Negative Calorie Diet

From LoveToKnow Diet

The Negative-Calorie Diet promises that by eating certain foods, a person will create a calorie deficit that will lead to fast, easy and relatively painless weight loss.

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The Premise

All foods have calories. However, some foods contain fewer calories than the body needs to digest them. Therefore, if one's diet is focused on these foods, one can eat as much as one wishes and lose weight because the body will have to burn its own energy stores (i.e., fat) to process the food being ingested.

For example, a seven-inch stalk of celery contains about six calories. If it takes the body fifteen calories to process the celery into usable energy and eliminate the waste, then there will be a deficit of nine calories after eating a stalk of celery. This would be the opposite of a slice of cake containing about 300 calories, which might take the body only 50 calories to process, leaving a surplus of 250 calories to burn or store as fat.

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What Foods Are Included?

All negative-calorie foods are either fruits or vegetables, with the exception of ice water. According to the website, there are more than 100 foods from which to choose.

The following foods appear on most online lists:

Vegetables: asparagus, beet, bell peppers, broccoli, green cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chicory, chilies, cucumber, dandelion, endive, garlic, lettuce, onion, radish, spinach, turnip, zucchini

Fruits: apple, blueberry, cantaloupe, cranberry, grapefruit, honeydew, lemon, mango, lime, orange, papaya, peach, pineapple, raspberry, strawberry, tangerine, watermelon

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Pros and Cons

Pros: Anything that encourages people to consume more fresh fruits, fresh vegetables and water is a good thing. Snacking on these foods and using them to create variety in one's diet would promote better health, as these foods contain vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other nutrients crucial to the optimum functioning of the body. Furthermore, many of these fruits and vegetables contain high levels of antioxidants.

Cons: The "science" behind this diet concept is fuzzy at best; at worst, it is non-existent. There have been no controlled, peer-reviewed studies confirming the theory that certain foods require more energy to digest than they bring into the body. If a person failed to maintain variety in the diet, one might end up with a health problem. The diet instruction book is available only as an e-book at $19.99[1].

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