What should I check first?

Check the weakest evidence first. If logs are incomplete, fix the log. If the scale window is short, compare averages. If restaurant meals dominate, mark uncertainty. If the formula estimate no longer matches several weeks of complete data, review maintenance. If symptoms or very low intake are involved, get professional guidance.

What the inputs mean

The checker is intentionally simple. It does not need your weight or calories because it is not calculating a target. It is choosing the next audit lane: log completeness, trend quality, restaurant uncertainty, maintenance estimate, or safety context.

Example notes to copy

  • "Deficit audit: weekend log incomplete. Do not average as a full week."
  • "Deficit audit: scale window under 14 days. Compare weekly averages before changing target."
  • "Deficit audit: restaurant meals are rough estimates. Review oil, sauces, sides, drinks, and portion."
  • "Deficit audit: 28+ complete days available. Compare observed maintenance with formula estimate."

How long before it counts as a plateau

Most reported plateaus are too short to be one. Scale weight moves with water, glycogen, sodium, digestion, training load, illness, travel and menstrual-cycle timing, and any of those can hide several weeks of real change.

Two to three weeks of comparable multi-day averages, with a complete food log across the same window, is roughly the minimum before the word means anything. Less than that and the honest answer is not that progress stopped, but that there is not enough data yet to say.

The weekly average weight calculator produces the endpoints, and the weekly average guide covers making the weigh-ins comparable in the first place.

Check in this order, and change one thing

The order matters, because the cheapest explanations are also the most common.

  1. Log completeness. Missing days, weekends, oil, sauces, drinks and bites while cooking. This is the answer far more often than anything physiological.
  2. The maintenance estimate. It came from a formula and a broad activity category and can be out by hundreds of calories.
  3. The measurement window. Too short, or endpoints taken under different conditions.
  4. Genuine change over time. A smaller body uses less energy, and daily movement often drops quietly during a long deficit.

Then change one variable and hold it long enough to read the result. Changing intake, training and step count together leaves you unable to tell which one did anything.

Limits

This tool is educational. It is not for setting targets in pregnancy, breastfeeding, childhood, eating-disorder treatment, chronic disease, medication-related weight change, or clinical nutrition planning. If tracking creates guilt, fear, compulsive checking, binge and restrict behavior, or pressure to compensate, pause numerical tracking and seek qualified support.