Weight gain plateau
M21, 180cm (5'11), currently hovering around 64-65KG (~143 pounds).
I started going to the gym in mid March of this year. My goals were to gain weight. I had unrealistic expectations that I thought overcame, but I am still gaining unreasonably slow.
Here's my timeline:
(All measurements are taken completely naked, bladder empty and in the morning. If I woke up to even drink water during the night I would skip weighting myself for the day)
February 2026: 59,55-60,7kg weekly averages
March 2026, before starting gym: 60,7kg; whole month of March has huge swings from 59,55-61,75kg
April 2026: ranges from 59,9-61,6kg weekly average
At this point I wasn't counting my calories, skipping some gym sessions (I go every other day) and drinking alcohol. I also smoke which killed my appetite and my "intentional eating" was probably hovering around maintenance at maximum.
In may I finally started counting my calories from a baseline of 2800, which I would then soon increase to 3000 and stick to until a week ago.
May 2026: finally reaching 62 kgs with a peak weekly average of 62,3
I would then quickly gain 2 kgs and plateau at around 64-65.
June 2026: 1st week 62,61; last week 64,25 - only month with realistic weight gain
July 2026: 1st week 64,39; last week 64,76 - a whopping 0,37kgs gained while eating 3000 calories every day
1st week of august: 64,65. As of this week in August, I'm averaging 64,72, waking up at 64,4 today.
My peak measurement since starting was 65,2kgs. Peak recorded weight in my entire life is 67,6 which i can't even get back to while trying.
The point of this post is that I need help figuring out what the actual issue might be. Based on my activity level I should be gaining at around 0,5kgs per week, which was only true in June. Even based on the highest activity estimates I should still be gaining 0,25kgs per week.
Ever since I started counting the calories I never skipped the gym and I made sure I would get 3000 calories every day without miss. Constantly undercounting by adding extra grams and using the lowest realistic estimates for non labeled items. I even work at a coffee shop and never count the lattes with syrup and milk or the sugary lemonades i drink towards my daily intake.
My theory is that when I started counting my calories, I was finally in a surplus and my body replenished its glycogen levels, thus leading to a huge gain without actually putting on that mass, yet I think that by now, based on the 0,25kg-0,5kg per week estimate I should have caught up in actual mass and at least have reached 66kg.
Now being real, my activity level could be considered reasonably high. I'm on my feet all day at work, I don't drive, but I never bike. Over the last 6 months, based on my Apple Watch data, my daily steps are at an average of 12,100 per day. Usual range 10000-15000, 20000 if I go gym, work and go out in the same day. I don't really do that much cardio at the gym, 13 mins of medium intensity incline walking. My Apple Watch estimates for the last 6 months an average resting energy of 1743cal + an average of 557cal active energy which would put me at around 2300cal maintenance and would mean a 700 calorie surplus which would mean a whopping 2,7kgs in a month I have never ever recorded.
Yet, I estimate my maintenance is actually around the 2400-2600cal range. which would be 2,3kg or 1,6kg per month which I'm not seeing either . Even at the most egregious estimate of 200cal surplus I would need to gain 0,8 per month which I'm still not seeing.
I don't have diabetes, auto-immune diseases, anything chronic, no parasites. I'm either hugely underestimating my intake (which I doubt considering I'm intentionally undercounting and skipping 200-400 calories in coffees, lemonades little snacks or things i'm offered that i can't be bothered to count) or I'm severely underestimating my maintenance.
Using calorie calculator (180cm, 65kg, 21):
moderate activity level (4-5 exercise per week, while I only gym on average 3,5 times per week)
maintenance: 2454, 0,25 gain 2700, 0,5 gain 2954
active estimate (daily exercise + intense 3-4 times per week) - i would say this is the most accurate if you count me unintentionally walking 12k per day as exercise and my gym sessions as "intense" despite them being mostly weight lifting.
maintenance: 2596, 0,25 gain - 2846, 0,5 gain - 3096 - my current daily calorie goal is 3200.
very active estimate - which I'm definitely not part of the category, but just for comparison:
maintenance 2900, 0,25 gain - 3139, 0,5 gain - 3389 - and based on this i'd still hover at around 100-300 cal surplus, but then again this is definitely not my case.
Smoking could increase my metabolism, but I couldn't say by how much. Everyone is on the leaner side in my immediate family.
I just don't know what could be going wrong to plateau so hard. Looking at the whole picture and not just today or just this week, there's definitely something that's not right. I considered even replacing my scale, but the gym one reads about the same. I'm not eating the healthiest most nutritional diet, but calories are still calories and should count nonetheless, right?. I get around 80-120g of protein per day mostly plant dairy and meat based. I've increased my intake to 3200 calories last week and now I'm going to be seeing how that goes.
I would really appreciate some advice if anyone's gone through this and suddenly changed something that worked or anything that could explain why I'm not gaining. I do look much better than when I've started, but it takes so much more effort and energy to count and get my calories just to get nothing in return and that feels super demotivating. I just go to the gym and sometimes think "why even lift if I'm not putting on anything?", but I've still consistently pushed through these past 2 month for basically nothing in return. What can I do?
