This article is from the Diet FAQ, by Claudia McCreary cookignnewsletter@chef.net with numerous contributions by others.
Sounds like good math, but your body doesn't work like that. If you make a
habit of consuming fewer calories than your body requires, your body will
automatically go into "starvation mode." In effect, your body says, "If
(s)he ain't gonna feed me, then I'd better slow things down until (s)he
decides to eat again." There are some awfully compelling reasons to lose
weight slowly. If you lose more than a pound or two per week, you're almost
certainly losing muscle, not just fat tissue, and that's exactly what you
don't want to do. (It's your muscles, after all, that work to burn off the
calories you take in!) Also, weight lost quickly is far more likely to be
regained than weight lost very gradually.
 
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