You've lost sixty pounds! Woot! A half pound in a week sounds frustrating, but I do think that over the long haul we all have those weeks and it's too be expected. It might be because of the buffet or it might be just where your body is at with weight loss this week, kwim?

Do you always weigh yourself late in the day? I don't think I've ever even heard of anyone doing that. I am always a fair amount lighter first thing in the morning. Of course, every day I am a fair amount heavier sometime after that. So whatever time you weigh at is probably fine as long as it's consistent. I'm just curious.

It doesn't quite work as clockwork-regular as you are suggesting here.

It takes roughly a 3500-calorie deficit to burn a pound of fat. But you are made of things other than fat. You might burn a pound of fat over the course of the week, but retain a pound of fluid(*). You might burn a pound of fat over the course of the week, but have a 16-oz (1 pound) glass of water in your belly (or the rest of your breakfast) at the moment you weigh. You might have a pound of waste sitting in your large intestines that hasn't been eliminated yet (sorry).

There are too many factors that go into what you weigh for you to see your weight march cooperatively downward every time you weigh yourself. Weight loss occurs in fits and starts - you are not a clockwork machine, even if you follow your plan to the letter. So don't expect to see a perfect week-after-week correlation between how well you follow your plan and what your weight loss is.

Rather, if you maintain a 3500-calorie/week deficit over a period of several months, then at the end of those several months you will be able to look back and see that you have lost, on average, about a pound a week.

(*) Fluid retention too depends upon a lot of factors outside your control. So "but I control my sodium and drink lots of water!" isn't an answer to fluid retention. Your fluid weight will fluctuate based upon weather, hormones, exercise, and a host of other factors you have no control over. Some people theorize that the fat in your body, as it gets burned, gets replaced by water which stays with you for a few days even after the fat is gone, which explains the "whooshes" that some people see in their weight loss. I like this theory myself but I don't know whether it is supported scientifically.

What carter said, and also caloric calculators are really just a place to start - they are a sort of average, which isn't necessarily accurate for you.

Plus, the number of calories you burn can fluctuate pretty widely, depending on your activity levels and other things. Even what you eat can change the amount you burn, via thermic effect and hormonal levels, which can affect your energy levels which can effect your activity levels which can affect your hunger which can affect what you eat... your body is a dynamic system. We're not really equipped to take all of those things into account all the time, so we work from averages and cues that our bodies send us - and, ultimately what we see on the scale and in the mirror.

You had a loss, and even though it wasn't as big as you were hoping for, it still suggests that you're on the right track. Maybe limiting the work buffets is a good tactic to speed up the process a bit and it's great that you're willing to tweak to make things work, but don't be bummed that you didn't lose more - you're doing great! Congrats on the 60 lbs lost!