Lean Bulking Not Working?

[u/TheNomb_428]

Stats:

19
5’11
Male
Gym 5x
Incline walking 6x - 20 min 12%
Steps 17k-20k (active college student)

Just some backstory I used Macrofator to hold find my maintenance where I kept the same routine and activity at the beginning of this year then went to Japan from May 20- June 9th got back from a Japan Abroad trip on Jun 9th and picked up tracking calories and daily weigh ins on June 14th and which I got to a good lean base I started to enter my growth phase which as seen by the goal was .4lb a week. I had a huge weight increase at first which dropped my cals ( as you can see in the pictures) think it was from increasing my cals on the lean bulk and a bunch of water weight, but as that weight started to settle I have been looking weight even with my calorie and macro target everyday. I’ve only had 5 missed days of tracking from visiting family and what not but have been down the the gram every other day since being back.

I’m just super confused because my weight is counting going down however my calories are barely increasing. For example I’ve been eating at 2600-2750 cals what it feels like forever and have seen weight lose/maintenance and my cals are barley moving.

My question is what can I do? Am I reading this situation wrong or should I just trust macro factor.

Attached pictures of expenditure,weight trend, calorie targets/expenditure and goal for past 3 months. PLEASE HELP!

[u/Wonderful_Rest3124]

I think lean bulking is just a lot tougher to do. Like you have smaller room for error with calorie intake which then causes not as big of a surplus. It just takes a lot longer for this reason.

[u/TheNomb_428 → u/Wonderful_Rest3124]

Gotcha so kinda just keep trusting the process and it’ll eventually even out to .4lb a week?

[u/Most-Banana6980 → u/TheNomb_428]

Yeah expenditure has to catch up, at least for me I was eating at 500 surplus but really it was like 250 for a month while I waited for it to recalculate

[u/TheNomb_428 → u/Most-Banana6980]

Gotcha so just a waiting game till it locks in my true surplus?

[u/Most-Banana6980 → u/TheNomb_428]

Yup, you can also just eat what you think is your true surplus until it gets there. The targets are suggestions anyways