I love these kinds of questions!

I don't see how you could lose the metabolic advantage if you're still eaing LC. If fat is your primary fuel then breaking that fat down is still going to take energy away from fat grams, giving them a caloric value closer to 5 than to the 9 they are traditionally measured at.

What does slow down as you get further along is the amount of fat you have to lose. Everyone loses a different amount during Induction and throughout OWL, but when you figure out the math everyone tends to follow a typical pattern of percentages. The less you have left to lose the smaller that percentage will be, and consequently the lbs lost on a weekly / monthly basis.

When you've lost a fair chunk of fat you must also deal with your body's biology and self preservation mechanisms. Your body doesn't like to change. It spend roughly 60-70% of it's energy trying to stay just the way it is. Losses in fat require adjustment periods (we like to call them stalls and plateaus) for most of us.

Yes your metabolism will slow when you restrict calories and when you become smaller - there's no way to avoid this. You can lessen the effects, though. You cut calories only as much as is necessary, you eat smaller meals more often, you eat real food over supplements (like bars, shakes) and you lift weights to maintain (or increase) your lean mass. This slow down happens with any WOE, though - it's not particular to LCing. I believe it happens even less with LC thanks to the metabolic advantage, which allows us to eat more calories and still lose.

Nat