It'd be nice to have a standard collection of reading. What came to mind offhand on the specific topic of metabolism slowdown / fat cell energy vampirism is this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all

Although when I actually talk to others who are trying to lose weight, a very common comment is, "I'm eating much less on <diet> but my weight isn't going down at all!" Which is worse than what this article reports on - everyone who stayed in the study lost weight on 550 calories/day, but "Some people dropped out of the study" which you would kinda expect if those were the obese people whose fat cells weren't releasing fat at all.