Calling all ladies who successfully lost the last 5kg page

[Salad]

Hi girls (and guys if your reading this)
I have 5kg to lose or about 10% bodyfat give or take a bit. obviously I dont pay too much attention to the scales and body fat is more important.

I am trying to get in the best shape of my life before I am 30 in november. I lift heavy and I am 99% primal.

I have auto immune thyroid disease hashimotos.

I managed to lose 7kg and about 30cm from my body in 12 weeks following clean eating and weight lifting + cardio. Then I got sick which lead me to primal and paleo liftstyle which I love and works best for me in maintainng my weight but most of all feeling full of energy and in the best possible health.

I keep getting told that to lose this last 5kg I will need to really dial in my nutrition and make sure I am creating a deficit etc. I dont want to count calories and dont have the time so do I really need to do this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should or could be doing to ensure this fat is melting away by november.

A typical days diet for me is:

breakfast: 3 egg scramble with a dash of cream cooked in butter or sometimes and omelette and bacon
Lunch: usually leftovers such as roast chicken with the skin on served with steamed veggies with butter on top and maybe but not always a 1/4 to half a medium white roast potato
Tea: lean beef meatballs or homemade chicken mingnon (chicken breast and bacon with butter and garlic and maybe a sprinkle of cheese melted on top) or roast or roast or lamb chop with fat on. Always served with steamed veggies with butter and either sweet potato mash or white potato fritters or homemade chips. I know white potato is not the best but I dont eat rice often or at all so sweet potato and white potato is my only variety.
I very rarely snack if I do it may be a piece of fruit or a few nuts or a coconute milk smoothy or just a tablespoon of coconut oil.
I do have a cuppacino once a day which I probably should reduce or cut out.
Would love to hear what you have to say.

[JenniferO]

Often you'll have to get very strict to lose those last few kilo/pounds.

The last few pounds is also relative to what each person thinks is the last few pounds. For some it's a flat stomach, for others it's shredded quads or a six pack.

Your nutrition should vary depending on what the last few pounds are to you. Your diet looks ok but not great. Since you have a realistic timeline I would eat like that for a month and see how your body reacts. If you're not losing the weight you want by September 1 try dropping the taters and replacing them more vegetables and some fruit.

[inesenite]

I am not an expert but having seen your diet, I would say all depends on your current body fat levels and your fitness regime. After I hit a fat loss plateau and decided to do smth about it, it took me rougly 10 weeks to go down just 6 % (from 22% to 16% bodyfat) with very clean diet (only meat, fish, lots of low carb veggies (not going over 50g pure carbs a day, butter, coconut and olive oil), one "cheat meal" a week with higher carbs (usually my normal food with rice or potato, some fruit, chocolate, a glass of wine) and intensive lifting 4 times a week. By intensive I mean circuit, to failure, with very short breaks between sets. Calorie wise I was just under maintenance but not by much. I did my program with my Biosignature trainer, so it included some supplemetation too.
If I were you, I would probably drop all the starch and fruit or eat it only one day a week (some say it revvs up metabolism, cannot really comment cause I did have one "cheat meal" a week all the way through) , up the intensity (not length) of lifting workouts and HIIT instead of normal cardio.

[BestBetter]

I highly recommend reading 'Why Women Need Fat' for a better understanding of why losing the last few will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. If you are one of the genetically lucky few who can accomplish this, congratulations. If not, don't take it as a personal failure.

You will probably need to do some form of calorie cycling, because if you are eating below maintenance calories for an extended period of time, your metabolism will lower. If you want to read more about this, I recommend reading the articles on Lyle MacDonald's Body Recompositon website. Here's an excerpt from one of the articles on his site:


With caloric restriction comes a drop in leptin which causes various effects on tissues such as muscle, liver and fat cells. Additonally, a hormone called ghrelin (released from the stomach and responsive to food intake) will go up. The interaction of these three hormones (and probably others) send a signal to your brain (lateral hypothalamus) that you’re not eating enough (do note that the response is not immediate, there is a lag time between the changes in all of these hormones and the body’s response).

This causes changes in the various neurochemicals such as NPY, POMC and the rest to occur, signalling further changes downstream. Levels of testosterone fall (along with the increased binding to SHBG) along with an increase in cortisol, these both tend to have a negative effect on muscle mass. In addition to the problems with conversion mentioned above, thyroid output tends to decrease over time; I already mentioned the drop in nervous system output.

All of these adaptations serve two main purposes. The first is to slow the rate of fat loss, as this will ensure your survival as long as possible. Related to that, the body tends to shut down calorically costly activities. This includes protein synthesis, reproduction and immune function; there’s little point keeping any of these functioning when you’re starving to death. The drop in leptin, and the changes in hormones that occur are a huge part of why men tend to lose their sex drive (and ability) and women lose their period when they get lean / diet hard.


Calorie Partitioning: Part 2 | BodyRecomposition - The Home of Lyle McDonald

[Salad]

Thanks for the replies I appreciate you all sharing your advice and experience. I will try to dial back on the potatoes and fill it with more veggies and see how I go. I have been slimmer than this before so I know I do not have an unrealistic goal I am just trying to shift the last of the weight I gained when I was pregnant, I know I can do it and I am determined to do it. Its just nice to hear how other have done it too.

[Artichoke]

I'd cut out the potatoes, sweet potatoes and chips and that should do it.

[Paleobird]

I'd cut out the potatoes, sweet potatoes and chips and that should do it.

+1 and, I know it's hard, but bid a fond farewell to the cappuccino.