The best way to lose weight is to eat as little as possible, eat just the amount of protein your body needs to spare muscle loss. Eat nothing else. The best way to maintain weight is to eat what keep your hunger and your sweet and starch cravings under control. Using your maintenance diet as your weight loss diet is too slow for most patients. If you are going to stick successfully on a diet, the weight loss has to be rapid to keep you motivated. To lose weight, you have to deprive yourself. 3000 calories a day is a lot more fun than 1000 calories a day. In compensation for the deprivation, you’ve got to see dramatic weight loss, or you are not going to put up with the deprivation. Maintenance is easier, because there’s less deprivation. But maintenance is also harder. because you can insidiously gain weight by increasing your fat calories and carbohydrate calories to much. If you want to successfully lose weight, you’ve got to starve yourself. If you want to sucessfully maintain, you’ve got to limit fat and carbohydrates. Big difference.