How to Lose the Last Few Kilos
By CoachAk · · 6 min read
The first few kilos of a diet often come off quickly. The last few drag on for weeks, even when you feel you are doing everything right. That is not bad luck: your body, your habits and your tracking all change as you get leaner. Here is why it happens, how to lose the last few kilos without wrecking yourself, and how to tell when the target itself is the problem.
The short answer
- Your maintenance has dropped. A lighter body burns less, so the deficit you started with has shrunk.
- Your body adapts. You burn less than your weight loss alone explains, and you tend to move less without noticing.
- Hunger rises the more you lose, and tracking quietly drifts.
- The fix: re-check your targets, tighten your tracking for two weeks, protect your daily steps, keep protein high and training heavy, and accept a slower rate.
- Check the target. If it is an old number, a stage-lean look you want all year, or a weight that ignores the muscle you have built, the goal may need to change rather than the diet.
Why the last few kilos are slower
Your maintenance has dropped
A smaller body needs less energy. In a 2011 paper in The Lancet, Kevin Hall and colleagues worked out a rule of thumb for an average overweight adult: each change of about 100 kJ (24 calories) a day in what you eat moves your eventual weight by about 1 kg (2.2 lb). Turned around, every kilogram you lose lowers your maintenance by roughly 24 calories a day.
So if you have lost 8 kg (18 lb), your maintenance is probably about 190 calories a day lower than when you started, and the deficit you set in week one is that much smaller.
Your body adapts, and you move less
In the CALERIE study (Redman and colleagues, 2009, PLOS ONE), 48 overweight adults took part in a six-month trial, most of them in groups that cut their calories. Even after allowing for the changes in their bodies, the dieting groups burned about 430 calories a day less than expected at three months and about 240 less at six months. Those who dieted without added exercise also became less physically active. The authors called it a metabolic and a behavioural adaptation.
That second part is the one you can do something about. Fewer steps, more sitting and less fidgeting can eat a big share of a small deficit without you noticing.
Hunger rises
In a 2016 study by Polidori and colleagues (Obesity), people's drive to eat rose by about 100 calories a day for every kilogram they lost, more than three times the drop in the energy they burned. By the last few kilos, you are fighting more hunger than at the start. How to stop feeling hungry on a diet covers what helps.
Tracking drifts
Months in, portions get eyeballed, oils go unweighed and the odd snack goes unlogged. Even careful people underestimate. In a small 1992 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, Lichtman and colleagues found that people who said they could not lose weight on a low intake were under-reporting what they ate by an average of 47% and over-reporting their activity by 51%.
Leaner means slower, on purpose
In their 2014 recommendations for natural bodybuilders, Helms and colleagues note that the leaner you get, the greater the risk of losing muscle, and suggest a more gradual rate as you get close to your goal. Some of the slowdown is the plan working as it should.
How to lose the last few kilos: tighten up honestly
1. Re-check your numbers
Work out your maintenance again at your current weight, either with the free calorie and macro calculator or from your last few weeks of data. Set your calories from the new number, not the one you started with.
2. Audit your tracking for two weeks
For two weeks, weigh and log everything:
- cooking oils, butter, sauces and dressings;
- drinks, including milk in coffee and alcohol;
- bites and tastes while cooking;
- weekends, which are where many diets leak.
Many people find the gap quickly, and closing it is usually easier than cutting calories again.
3. Protect your steps
Look at your average daily steps now compared with the start of the diet. If they have slipped, bring them back up before you cut food. A daily step target is the simplest guard against the drop in movement the CALERIE study found.
4. Keep protein high and training heavy
This is the stage where muscle is most at risk. Keep protein toward the top of the 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body weight range that a 2018 meta-analysis by Morton and colleagues supports, keep the weights on the bar and aim to hold your strength.
5. Accept a slower rate
About 0.5% of your body weight a week is the slower end of what Helms and colleagues recommend. At 75 kg (165 lb), that is just under 0.4 kg (about 0.8 lb) a week, so the change from one week to the next will look small. Judge the trend over three or four weeks, not one. See how to read the scale.
6. Make one change at a time
If your weekly average has been flat for two to three weeks with honest tracking and steady steps, make one small change: trim calories a little, usually from carbohydrate or fat, or add some steps. Then give it two weeks. Cutting food, adding cardio and dropping carbs all at once leaves you hungry, tired and unsure what worked.
7. Take a break if you have been dieting for months
If you have been cutting for a long time and everything feels harder, a week or two at maintenance may help you finish. In the ICECAP trial (Peos and colleagues, 2021), lifters who took a week at maintenance after every three weeks of dieting reported less hunger and got about the same results, over a slightly longer time.
When the target itself is the problem
Sometimes the diet is fine and the goal is not. Ask yourself honestly:
- Where did the number come from? A weight from your early twenties, before you started lifting, may not fit the body you have now. The NHS points out that BMI cannot tell muscle from fat, so someone with a lot of muscle can be classed as overweight with low body fat.
- Is your waist already in a healthy place? NICE advises keeping your waist to less than half your height. If you are well inside that and still unhappy, the scale may not be the right measure.
- Are you chasing a stage look all year? Stage condition is meant to be temporary. In a 2017 study by Hulmi and colleagues, women dieting for four months for a fitness competition saw leptin, thyroid hormone, testosterone and oestrogen fall, and menstrual irregularities became more common. How long should a cut last? covers why very lean phases should be short.
- What are the last few kilos for? If the answer is "to look better", progress photos and a waist measurement will tell you more than the scale, and you may already be there.
Stop and speak to your doctor if your periods become irregular or stop, if you feel unwell, or if dieting is starting to take over your thoughts. Holding your current weight for a while is a perfectly good result.
How coaching helps
The last few kilos are where an outside view helps most, because it is hard to judge your own tracking, hunger and goals honestly. With one-to-one coaching from CoachAk, you log your weight daily and see a smoothed trend, and your weekly check-in covers your weight, training and nutrition adherence, steps, sleep, energy, hunger, stress and body measurements, with optional progress photos compared side by side. Your coach replies with written feedback on what changes next week and why, whether that is a small calorie change, more steps, a break or a rethink of the goal itself.
If you are stuck on the last stretch, apply for coaching.
Free newsletter
New articles, straight to your inbox
Get new CoachAk articles by email: training, nutrition, contest prep and health, explained plainly.
Free. Unsubscribe any time. Your email address is used only for this newsletter, is never sold, and is not shared with anyone else unless the law requires it. Privacy policy