&gt; <i>This doesn&#x27;t require any &quot;adjustment&quot; on the body&#x27;s part, it is a natural outcome of having less mass to maintain. I am speaking of something different, of the possibility of the body sensing starvation and shifting into kind of a high efficiency sustainment mode, perhaps lower metabolism, perhaps more efficient extraction of calories from food. Does this actually happen, I don&#x27;t know, but I believe from personal experience and reading forums that there is a phenomenon of hitting a weight plateau that is not explained by the simplistic calories in, calories out theory. </i><p>I personally think that what you&#x27;re describing <i>can</i> happen under certain circumstances, most common when you suddenly  under eat calories by a wide margin.. i.e. you&#x27;ve been eating 3000&#x2F;day for years, then suddenly start eating 1500&#x2F;day.<p>So it&#x27;s important to only go a little below your maintenance requirements.<p>If you still hit a plateau, just drop a little more, and repeat. You will push through the plateau, eventually.<p>&gt;<i>Why do conversations on certain topics have to degrade to nonsense if someone doesn&#x27;t agree with your point of view?</i><p>Sorry, that&#x27;s the Engineer coming out in me - when I&#x27;m thinking something through I always immediately think of the minimum and maximum case to better understand what&#x27;s going on. I didn&#x27;t mean to offend.<p>&gt;<i>Some people, me for example, can diet for a period, drop &lt;x&gt; pounds, and then I&#x27;m good for years with paying very little attention to diet - not everyone has it that easy though. But while I am dieting, I prefer to optimize it so it&#x27;s over as quickly as possible.</i><p>You&#x27;re a very lucky person.<p>&gt;<i>The idea of optimizing things is a fairly common theme on this site, but again, there seems to be something about the topic of dieting that changes the way people think.</i><p>I&#x27;m all for optimizing, and I personally think the calories in &#x2F; calories out method <i>is</i> optimizing weight loss. I&#x27;ve never heard&#x2F;seen a better and simpler way. It&#x27;s the fundamental starting point of all diets - i.e. eat less energy than you burn.