This experience should tell you how pointless defoliation is.
Your plants first reaction to losing leaves is to grow new ones to restore the energy production back to the level it was at prior to defoliation.
So, removing healthy green leaves only to have them be replaced by new healthy green leaves is counter productive. All the energy it took to grow new leaves could have gone into growth elsewhere.
For your plant to grow her biggest and best flowers, she needs a lot of energy. Removing healthy green leaves will mean less energy is produced, meaning slower and potentially smaller growth. I would suggest to only remove any yellow leaves, for by the time they are yellow, they have served their purpose.
Hope this helps,........
Organoman.