Negative Calorie Diet

The theory behind the Negative Calorie diet is extremely appealing. It works on the idea that your body has to burn energy in order to digest certain foods. As a consequence, your body is actually burning fat. Take for example – an orange, which may contain 50 calories, it would take a certain amount of energy from your body to process all of the nutrients and vitamins within the orange. In doing so, you would burn more than 50 calories. However this is also highly dependent on the speed of your metabolism.

Negative Calorie Diet Foods

A negative calorie food is considered one that requires more energy (calories) to chew, digest and pass, than the energy (calories) the food provides the body. Can this really be possible? What kind of food could possibly have a negative calorie count? Why none of course, that’s just bloody wishful thinking. All foods each have some caloric content but certain foods such as raw vegetables do provide far fewer calories than others. No matter what the calorie or fiber content there is no food, other than cardboard, that can claim to be negative calorie.

Foods Included in the Negative Calorie Diet

The negative calorie or zero calorie diet as it is sometimes called, exists in multiple versions and is basically a list of a certain group of vegetables and fruit high in water content like watermelon, or cellulose like celery and broccoli (which the body cannot easily breakdown) that pass through your digestive system without leaving much behind in the way of nutritional value. Here is a list of fruit and vegetables on the negative calorie list because of their low caloric levels:

• Vegetables: asparagus, broccoli, cucumbers, lettuce, zucchini, carrots, beet, onion, garlic, turnip
• Fruit: watermelon, papaya, grapefruit, pineapple, oranges, apples, peaches, blueberries and strawberries

It is difficult to come up with a complete list of foods because the different versions of the negative calorie diet all include foods that vary.

Negative Calorie Diet Review

The Negative Calorie diet works on the premise that certain foods create negative calorie effects (negative calorie foods), allowing you to lose weight. The Negative Calorie diet is controversial because the theory is not scientifically sound. No foods actually possess ‘negative calories’. However, advocates of the Negative Calorie diet say that you can literally eat your way to weight loss.

The appeal of the diet program is very much that it is easy to follow, and promotes foods that contain a lot of vitamins and minerals. The theory goes that these foods also speed up the metabolism rate, which increases weight loss.

There has been controversy over whether or not the negative calorie diet is a healthy weight loss program. Many people claim to have lost weight with the negative calorie diet over the short-term, but long-term use shows to be difficult because of the strict diet. Limiting your diet to foods on the negative calorie list may result in malnutrition and underlines the importance of a balanced eating plan.