Research
Energy balance
Caloric restriction in normal-weight men reduces basal metabolic rate (BMR) by approximately 15% over 21 days, independent of the amount of lean mass lost.
When you restrict calories, your resting energy expenditure drops significantly (by ~15% in this study). This drop is not strictly tied to how much muscle you lose, suggesting a general metabolic slowdown to conserve energy.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
BMR declined from 1,898 ± 262 to 1,670 ± 203 kcal/day... No significant association was observed between quantity of weight or lean mass lost and decline in BMR among individual subjects.
Why this rating
Controlled study with direct calorimetry measurements.
Source
Three weeks of caloric restriction alters protein metabolism in normal-weight, young men
Anne L. Friedlander et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism · 2005
DOI 10.1152/ajpendo.00001.2005
crossover · n=9Cited 57×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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