Weight loss foods: Nepali foods ranked by protein and calories

The best weight loss foods are the ones that give you a lot of protein or a lot of food for few calories, so you stay full while eating less. In Nepal’s own food table, lean buff, khasi, chicken, Nutrela, eggs and dahi give the most protein per calorie, and saag, tarkari and thin dal fill a plate for very little. No food burns fat by itself; what counts is the total you eat over the week.

How to read the table

We ranked foods by protein per 100 kcal. A high number means you get a lot of protein for the calories, which helps you stay full and keep muscle while you diet.

All values come from the Food Composition Table for Nepal (DFTQC 2012), with boiled egg and chicken breast from the Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. The table itself says its values carry an error of about ±10%. Serving sizes are our assumptions, so weigh your own once.

High protein, low calorie foods

Food	Protein per 100 kcal	Serving	kcal per serving	Protein per serving
Buff, lean (raw)	22.6 g	100 g	86	19.4 g
Khasi (goat), lean (raw)	18.1 g	100 g	118	21.4 g
Nutrela (soy chunks, dry)	14.3 g	30 g	99	14.1 g
Chicken breast, skinless (raw)	13.0 g	100 g	168	21.8 g
Egg, boiled	9.1 g	1 egg	74	6.7 g
Bhatmas (soybean, dry)	8.1 g	30 g	123	10.0 g
Masoor dal (dry)	7.3 g	30 g (one katori’s worth)	103	7.5 g
Paneer	7.2 g	50 g	166	11.8 g
Dal, cooked (thin)	6.8 g	1 katori, 150 g	73	4.9 g
Dahi (curd)	5.2 g	1 bowl, 200 g	120	6.2 g
Cow milk	4.8 g	1 glass, 250 g	168	8.0 g
Chana tarkari	4.7 g	1 katori, 150 g	190	8.9 g

Meat values are raw weight. Cooking oil and ghee add calories but no protein: 1 teaspoon (5 g) of ghee is 45 kcal.

Two things stand out. Lean buff is one of the leanest proteins in the table, with 0.9 g of fat per 100 g. And cooked dal is mostly water, so a thin katori gives only 4.9 g of protein; a thicker dal with twice the masoor gives about 15 g.

How much protein? The International Society of Sports Nutrition puts 1.4 to 2.0 g per kg of body weight a day as enough for most people who exercise. Our daily protein guide turns that into meals.

Low calorie foods that fill the plate

These don’t bring much protein, but they add volume for few calories. Use them to fill the space that extra rice used to take.

Food	kcal per 100 g	Typical serving	kcal per serving
Saag, cooked	61	100 g	61
Mixed tarkari	61	150 g	92
Dal, cooked (thin)	49	150 g	73
Boiled potato, no skin	72	100 g	72
Apple	59	1 medium (150 g)	88
Makai, boiled	125	100 g	125
Cooked rice (bhat)	129	150 g	194
Roti	218	1 roti (40 g)	87

Rice is on this list on purpose. 150 g of rice with saag, tarkari and a thick dal is a full plate for a lot less than the 250 g canteen pile.

Foods to watch: where calories hide

These aren’t banned. They are just easy to eat a lot of without feeling full.

Food	Serving	kcal	Protein
Chiya with sugar (10 g sugar)	1 cup	73	1.6 g
Samosa	1 piece, 60 g	179	2.8 g
Pakauda	100 g	361	5.4 g
Wai Wai (dry, as sold)	1 packet, 75 g	357	5.8 g
Jeri (jalebi)	50 g	222	1.2 g
Buff momo	1 plate, 250 g	538	29.2 g
Roasted badam	30 g	171	7.9 g
Chiura	50 g	173	3.3 g

Chiya with sugar. The 10 g of sugar is about 40 kcal of the cup’s 73. Four cups a day is 160 kcal from sugar alone. The WHO advises keeping free sugars under 10% of daily energy, and ideally under 5%, which it puts at about 25 g, or 6 teaspoons, a day.

Fried snacks. Samosa, pakauda and aloo chop get most of their calories from frying oil. One samosa is 179 kcal; two boiled eggs are 148 kcal with 13.4 g of protein.

Sel roti. Nepal’s food table lists sel roti, but its calorie figure doesn’t match its own fat and carbohydrate numbers, so we won’t print one. It is fried dough with sugar; treat it like jeri, a festival food to enjoy on the day rather than daily.

Momo. A plate of buff momo has real protein (29 g), but at 538 kcal it is a full meal, not a snack.

Nuts. Badam is healthy food, and 30 g is 171 kcal. Measure a handful once.

Why packaged snacks make it harder

In a 2019 NIH trial, 20 adults lived in a clinic and ate as much as they wanted from either an ultra-processed diet or an unprocessed one, for 2 weeks each. The meals offered were matched for calories, sugar, fat, fibre and salt.

On the ultra-processed diet, people ate about 508 kcal a day more, and gained 0.9 kg in two weeks. On the unprocessed diet they lost 0.9 kg.

In Kathmandu terms, a day of dal bhat, eggs, dahi and fruit is closer to the unprocessed side. Instant noodles, packet biscuits and shop snacks are the other. You don’t need to cut them all; just notice that they make overeating easy.

No food burns fat

Green tea, jeera water, lemon water and apple cider vinegar don’t make fat disappear. Neither do “fat burner” supplements. Weight loss comes from eating less energy than you use across weeks, and the foods above just make that easier.

Want the foods arranged into meals? The 7-day Nepali diet plan for weight loss uses this table day by day, and the weight loss guide covers the training side.

Who this is for, and when to get help

This is general information for healthy adults, not a prescription. If you are pregnant, under 18, have diabetes, kidney disease or a past eating disorder, see a doctor or hospital dietitian before changing what you eat.

If you know what to eat but can’t keep it going past two weeks, that is where a coach helps. Lose fat with a personal trainer, or keep going on your own with the calorie calculator if it’s working.