Why are the last pounds "slow"?
stephenearllucas
Posts: 255 Member
I've read several times in different posts that it is very common that as an individual approaches his/her goal weight, the last pounds come off slowly?
Why is this? Is there research that documents this, or is it just anecdotal perceptions?
And, if there is research, what is the point at which weight loss slows? Is it at a certain body fat percentage, or BMI, or within a certain number of pounds of the goal?
Just curious--I'm not experiencing this as I approach my goal, so I wanted to know if it really is common / researched / anecdotal / or ????
Why is this? Is there research that documents this, or is it just anecdotal perceptions?
And, if there is research, what is the point at which weight loss slows? Is it at a certain body fat percentage, or BMI, or within a certain number of pounds of the goal?
Just curious--I'm not experiencing this as I approach my goal, so I wanted to know if it really is common / researched / anecdotal / or ????
7
Replies
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They're slow as it would be difficult to decrease the amount of calories consumed without going lower than recommended and eventually developing malnutrition.6
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I've never understood this concept.
Although metabolic and hormonal adaptations caused by a lower bodyweight, long term dieting and a steady reasonable deficit are at play they aren't going to be drastic enough to suddenly grind things to a slow down as you approach some arbitrary number you have set yourself.
Also, if you just review and change your goal so you suddenly have more to lose does this slow down disappear? And then come back when you're near your new goal.
Yours
Equally confused.3 -
cerise_noir wrote: »They're slow as it would be difficult to decrease the amount of calories consumed without going lower than recommended and eventually developing malnutrition.
But if your goal is a reasonable one, why would calories need to be dropped that far?1 -
cerise_noir wrote: »They're slow as it would be difficult to decrease the amount of calories consumed without going lower than recommended and eventually developing malnutrition.
But if your goal is a reasonable one, why would calories need to be dropped that far?
What I meant was one near goal could sustain a .5lb or even a 1lb per week loss no problem for the last 10lbs depending on their TDEE, but if they are already on the lower end of calories, to drop calories any lower to lose faster may not work out as it could mean someone may go too low. Usually those who are close to goal may be at the lower end of reasonable calories, but not always (depending on activity level/TDEE).
Deficits are usually smaller towards goal (for most).3 -
I have no earthly clue, but... they just do.
Signed, the one who only whooshes every 5 weeks now that she only has 5 pounds to lose and is already pretty tiny.
To be serious, a lot of it I think is diet fatigue, you're not as compliant and some of it is metabolic adaptation (this is why I'm currently eating at maintenance for a while).
This all depends also on how long someone has been dieting, the size of the deficit, if they've taken diet breaks, yada yada.
Another factor is that deficits are smaller at the end. It's really easy for small errors in either logging or exercise calories to wipe them out. It's also easy, if you're training harder, for water fluctuations to hide fat losses.
One of the things I've noticed is that I've been steadily losing body fat while the scale has been seemingly standing still for periods. It's due to exercise.3 -
When I was heavier I could aim to lose a pound a week. Now I need to aim at a half pound or less per week. For a woman, especially, water fluctuations easily mask losses at that rate. I am happy if the scale shows 1 lb difference each month at this point.9
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As we get lighter so does our total calories being burned also means less room for logging errors.
Since I've been in maintenance I've dropped a further 7lbs over the last 2 years and my TDEE has went from 2200 to 1950 even with being very active (and only 5 ft 2) So the lighter we get means less calories in.3 -
Because they weigh less so they burn less calories in their exercise. And the calories cant be cut to low so its harder to make a big defecit4
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Mine didn't slow until the last 2lbs.
The reason it did slow? Diet fatigue, increased hunger, and already being happy with the way I looked made it harder to stick to the deficit.6 -
I always thought it was because we weigh less. For me it always seems like 2 pounds when I'm heavier = 1/2 pound when I'm close to my goal. To make a gross exaggeration to make the point: It would be easy for an elephant to lose a pound, but very difficult for a mouse.
But maybe I don't understand it correctly.6 -
If you're only at a -250 calorie deficit which most people are when they get down to the last few lbs, then logging needs to be pin point accurate. And as we know ci/co isn't 100% perfect and predictable and neither is most peoples logging/metabolism/energy expenditure etc etc9
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I'll try to explain this as clearly as possible.
Right now I'm sitting at 201 lbs. At this weight, I burn more calories exercising than I will at 150 lbs (my goal weight). As I shrink in size I will burn fewer and fewer calories while doing the same exercise.
Right now, to maintain my current size at a sedentary activity level, I would need to consume around 2,100 calories daily according to MFP. I have MFP set up to lose a lb a week so I eat around 1600 calories a day (not including exercise calories). The smaller I get the fewer calories my body will need to maintain its weight. Therefore, even with adjusting my calories for weight loss, my deficit will naturally shrink over time until I am perhaps only in a deficit to lose .5 lbs a week or so.
Also, at that point any logging errors will have more effect on the scale. If you have a smaller deficit, say of 250 calories a day to lose .5 lbs a week, even logging errors of 50 - 100 calories a day will have a huge effect.6 -
Much smaller window. Of error, among other things.... and someone who isn't moments from bed will explain it much better. It just is. cheers.4
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Seems pretty simple to me. The heavier you are, the more calories it takes to maintain your weight. Which means as you lose weight, your maintenance calories go down and as Christine 72 points out, small differences in logging will have a bigger effect than when you were heavier. Try putting your calories and info in the following calculator, and see what you get for maintenance; then put your info in with your target weight and you'll see that the number of maintenance calories is lower at your target weight.
http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html1 -
I could lose these 6lbs quickly if i wanted to by creating a 1000 calorie deficit everyday, but I'd be incredibly hungry, lethargic and plain miserable.
And from what I've read on these forums i couldn't be sure how much fat v muscle i would lose on such an extreme deficit.0 -
I thought when I started out that I'd be able to continue my 5 lb/ mo weight loss all the way to my goal weight, because my goal was the top of my BMI range. Here's what I learned
1. My goal weight is quite a bit lighter than I anticipated because I lost several inches due to scoliosis. I'm already 15 lbs under the goal weight I originally set, which was based on my pre-scoliosis height.
2. The lighter I get , the harder it is to live with fewer calories. While I managed just fine on 1500 / day while sedentary and 100 lbs overweight, now I get VERY cranky if I go under 1800 because I'm walking 3-4 miles a day and generally far more active. I think that the hunger signals have ramped up.
3. As others said, the room for error is smaller when you decrease your deficit
4. Obviously a small deficit means a slower loss.
Now I am losing at a rate of about 2.5 lbs / month. I am aiming for another 5 lbs, possibly another 10 at the most. I may never actually get there because I HATE BEING HUNGRY.4 -
That's pretty much it. Bodies have a tendency to "fight back" hormonally by making a person hungrier and hungrier as they get lighter (within a healthy range). This can make "vanity pounds" quite tricky to lose.3
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For smaller or short people, it's harder to create a deficit. I am 6'5'. When I got down to around 190, I could still easily lose 2+ pounds a week eating around 1300-1400 calories with no exercise. I don't exercise now, and never have. I am very sedentary because I have MS and it's difficult enough to have enough energy to do basic tasks. I also do not work.0
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2. The lighter I get , the harder it is to live with fewer calories. While I managed just fine on 1500 / day while sedentary and 100 lbs overweight, now I get VERY cranky if I go under 1800 because I'm walking 3-4 miles a day and generally far more active. I think that the hunger signals have ramped up.
Now I am losing at a rate of about 2.5 lbs / month. I am aiming for another 5 lbs, possibly another 10 at the most. I may never actually get there because I HATE BEING HUNGRY. [/quote]
Ok I was trying to quote tomteboda and have failed at using the quote function.
Anyway, this is super true for me too. I was losing a pound a week and had no trouble sticking to my calorie target, and now that I'm close, I'm so hungry! I recently read an article about bodies that have lost weight being 20% hungrier than bodies of the same weight that haven't lost weight. Or something like that. Sure feels true here.1 -
emilysusana wrote: »The lighter I get , the harder it is to live with fewer calories. While I managed just fine on 1500 / day while sedentary and 100 lbs overweight, now I get VERY cranky if I go under 1800 because I'm walking 3-4 miles a day and generally far more active. I think that the hunger signals have ramped up.
Now I am losing at a rate of about 2.5 lbs / month. I am aiming for another 5 lbs, possibly another 10 at the most. I may never actually get there because I HATE BEING HUNGRY.
Ok I was trying to quote tomteboda and have failed at using the quote function.
Anyway, this is super true for me too. I was losing a pound a week and had no trouble sticking to my calorie target, and now that I'm close, I'm so hungry! I recently read an article about bodies that have lost weight being 20% hungrier than bodies of the same weight that haven't lost weight. Or something like that. Sure feels true here.
Same here. A month or two ago I was at 10-15 lbs from my goal weight (145) and losing happily at 1 lb a week. It's like as soon as I transitioned to .5 lb/wk, something switched off in my brain and I went from steady weight loss to wanting to lay around and eat everything in sight. Took a diet break at that point, but I'm struggling to get back into my groove. Have also regained a few pounds, so I get to tackle those as well.2 -
FWIW, that didn't really happen for me.
I mean, I intentionally reduced my deficit as my goal got closer - from 2lbs loss per week initially, to 1 pound target per week at about 20-25lbs before goal, then 0.5 pound at around 10lbs to go - and loss slowed accordingly. But it never slowed beyond what I expected. At about 5 lbs to go, I started adding 100 daily calories every 2 weeks or so, to coast into maintenance, and overshot goal by around 4-5 pounds.
So mysteriously-slowed loss may happen for you . . . or it may not. For sure, it's not universal.4 -
I think in addition to all above regarding the metabolism adaptation, smaller deficit, etc, there is a water retention factor at play as well...
When a person first goes on a diet they often lose a lot of water weight due to making better food choices that are not as high in sodium so you see a big loss that first week, and also larger losses for a few more weeks as there is less and less inflammation in the body as a reaction to regularly eating large quantities of inflammatory foods (and even if the person continues to eat salty or inflammatory foods they tend to at least be in smaller amounts once they reduce their calorie intake). So more weight loss can generally be expected at the beginning because a lot is water weight from water retention & inflammation. There's also less food moving through the digestive system so that will show as lost weight on the scale at first too.
You don't get any of this happening after dieting for several months so you tend to mostly see true fat loss at the end of the journey. So that also contributes to it going more slowly when you're almost to goal.1 -
FWIW, that didn't really happen for me.
I mean, I intentionally reduced my deficit as my goal got closer - from 2lbs loss per week initially, to 1 pound target per week at about 20-25lbs before goal, then 0.5 pound at around 10lbs to go - and loss slowed accordingly. But it never slowed beyond what I expected. At about 5 lbs to go, I started adding 100 daily calories every 2 weeks or so, to coast into maintenance, and overshot goal by around 4-5 pounds.
So mysteriously-slowed loss may happen for you . . . or it may not. For sure, it's not universal.
I haven't had the weight loss slow-down many talk about. I hit my goal weight fine and am still losing (not intentionally). I attributed it to me still have plenty of fat on me.0 -
Basic math.
If your body needs 2200 calories a day to maintain a certain weight and I consume 1500 calories daily, that gives me a loss of 700 calories a day. Assuming the same activity levels at a lower weight, your body now needs only 1900 calories to maintain your current weight. If you continue to consume 1500 calories daily, your loss is now 400 calories a day. Thus, the weight takes longer to go away.1 -
FWIW, that didn't really happen for me.
I mean, I intentionally reduced my deficit as my goal got closer - from 2lbs loss per week initially, to 1 pound target per week at about 20-25lbs before goal, then 0.5 pound at around 10lbs to go - and loss slowed accordingly. But it never slowed beyond what I expected. At about 5 lbs to go, I started adding 100 daily calories every 2 weeks or so, to coast into maintenance, and overshot goal by around 4-5 pounds.
So mysteriously-slowed loss may happen for you . . . or it may not. For sure, it's not universal.
I haven't had the weight loss slow-down many talk about. I hit my goal weight fine and am still losing (not intentionally). I attributed it to me still have plenty of fat on me.
I don't think that's why, in my case. I hit 116 at 5'5", which is in the normal BMI range, but just in. And I'm moderately muscle-y for a li'l ol' lady, besides - guessing at BF% in the bottom half of the 20s, which is some fat still, but not a big surplus.
Glad to hear there are others with a similar experience, though. I see quite a few people experiencing the slowdown, but have others in my friend feed who didn't seem to experience it, either, and they weren't eating crazy-low/poorly, or exercising like fiends, either.0 -
The body fights back, it gets used to running at a certain weight and the set weight can be changed but it takes time. Especially if you are dropping to a weight lower than you've ever sustained or a weight that hasn't been sustained over a long period of time.
Most will say go to an extreme calorie deficit but this isn't necessarily the "best way", a 300 - 500 deficit is generally all that is needed with some extra cardio to really fight through those last stubborn lbs. The issue with dropping calories too low for a significant period of time is you could ultimately reset your maintenence calories and at such a low deficit your body could and chances are would start to retain fat and water causing your weight to increase.
Another thing you can try is intermittent fasting for awhile to see if your body responds well to that, people have mixed feelings and results with it but when it comes down to that last stubborn 5 - 15 lbs there have been plenty of success with IF.
High body fat burns more calories, muscle burns even more .. but if you're cutting body fat and not necessarily building muscle then the weight loss can slow down quite a bit as you get smaller and smaller, I'm not sure of your goals, capabilities, or current program but adding some strength training or more if you already are and can might be beneficial as well ... some compound movements such as squats (just an example) can really increase your calorie burns, this isn't about getting buff or killing yourself in the gym but more about adding ways to increase your overall calories burned over the course of the week
Hope this helps.
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1) Your TDEE is lowered as you get lighter
2) Adaptive thermogenesis
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Another effect is that the water retention becomes more noticeable - fluctuations which were barely noticeable when you were losing 2lb a week can completely drown out fat loss when you're only losing half a pound a week or less. They don't slow weight loss but they can affect your perception of it, so it looks like you've been losing the same half pound over and over for three weeks, when actually there's a downward trend, but it's hard to see it. Plotting a graph and putting a trend line on it (either with Excel or an app like Libra) can help.6
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I hit my original goal weight (it was near the high end of a healthy bmi) easily without it slowing down then decided I wanted to get leaner and now that I'm down to the last 5-10 I want to lose (lower end of healthy bmi) it's super slow. Even with it set to -0.5lbs/week that only gives me 1370cals/day. That's tough to stick to with 100% accuracy so I'm actually losing at a rate more like 0.25lbs/week.0
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If you are already at a low weight, there's no way to knock out enough calories to get a big deficit without eating too little; and one pound is bigger as a % of your bodyweight if you are lighter.
Proportionally:
A 300lb person losing 9lb is losing 3% of her bodyweight
A 100lb person losing 9lb is losing 9% of her bodyweight, that is like the 300lb person losing 27lb.
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