That's why anyone can be an expert in this field, lol. These are the kinds of questions that are asked most often and the answer to said questions is always, "It depends."

There are no absolutes here.

If someone has been chronically dieting for an extended period of time, is sure they're in a supposed deficit, and is not seeing any real progress for an appreciable length of time (i.e. not two weeks).... systematically increasing calories toward maintenance over a certain time (for some this may be a week, for others a month) might help to upregulate some of the adaptations they're encountering from the prolonged diet. Once at maintenance, staying there for 1-4 weeks (and that's not written in stone at all) might not be a bad idea.

The truth is more often than not the person isn't really plateaued. What usually is the case is:

a) they aren't tracking their foods appropriately
b) they lack consistency
c) they don't account for the metabolic downshift associated with a loss of weight (lose 30 lbs and don't adjust your intake downward to account for the lesser need of energy in relation to a smaller body and you have yourself a 'plateau.'

The list goes on.

Oh, and there's things like:

d) magic

and

e) the ever so common metabolic diseases

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