Research
Energy balance
A decrease in 24-hour Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) during a very low energy diet predicts greater weight regain during the subsequent maintenance phase.
If you lose weight very quickly through severe restriction, your metabolism may slow down significantly. This makes it harder to keep the weight off. To mitigate this, avoid extreme deficits and focus on gradual weight loss to minimize metabolic adaptation.
GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
The decrease in RMR during dieting was positively correlated with weight regain; the more RMR adapted to the negative energy balance due to the VLED, the more weight regain was found afterward.
Why this rating
Strong correlation (r=0.28, p<0.05) in a controlled setting, but observational nature limits causal inference.
Source
Predictors of Weight Maintenance
Wilrike J. Pasman et al. · Obesity Research · 1999
DOI 10.1002/j.1550-8528.1999.tb00389.x
cohort · n=67Cited 195×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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