| Hey AYA, glad you took something from the thread.
Anytime you invoke a caloric deficit, your body is going to adapt by slowing down.
Let's look at 2 scenarios.
1. We have a woman with a lot of weight to lose. She starts by figuring out her maintenance intake and creates a deficit based on this number via controlled eating and exercise. Say she creates a 3500 calorie deficit each week via food and another 3500 via exericise... and she's losing a couple of lbs each week.
As her weight falls, her metabolism downregulates not only due to the physiological/biological adaptations associated with any diet.... but also b/c the woman is getting smaller. Caloric expenditure has a lot to do with size.
As she continues, her weight loss will begin to slow b/c what was once a pretty moderate caloric deficit is now becoming conservative as her weight 'catches up' with her metabolism.... follow me?
In this scenario, the woman could keep cutting calories and ride the weight loss down to a normal weight. The idea is to be smart with your deficits. If she starts out by immediately jumping on the 'starvation diet' train..... it's highly likely that she'll plateau before it's necessary and be left with no room to cut calories again since she started so low.
2. We have a woman who is battling her last 5 lbs. She's tiny. Due to her size, she doesn't have the luxury of eating as many calories as the above woman. Because a lot of the physiological adaptations that occur while dieting are associated to our fat stores.... the less fat you have, the more volatile your metabolism becomes the smaller you become. That said, when you are battling the last few lbs.... things aren't as simple as just cutting calories. This is where cyclical diets come into play where you manipulate your caloric intake throughout the cycle, cycle being whatever you plan.
Wow, this seems wordy. I'm half asleep at the moment and probably said way to much.......
Short answer, yea..... sometimes you have to cut calories to keep losing weight and other times you have to raise them. Or sometimes you have to just keep them constant and remain consistent.
As always, it depends. | 
Weight Loss Forum