You have an overweight patient who eats 3000 calories/day but only burns 2000. He'll gain weight.
He decides to make a change and with lots of hard work, he reduces his intake to 2500 calories/day and boosts his burn to 2500 calories a day. Great job! But he gets frustrated, because he isn't losing any weight.
He decides to go overboard and drops his intake to 1200 calories/day while keeping his burn at 2500 calories/day.
Progress! He loses about 2.5 lbs/week.
At a certain point, he starts to plateau. His metabolism begins to slow to compensate for his starvation diet. He works out just as much, but now he only burns 2000 calories a day. He's losing less than 2 lbs/week. Then his burn drops to 1500 calories/day. He's losing just over 0.5 lbs/week.
He continues to lose muscle mass and eventually his burn drops to 1200 calories.
At every point, he loses weight when he burns more than he takes in.
Now he gets off the dangerous diet and eats 2000 calories/day, which was his original burn rate. He begins to regain weight, because his new burn rate is less than his 2000 calorie intake.
At every point when he took in more than he burned, he gained weight.
Please let me know which of my scenarios is incorrect. Thanks.
Come on back after the Karo syrup. We’ll talk.