Yes--lots of CICO-sensitive fasting advocates suggest that the calorie deficit should come during the fasting, and the actual feeding period should be maintenance or even slightly above maintenance, though obviously not enough to reverse the weight loss from fasting.

I take the slightly non-Fungian view that "starvation mode" has more to do with the weight (type and amount) lost than with whether the weight was lost during fasting or calorie restriction. The Minnesota Starvation experiment is often brought up, there's a reason it wasn't called the semi-starvation experiment, the guys were quite gaunt and bony by the end of the experiment. Semi-starvation doesn't just speak to the diet itself, but also to the state of the consumer. Not only would their metabolic rates have likely been just as low if they'd been given no food at all until they'd reached that state, that had better be true, it's an important survival mechanism.

Yes, I know, studies of one or two day fasts show metabolic rate going up, not down. By definition, nobody's lost a significant amount of body fat in that amount of time.

The effect of current diet on metabolic rate at a given level of body fat is another story, the recent NUSI study showing a higher rate of metabolism on a keto versus low fat or Mediterranean diet speaks to that.

I actually think Fung has the right approach, while having some of the wrong explanations.