual loss to be (approx 188 deficit), its still considerably less if you'd gotten 600 and easy to see how it could have happened.  particularly when you realize that the burn rate is really still just a best guess.

From my experience, weight loss isn't linear.  Have you taken your measurements?  I find that they're a much better indicator of actual progress than weight.  To your scale, a pound is a pound.  It doesn't distinguish between fat, water, muscle, or bone, and the ultimate goal is to lose fat and gain muscle, and muscle is denser than fat.

Personally, I find the 3500 calorie deficit = 1 lb fat lost  equation to be an oversimplification.  It's a good guideline, but reality is far more complex.  Conservation of mass and energy certainly still applies (Physics isn't wrong), but there are a lot of variables in there that we fail to account for.