Negative calorie foods are the type of food that requires more energy to digest the food than the energy provided by the food itself.
To be honest there is no scientific evidence supporting the idea that any food is calorically negative. So here I will go with the consideration that, the thermic effect or specific dynamic action—the caloric “cost” of digesting the food—would be greater than its food energy content.
As you know by now, in order to lose weight you calories eaten must be lower than calories burned, so it is easy to understand why anyone who wants to lose weight would want to consider going for these types of foods.
Here is a shortlist of negative calorie foods–some of them may surprise you:
Celery
Grapefruit
Watermelon
Lettuce
Cauliflower
Oranges
Apples
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Apricots
Zucchini
Tangerines
Carrots
Hot Chili Peppers
One of the great advantages of consuming negative calorie foods, such as those in the list above is that they actually use calories from other sources in your body in order to be digested. Therefore, eating these calorie burners should definitely be included in any weight loss plan.
Keep in mind that when your body runs out of energy from carbohydrate sources, the next place it looks for energy is in your fat. This is one way to get rid of excess fat in your body and this is how negative calorie foods will help you lose weight and maintain the weight that you eventually achieve.
In general, negative calorie foods come from fruits and vegetables as listed above. Other examples include pineapple, papaya, peach, honeydew, and cantaloupe.
These are beneficial because of their negative calorie properties and because they hold strong detox properties. Other vegetables include broccoli, green beans, asparagus, and carrots.
Celery is especially worthy because t only holds 10% of the number of calories required to digest this vegetable, so the remaining 90% has to come from somewhere else, like your fat stores.
To get the best results from these types of foods, remember to alternate eating them with other healthy proteins, carbohydrates, wheat products and those, which contain a lot of fiber.
While you may enjoy eating these foods for a while, you can easily tire of them so do not go overboard. Choose one or two a day to substitute for a meal or snack.
A diet limited to only these foods could lead to malnutrition. However, when it comes to snack times, these choices are real winners.
Also, remember that losing weight is not just, about what you eat or do not eat. Another important key to dropping pounds is a regular activity. This part scares many people because they envision themselves having to enroll in a gym or to go running for an hour every day.
Regular activity should be something that you can maintain throughout your life so it should be something that you look forward to doing (or, at the very least, that you do not dread doing).
In addition, regularly does not mean “every day”. It means “consistent”. One easy type of regular exercise is walking. Taking a 20 to 30-minute walk, three to four times every week would be considered regular activity.
Combining the free list of negative calorie foods with a healthy, well-balanced diet and consistent activity will get you where you want to be with your weight.