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Negative Calorie Diets and Foods

The Negative calorie diets and foods concept is a relatively new diet philosophy. To understand how it works, imagine a houseguest who not only cleans up after himself, but also goes ahead and cleans up after other houseguests. You might call him a “Negative Mess Guest.”

This is the concept behind “negative calorie” foods. According to this diet theory, if you invite these magic foods into the temple of your body, they will effectively self-destruct their own calories plus a few more. So rather than adding to your calorie stores and requiring that you “take a hike” to work off what you’ve eaten today, these foods come with their own virtual built in hike. Oh, happy day!

What is a Calorie?
A unit of food fuel that is either burned, and used for the day’s energy needs, or stored as fat reserves for future energy needs.

What is a Negative Calorie?
A unit of fuel food from a “host food” which contains, within itself, enough energy producing nutrients to burn 100% of the calories in that host food plus more. This is the “Negative Calorie Effect.”

For example: If a 50 calorie orange requires 75 energy units to burn it away, this creates a 25 energy unit surplus (without the use of exercise). So we burn the orange and more. That's a good houseguest.

What is an Empty Calorie?
A unit of food fuel that adds calories while contributing very few energy producing nutrients to burn that host food with, thus creating excess that must be stored as fat. Hence, we call them “Junk Foods.” This is the houseguest that moves in (with all his junk), then refuses to do a lick of work. They just take up space.

How Negative Calorie Diets and Foods Work

The body works harder to digest them.
From the act of chewing to the nutrient’s absorption into the blood stream, your body is working -- expending energy. As a matter of fact, 10% of daily caloric intake is used just to process the foods. If the energy expended to digest the host food is greater than the calories added by it, the excess energy is forced to burn stored fat. That’s what we want.
Nutrient rich food enhances the fat burning process.
Vitamins & minerals stimulate the body to produce enzymes, or the energy to breakdown the host food’s caloric content. This energy-producing factor is called the “Thermic Effect” of food.

Junk foods have too little, causing most of their calories to be stored. Most foods have a fair percentage, resulting in a partial burning of the host food, with the remainder being stored as fat. The “Negative Calorie Foods” have so many enzyme stimulating vitamins and minerals, the calories from the host food are completely burned and then some.

Skeptics of Negative Calorie Diets and Foods

Skeptics say, “No food has a negative calorie.”
True, but dumb. This is semantic nit picking. Obviously the advocates of this diet don’t assert that a food can have no calories or “negative” calories. It’s just the name of the diet referencing its “negative calorie effect” on the body.
“The Negative Calorie effect has not been scientifically proven.”
True, and a good point. It is theory and conjecture. There is no proof that the increased enzymes produced by these foods actually do enter the bloodstream through the mucosa in the small intestine and thereby positively effect the rate of metabolism. However, at least one study would strongly indicate they do.

At the University of California, at San Francisco, Dr. Dean Ornish M.D. studied the effect of a vegetarian diet (combined with no exercise) on heart patients (mostly over 40 with slowing metabolisms) without cutting calories. In spite of the relatively high intake of calories and low activity, the subjects lost an average of 20 pounds each. This clearly indicates that the impelling force behind the weight loss is within the vegetables themselves.
“Negative Calorie Diets and Foods can cancel out necessary calorie reserves for exercise and weight training.”
I see, so now they think it does work!
“Negative Calorie Diets and Foods can cause weakness – insufficient energy.”
Yes, just as fasting would. Please don’t be extreme on any diet.

Negative Foods List

No big revelation here, you’ve heard it before. “Eat your fruits and vegetables.” The negative calorie foods tend to be fruits and vegetables that are high in vitamins like “C” and high in fiber.

Bet you’ve heard this before as well, “Eat your fiber!” The fiber content alone of green vegetables can help give you that feeling of fullness we all need to feel satiated. Folks, it looks like the “big salad” is not going away anytime soon.

Here’s a partial list of Negative Calorie foods:

Vegetables:

Artichoke
Asparagus
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage (Green)
Carrots
Cauliflower
Celeriac (also known as celery root)
Celery
Chicory
Chili Pepper
Cucumber
Dandelion
Endive
Garden Cress
Garlic
Green bean
Lettuce, Lambs Lettuce
Onion
Papaya
Radish
Spinach
Turnip
Zucchini

Fruits

Apples
Blueberries
Cantaloupe
Cranberries
Grapefruit
Honeydew
Lemons
Lime
Mangos
Oranges
Papaya
Peach
Pineapple
Raspberries
Strawberries
Tomato
Tangerines
Turnip
Watermelon

Herbs & Spices

Basil
Cloves
Dill
Mint
Parsley
Sage
Savory
Tarragon
Thyme

So, does this mean we can eat a large bag of fries and cancel it out with a couple celery sticks? We wish!

One expert says:

“…to optimize this metabolic acceleration, these researched & identified negative calorie foods should preferably be ingested in the absence of additional enzyme robbing “empty calories” (junk food). This would insure that an optimum amount of enzymes are produced for absorption into the bloodstream and not wasted during digestive processes on assimilating calories from foods with poor vitamin and nutrient content.” ….Personal Trainer Magazine

Gosh golly, what a party pooper!

On from Negative Calorie Diets and Foods to Low Carb Diets

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