[sidlls]

The "Biggest Loser" contestants undergo an extremely rapid weightloss regimen. It's not clear that similar slowdowns would impact more gradual weight loss regimens, or that it would affect people who start dieting at a lower (but still fat) weight.

[JamesBarney]

Why would you think different rates of weight loss would have different effects? I'm not aware of any studies that say that. Also the hypothesized reason weight loss maintenance is so hard is changes to leptin level which related to absolute level of body fat, not rate of body fat loss.

[fatso83]

This is known for decades. If you drop too fast over too long period of time your metabolism changes base burn rate and you will have a hard time losing fat/staying the same weight once your normalize your diet. There is a reason diets like PSMF at restricted to 1-2 weeks. Not healthy over time.

[JamesBarney]

I've now read several studies about successful long term weight loss maintenance. And none of them mention speed of weight loss as a factor. The Wikipedia article on it doesn't mention it.

Also here's a study that suggests the exact opposite, that rapid weight loss is correlated with long term success.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780395/

[sidlls]

I am not an expert in this area. I speculate the rate is important due to hysteresis in the system.

[JamesBarney]

The system definitely experiences hysteresis.(if you drop and regain weight you're metabolism will be slower) But I haven't seen any evidence that the rate of weight loss has any influence on it. I can see the intuitive appeal, but I haven't seen theoretical, epidemiological, or any other empirical evidence for it.