My supervisors referred to the full draft I sent them last summer as "full draft", not first draft. Which given how long I'd taken over preparing it (years! part-time student with writing-up nightmare!) was a more accurate reflection.
My problem was the opposite of yours Jojo, so I can't really help with hacking out words. My department expected 80-100,000 words, but no matter what I tried, short of waffling for Britain, I couldn't reach 80,000. My submitted thesis was 70,000 words long, but I passed, so it was ok.