@faithisleaping@anarres.family
Yea there are weird confounding issues like the muscle strain/rebuild cycle increases water retention, as does general stress, which ramping up exercise causes, and even heat adaptation, and sometimes your body just goes nope not gonna do it for a while. I was starting to stress out because I was stuck at around the same weight (but bouncing around like crazy) for over a month, then I got my expected weight drop based on my calorie deficit in the last 4 days. AFAIK I didn't change a thing, it just happened.
Several times in the past year my loss inexplicably stopped, then fatigue set in and I realized I needed a break. When I did a deload week (regular lifting but at 60% of all my target weights), the weight drop happened.
I'm not going to attempt to give advice on how, but yea establish a caloric deficit that is maintainable for you, get enough fat (which is not much at all), enough protein (if you're lifting it's a LOT), and ride it out.
Unfortunately "boosting" that deficit with exercise is a big lift, lifting in particular just isn't that energetic, and higher burn things like running contribute a ton to hunger, so unless you're keeping diet controlled you will tend to just eat it all back.