Half a kilogram a week is the boring, repeatable version of fat loss. It works because it is small enough to stay below the threshold where your body fights back hard, and large enough that you see the trend by week three. The maths is simple. The execution is dull, which is what people get wrong.
The numbers
One kilogram of body fat stores about 7,700 kcal. To lose 0.5 kg a week, you need an average daily deficit of roughly 550 kcal. In practice, that means subtracting 400 to 600 kcal from your maintenance number, every day, for as long as the cut runs.
Find maintenance first. The TDEE calculator gets you within 10 to 15%. Track at maintenance for ten days. If your weight is stable, that is your true maintenance. Subtract 500 from it. That is your cut target.
Why most cuts fail
Three reasons, in this order:
- The deficit was too big. 800 to 1,000 kcal/day deficits work for two weeks, then sleep, training, and adherence all fall over. You cannot out-discipline a hormonal pushback.
- Protein was too low. Below 1.6 g/kg of body weight and the deficit starts pulling from muscle as well as fat. You lose weight but look softer at the end, which is the worst possible outcome.
- The trend was read too early. Daily weight is noisy. Water, glycogen, sodium, hormones all move the number by 1 to 2 kg inside a normal week. Reading the scale on Monday and Tuesday and panicking is the most common reason people abandon a working plan.
The actual plan
Pick a deficit in the 400 to 600 kcal range. Set a protein floor at 1.8 g/kg if you cut while training, 1.6 g/kg if you do not. Carbs and fat float around the calorie budget. Drink water. Sleep eight hours.
Track every day. Not because the daily number matters but because the trend does, and you cannot compute a trend from gaps. Weigh yourself at the same time each morning, log it, and look at the 7-day rolling average on day eight.
Logging without a kitchen scale
You do not need to weigh every meal. You need to be honest about portion sizes within 20%. A photo-based tracker estimates portions from visual cues and lets you adjust if it looks off. A 20% honest photo estimate beats a 5% accurate weighed measurement that you stop doing.
The few things worth weighing exactly, if you want to weigh anything: oils (they are calorie-dense and tiny), nuts and nut butters (same), and protein sources you eat in large amounts (because the protein number matters most). Everything else, eyeball it.
When to adjust
Look at the 10-day rolling average weight. If it has dropped 0.4 to 0.7 kg, you are on track. Hold. If it has dropped less than 0.2 kg, drop the daily target by another 100 to 150 kcal and wait another ten days. Do not drop by 300 or 500. You will overshoot and then need to un-cut.
If you have cut twice and feel cooked, take a 10 to 14 day diet break at maintenance. Eat at the maintenance number you computed at the start of the cut, not at the lower target you have been holding. The break ends with you feeling normal and ready to cut again. You will lose more fat across the year by alternating cuts and breaks than by trying to grind one long deficit.
How long it takes
Eight weeks of cutting at 0.5 kg/week is 4 kg. That is enough to be visible in photos and to drop a clothing size for most people. Twelve weeks is 6 kg, which is a body-composition shift. Beyond that, take a break before continuing.
Most of the people who succeed at this run their cut quietly, log every day, and resist the urge to be a hero. Half a kilogram a week, repeated.
