Heck, I've had a link to the G-flux article as my sig for over a year. And actually do subscribe to it.
The key thing here is exactly what Fengshway says: the deficit should not be too large in order to maintain optimal fitness.
Recently I've come to the conclusion after reading what Lyle McDonald had to say about what approach gives the best fat loss, that there are generally 2 apporaches that give good results
1 keep a tiny dietary deficit and work out hard
2 have a very large deficit, but don't work out hard (low volume heavy lifting, SS-cardio)
The 3rd approach : working out hard but creating in a too large dietary deficit mostly doesn't work well. It results in either overeating or overtraining and even sickness as your immune health also takes a back seat when food intake is limited but you're forcing yourself to be very active.
I happen to have a not so swell working immune system.
Following 1 year of severe undereating and overexercising, in early 2004 I even got hit by spondylodiscitis (bacterial infection in the lower spine) that kept me in hospital for 8 weeks and in a cast for 3 months. This should have cured me like forever for any ideas to be working out hard at a huge deficit.
Yet, it happened again in a very moderate way: late 2007 I got shingles while most people getting this, are in their late 50s /early 60s.
So really: if your desire is to work out LOTS , eat UP! If fat loss is your first goal, cut way back down in activity level. But don't try to do both.. you'll end up overtrained, ill or just annoyed because of overeating.
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