Harder to lose weight when goal is a small amount

Rashawnab

Why is it harder to lose weight when it's a smaller amount that you need to lose? For instance, I'm 5 ft 2 and weighing around 125. I want to lose the last 10 lbs. Why is it so much Harder? I've read it's harder when you have small amount but don't understand why?

kommodevaran

It's not harder, it's slower. You have less wiggle room, so you need to be more accurate.

TeaBea

kommodevaran wrote: »

It's not harder, it's slower. You have less wiggle room, so you need to be more accurate.

This^

Close to goal, you just aren't big enough for a large deficit anymore.

Sabrina0266

I hear you, i'm in the same boat. I'm going up and down the same 3 pounds, but need to lose 10.

jemhh

In general, the smaller you are, the fewer calories you burn throughout the day. In turn, you will likely find that the size of deficit that you can comfortably maintain is smaller as well. You may be able to cut 750 calories out each day if you are 50 pounds over your healthy range but only 200 when you have just 10 pounds to lose, especially if you are already starting at a healthy weight. The math just works out so that it takes awhile to lose that way.

Edited to add: Part of it is also diet fatigue. If you've already lost 50 pounds, that could have taken a year and by this point you may be thinking "good grief I want to be done with this already" so it just feels like a drag in general.

cwolfman13

If by harder you mean slower, then yes...it's harder. As mentioned already, you have less room for error...you also don't have the fat stores to mobilize for faster weight loss. It usually takes me about 16 weeks to dump my 10 Lbs of winter weight I put on every year.

yirara

No, it's not harder but just slower in my experience. Harder as is being extremely precise with weighing and logging? Depends on the kind of person you are, really. I find it easy and quick. And when I'm cooking and find my calorie count for one meal is getting too high (I'm more of a 'lets whack some things together' cook) then I either accept it or chose a different ingredient.

OliveGirl128

kommodevaran wrote: »

It's not harder, it's slower. You have less wiggle room, so you need to be more accurate.

This.

MegaMooseEsq

As a numbers example, I'm 5'2", about 55 lbs overweight, and my maintenance calories are currently 2400. Anything between 1200 and 2400 creates a (healthy) deficit, so woo hoo weight loss. And I can be pretty sloppy too - I can aim for 1800 and be off 500 and still have a deficit. If I accurately hit 1200 I've created a 1200 deficit. But once I lose 45 lbs and am going for the last ten, my maintenance number goes down to 1800, I can't afford to be off much at all, and at best, I can only create a 600 deficit and still be eating a healthy number of calories. I can't lose a pound in three days the way I can now, because I don't have 1200 calories to spare - at best, I can lose maybe a pound a week, assuming perfect logging and never going over my calories.

Fingers crossed I did that math right!

MegaMooseEsq

Another numbers example: in terms of the accuracy aspect of logging, if I have a sandwitch for lunch (as I was going to until I just realized my rolls were moldy), I can use a generic 150 calorie entry for my roll - I know it's not super accurate, but as my daily goal is an 800 deficit, being off 50 or even 100 calories for my roll isn't a big deal (and weighing every dang thing can be such a drag, amirit?!). I know it will come out in the wash because the scale reflects that I'm maintaining a deficit. But now I'm at those last 10 lbs, I only have a 600 deficit, and maybe that roll was actually 250 calories. A couple more mistakes like that and I'll be on the forums posting about how I'm logging everything and only eating 1200 and not losing weight.

PAV8888

You have less excess fat that can be mobilized to provide calories, which means that the deficits you can sustain out of fat stores are smaller.

Your ratio of fat to lean mass lost is also likely to be lower than that of a person with more available fat.

10-20% off of tdee deficits seem to be the most lean mass preserving. As tdee grows smaller so does the deficit in absolute value.

After a long period of weight loss (or frequent dieting, or excessive deficits, or a combination), and for many people, a degree of adaptive thermogenesis takes place. This lowers tdee below what was previously true for the individual, further contributing to making the "last bit" more difficult.

rybo

I find it odd so many say it's not harder, but then list reasons why it is harder. If it's slower...almost by definition it is harder. If it was easy there wouldn't be an endless stream of people "trying to lose that last 10 lbs" and can't. Or losing and regaining that last 5-10.
It's harder because you have less wiggle room
It's harder because you are battling hunger and one little slip has a much more profound impact. It's harder because physiologically your body doesn't like being too lean.
It's harder because many people have an unrealistically low goal weight
It is hard...the general tone of MFP likes to answer every question with "calorie deficit, it's so easy". But actually implenting and maintaining that deficit can be extremely difficult for some people, so they feel like failures or that there is something wrong with them. I think they'd be much better served to understand it's hard, understand they have to be a little more meticulous. And it's OK that it's probably going to take time.
Steps off soap box

Rashawnab

MegaMooseEsq wrote: »

As a numbers example, I'm 5'2", about 55 lbs overweight, and my maintenance calories are currently 2400. Anything between 1200 and 2400 creates a (healthy) deficit, so woo hoo weight loss. And I can be pretty sloppy too - I can aim for 1800 and be off 500 and still have a deficit. If I accurately hit 1200 I've created a 1200 deficit. But once I lose 45 lbs and am going for the last ten, my maintenance number goes down to 1800, I can't afford to be off much at all, and at best, I can only create a 600 deficit and still be eating a healthy number of calories. I can't lose a pound in three days the way I can now, because I don't have 1200 calories to spare - at best, I can lose maybe a pound a week, assuming perfect logging and never going over my calories.

Fingers crossed I did that math right!

Thank you very helpful!

Rashawnab

And yes my maintenance is only 1720 ☹

muszewygrac

That's crap
1720 it's not much eh ?
And that's only for maintenance ....
Good luck

CattOfTheGarage

The other thing is that as you get lighter and your weight loss slows down, water weight fluctuations and scale errors become more noticeable as the fat loss each week is less.

So if you still have 100lb left to lose, you might be losing 2lb of fat a week, and even supposing you get fluctuations of 1 or 2lb, you will still see progress at most weigh-ins.

But if you have only 10lb left to go and you're losing at half a pound a week or less, those fluctuations can actually make it look like you're going backwards.

You see a lot of people with not much to lose posting things like "I keep losing the same 2lb" - actually that's not usually what's happening, it's just that water weight keeps going up and down and the fat loss is so gradual it's hard to spot. This obviously causes a lot of frustration.

Maxematics

Just want to chime in that @rybo and @CattOfTheGarage are spot on. I'm 5'3", started out at 139 which is already within a healthy range on the BMI scale, but very close to being overweight. The first 20 pounds were an absolute breeze but to get from 119 to 110 took a while. Eventually I dropped to 107 when I wasn't trying to lose weight anymore and now I'm 114. Without a food scale, I wouldn't have been able to get as far as I have.

Now that I've been at this weight for a while, every water weight fluctuation is noticeable and annoying no matter how many times it happens and already knowing the source. Yesterday I decided to treat myself to a bbq chicken pizza. This morning's weight was 117.9 pounds. If I didn't weigh in every day and look at my trends, I'd assume I gained 3.9 pounds and start cutting calories, perhaps too drastically. However, it was just water weight. After a trip to the bathroom and a workout, I was already down to 116.2. After my cycle, I always drop 2 to 4 pounds as well. That's how I ended up being 107 pounds when I thought I was maintaining at 110. All that experience and parroting "it's just water weight, be patient!" to others and I still get bent out of shape about my own fluctuations sometimes. So yeah, in my opinion it's harder physically, mentally, and emotionally.