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I am 24 years old female. Height 5.3" and Weight 58kg.

I want to reduce my weight especially belly and thigh fats. I have just changed my routine to make it possible but I am not sure this will work or not.

Here an overview of my day: I get up at 7.00 am in the morning and do some workout including rope skipping and some other exercises for 30 mn. Then I take a hard boiled egg. In the office, at 9.30 am I take a large cup of black coffee (without milk and sugar) with two hands full of nuts (cashew nuts, pistachio, walnut, and almond). During my break time, I take a bowl full of fruits (two peaches, two apples, 1 pear) at 4.00 pm I take another cup of black coffee. For dinner, I take half piece of roti (bread) with any vegetable or meat.

Is this routine healthy in losing weight and will this lead to weight loss?

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  • I'd like to see you spread your fruit out a bit better through the day, and have some protein with your fruit during your break time. Also, raw vegetables make a helpful snack, such as carrots -- partly because of the roughage, partly because of all the chewing action. Note that you have one or more typos in your boldface question. I'm not sure exactly how to edit it. Sep 10, 2016 at 4:20
  • Thanks @aparente001 for pointing the typos out. Actually, I edited the question some days ago but obviously omitted the bold part. Is this ok now? Best regards. M. Arrowsmith Sep 10, 2016 at 7:57

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The common thought here is to lose weight you need to have more calories going out than coming in (basically, just eat less).

Your TDEE (number of calories you should eat per day to stop any weight change is around the 1600 mark

Lets look at your diet, your exercise is not worth accounting for.

It looks a little like this:

enter image description here

A quick analysis says that if you follow that diet exactly and not pile on sauce onto your dinner then you will lose weight as your calories out > calories in.

HOWEVER You are cutting out protein and fats to lose weight which can work but is not optimal. Carbs, which make up most of your diet are not very "filling"

It's well established that:

protein generally increases satiety to a greater extent than carbohydrate or fat and may facilitate a reduction in energy consumption - Protein, weight management, and satiety, Douglas Paddon-Jones, Eric Westman, Richard D Mattes, Robert R Wolfe, Arne Astrup, and Margriet Westerterp-Plantenga

So while your diet will work, you will probably feel more hungry than if you met your protein and fat intake and cut carbs.

Footnote: Be aware what you are losing weight to show. IF you have no defined muscle structure you will just end up looking frail/skinnyfat.

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  • Very nice answer (+1). Can I ask you where this analysis (the image you have uploaded) comes from (is this a particular website)? Thanks in advance. Best regards. M Arrowsmith Sep 8, 2016 at 13:43
  • Myfitnesspal.com while not perfect, it gives a pretty good picture. Nuts and fruit have a lot of carbs/calories in them
    – John
    Sep 8, 2016 at 15:34
  • Interesting website. Thanks for sharing. Best regards. M. Arrowsmith Sep 8, 2016 at 16:18
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    Although this is technically a good answer, I think the diet will result in more muscle loss than fat loss due to the lack of protein, and if it's continued for very long it's a downright unhealthy diet.
    – Carey Gregory
    Sep 9, 2016 at 1:56
  • While that might seem correct Carey, the body doesn't change what it chooses to lose based on what you are eating. There may be some muscular atrophy but not more than fat loss.
    – John
    Sep 9, 2016 at 6:34
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Your diet will yield poor results. As JJosaur analysis points out, it only contains 1150 Kcal, the amount of vitamins and minerals is quite poor. You also need to eat enough protein as JJosaur has pointed out. What you eat during the entire day is less than what I eat during dinner alone (1800 Kcal) and I weigh less than you (55 kg).

Losing weight via dieting only works well when you are overweight by a large margin. So, if you want to lose 20 kg or more, then eating a lot less will work quite well, you'll then get plenty of energy from your fat reserves for your energy needs. But if you don't have this huge excess of fat reserves, if your goal is to reduce a BMI of, say 22 kg/m^2 to 20 kg/m^2, then eating a lot less than your energy needs won't work well, you'll become fatigued, your body will take measures to conserve energy and minerals, these are then not available to build up and maintain physical fitness.

We have bodies that evolved over hundreds of millions of years, our bodies are programmed via feedback mechanisms mediated by hormones that regulate the metabolic rate, muscle mass etc., the whole point of all this is to enhance the chances of survival given the situation we are in. But, the programming will assume typical prehistoric conditions.

Since your diet amounts to putting your body through a mild famine condition, your body will have made changes to be able to deal with such a condition better the next time. This means that you're likely to regain your old weight on the long term, if not more and your body composition will have changed, you'll have more fat and less muscle. Your basal metabolic rate will have gone down.

I lost weight without intending to do so from about 63 kg to 55 kg by exercising and eating more. I now eat about 3800 Kcal/day and I run for about an hour per day. I only eat healthy foods (whole grains, brown rice, lots of fruits and vegetables). The more I started to exercise and the more I started to eat, the more minerals and vitamins I got in.

Now, running for an hour per day and then eating a lot, is a routine that in a prehistoric setting would correspond to having to work hard to get enough to eat. The body then adapts to deal with this sort of a situation better, that's why I became fitter and stronger. I also lost weight because fat reserves are useless ballast when having to run a lot.

So, I would suggest that you gradually increase your energy expenditure and energy intake. You should eat a lot more carbs in the forms of whole grains and brown rice. This is because energy from carbs can be more easily used for cardio work. Carbohydrate molecules contain more oxygen atoms in them compared to fat molecules, so they require less oxygen to be burned compared to fat.

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  • Bingo. This is exactly what I was trying to convey in my comments to JJ's answer.
    – Carey Gregory
    Sep 10, 2016 at 22:41
  • Thank you so much for such an informative answer. Will search more to make a decision. Sep 12, 2016 at 4:44

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