Whether you eat all fruits and vegetables or nothing but doughnuts, losing weight comes down to calories, which you can track on a calorie counter. You must eat fewer of them than you burn for your body to use stored fat for energy.
Because fresh produce is generally lower in calories than foods like meat, grains, or dairy, it can make staying within a calorie deficit easier. A low-calorie diet usually allows 1,000 to 1,200 calories a day for women and 1,200 to 1,600 for men. But you may not even hit that target if you eat only fruits and veggies. A cup of raw carrots contains only 53 calories, for example.
Very low calorie diets may have as few as 800 calories a day — and could produce a 3 to 5 pound (lb) weight loss in a week for some — but most experts don’t advise that adults follow this style of eating for more than 12 weeks.
Read the full article here
