A system includes a guest memory having guest physical pages (“GPPs”) that includes loan pages having a fixed quantity, a host memory, a processor in communication with the memory, and a virtual machine monitor (“VMM”). The VMM is configured to track a respective state (inflated or deflated) for each respective GPP. Additionally, the VMM is configured to track a respective status (in-use or unused) of each loan page, determine that each respective loan page is in-use, un-assign a first loan page from a corresponding GPP, discard the first loan page thereby changing the first loan page from in-use to unused, and assign the unused first loan page to a first GPP that is inflated, such that the first loan page's status updates to in-use. Each respective GPP having an inflated state is temporarily backed by the fixed quantity of loan pages.