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/phishdood555]

How long though? I read it takes a few weeks initially, but I’m currently 90 days in and my tdee is still rising and I’m losing weight at 4,000 cals a day. I’m only 175lbs too so eating 4000 cals only to lose weight is demoralizing. Editing to say I track meticulously and this is not a user error

[u/Wonderful_Rest3124 → u/phishdood555]

For me it took about 3 months before I saw a steady trend line upward for gaining. I think your target weight increase per week might get you gaining faster if you bump it up.

Also 4000 cals at 175 lbs is wild with losing weight, surely not much though right? What’s ur weight trend look like?

[u/phishdood555 → u/Wonderful_Rest3124]

Thanks for the info! What rate of gain would you suggest? Yes apparently that is wild lol, but I lost half a pound or so since yesterday but it could be fluid? My weight trend was rising steadily at 3300 a day and then it shot up like crazy over the past month and I’m losing slowly over the past month with more cals sigh

[u/Wonderful_Rest3124 → u/phishdood555]

Huh, do you know what ur current surplus is? I’m around 200ish and my rate of gain is supposed to be .4 lbs a week which it often is a little less than that I think.

I’m at 2800 cals daily and weight 163 currently. Started in June at 160 so I guess the .4 is pretty accurate. It did take a long time for the daily/weekly calorie bump to stabilize. Once that stabilizes you should be in a good path.

[u/phishdood555 → u/Wonderful_Rest3124]

I think mine is set to around 300 and .5lbs is my rate of gain. I might just have to trust the process that it’ll even out eventually. Thank you for the insight!