6 weeks stuck at 187 lbs — is my deficit even real?

Waist down 2.5 inches with the scale glued in place isn't a stall, that's recomp. Are you measuring same day each week, same time?

Mine sat at 179 for five weeks then dropped 3 lbs over one long weekend. Bodies aren't linear. But six weeks flat everywhere would make me audit my logging.

Do you weigh after lifting days or rest days?

Water from a heavy session can hide 2–3 lbs for a day or two. Weekly averages are less maddening than the daily number.

My log had a hole in it shaped like a margarita.

Same, except mine was cereal at 10pm that I honestly forgot by morning. Saturday tracking is humbling.

The margarita log thing is basically my biography. I stalled at 172 for two months before I audited my own tracking and found three things: cooking oil I never logged, a handful of nuts most afternoons, and weekends that ran 2500–3000 kcal. Average was closer to 2300, not 1800.

I also dropped from 11k to 7k steps without noticing, because I was tired from lifting more. Nothing dramatic changed when I fixed it, just slow steady loss again.

So no, I don't think you're lying to yourself on purpose, but I'd audit a normal week before blaming recomp.

The steps thing is underated. I went from 12k to 6k when my job changed and my deficit just evaporated. Nothing else changed.

If the waist hasn't budged since March either, though, that's not water. That's eating at maintenance. Recomp would still move something over six weeks.

Not always. Eight weeks of recomp tracking and the tape stayed frozen while the mirror was clearly different. The lifting numbers were the only thing that moved.

What did your main lifts do over those six weeks? Squat or deadlift creeping up while the scale sits still says a lot.

Honestly this is hte part I'd want to know too. If your lifts are up and your waist is down, you're not stalled, you're just not seeing it on the scale. If both are flat, then yeah, it's worth re-measuring your actual intake for a week before changing anything.

Six weeks at a true 500-600/day deficit would show up somewhere, so I'd treat the math as innocent until proven guilty but look at the inputs you can't see. The big one is what six weeks of sitting at 187 does to your own patience and consistency; usually it's not the log, it's the handfuls while cooking, the oil you don't measure, or the restaurant meals you estimate 200 low.

The other possibility, and I'd put money on it: you're in an adaptation phase, not a stall. Strength going up, waist unchanged, weight unchanged for six weeks in a real deficit is basically the poster for body recomposition.

Before you cut to 1500 and hate your life, either audit one normal week with a food scale on everything including oils and sauces, or run a deliberate maintenance break at 2200 for 2 weeks and watch what happens when you go back down. Both give you an answer instead of another month of guessing.

Waist hasn't moved but the scale has for six weeks — that's not a stall, that's a pause.

Question for you: are your weekends actually the same as your weekdays? I ask because I tracked perfectly Monday-Friday for months and then my Saturday restaurant meals were quietly 1200 calories over what I logged, which erased almost my whole weekly deficit.

Six weeks is exactly how long that takes to show up as "nothing moving.

Curious whether your lifting numbers have gone anywhere in those six weeks, because if your working weights or reps are up while the scale and the tape are frozen, that's recomp happening, not a broken deficit. I spent a stretch like that where my squat added 20 pounds and the scale literally didn't budge a tenth — same weight, smaller clothes.

The trap is cutting harder right when your body is clearly doing something with the food you're already giving it. 130g protein at 187 is decent but I'd nudge it toward 140-150 while you're in a deficit, and honestly consider a 10-14 day maintenance break before dropping calories further.

Six weeks of tight restriction plus stalled scale is a classic sign your body has adapted to the deficit, and maintenance for a bit often fixes that better than pushing harder.

Check your rings and shoes — mine loosened two full weeks before the scale moved again.

For me it was sleep, not the food log.

I ran 5.5-6 hours a night for a stretch and sat at the exact same weight for seven weeks with zero calorie changes, then fixed sleep first, 8 hours and no phone in bed, and dropped 4 lbs in ten days. Mostly water, sure, but my resting heart rate also fell 6 bpm. What's your sleep looking like lately?

One thing that bit me hard: I weighed everything raw but never counted the oil in the pan or the bites while prepping dinner. That was an easy 250-350 a day I wasn't logging. Try a week of logging exactly as eaten, cooking fats included, and see if the picture changes.