My personal theory is that you should eat as many calories as you can while losing up to 1% of your body weight. I think for many people, when they cut further than that, they risk reducing their metabolism (call it survival mode or starvation mode). So if you're losing more than 2 lbs per week, don't cut your calories any further. If you're losing less than 3/4 of a lb per week, then perhaps it wouldn't be a terrible idea.
I think the problems with "jump start" weight loss is it tends to have the opposite effect on metabolism. You lose a lot more in the first couple weeks, but it can reduce your metabolism and in the long run result in less weight loss, so that when you go to "regular weight loss" you lose less than you would have if you'd skipped the jump start.
In looking back at my 37 years of dieting, each diet, even the ones with moderately high starting calories, significantly lowered my metabolism for the next attempt. So each diet was more difficult than the last (in that it required more calorie restriction and exercise to see a similar weight loss - and often even then the weight loss was slower than the diet before).
All-in-all, I'd advise anyone to eat as many calories as they are able, and to worry more about maintenance than weight loss. Because losing 10 lbs and maintaining that loss without backtracking, is better in the long run than losing 20 several times.
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