Is there such a thing as Negative Calorie Foods?

musicformedia · 19-07-2010 01:20PM #1

Hi guys,

Trying to plan out my meals for the next two weeks as I'm looking at losing about a stone, and I've noticed a couple of websites talking about "Negative Calorie" foods..for example:

http://lifehacker.com/331319/fifteen-foods-that-burn-more-calories-than-they-contain

I'm just curious - is this actually true, and are there foods out there that take more calories to digest, than they contain?

Cheers

Emmett

musicformedia · 19-07-2010 01:24PM

Theres actually another interesting article here on it:

http://my.dietpower.com/features/negative_calorie_diet.php

Seems to be so many differing opinions on it - sounds fairly stupid to me as surely everyone would be on it

Mellor · 19-07-2010 01:29PM

Ice, water etc would be negitive

Hanley · 19-07-2010 01:34PM

Mellor wrote: »

Ice, water etc would be negitive

Not really... there's no kcals in it so it can't be counted as a food.

Zamboni · 19-07-2010 01:39PM

I would say any contribution of a negative calorie food to weight loss would be immaterial.

BroFlo · 19-07-2010 01:40PM

Ive been told celery burns more calories than it actually has, weather thats true Iv no idea, it tastes so bad!!!!

mkahnisbent · 19-07-2010 01:51PM

Just try to eat healthily and be regularly active and you will lose weight and get the body you want.

If you have any sort of quick fix or dieting mentality you are probably going to fail miserably. For example, have you ever seen a slim person who eats Special K? I know I haven't, but I've seen plenty of obese people who do...

rubadub · 19-07-2010 01:57PM

musicformedia wrote: »

http://my.dietpower.com/features/negative_calorie_diet.php

From that link...

Other foods that supposedly have negative calories include asparagus, lettuce, broccoli, beets, onions, cabbage, carrots, cucumber, zucchini, apples, oranges, pineapple, grapefruit, raspberries, pineapple, strawberries, lemons, limes, chocolate truffles, and potato chips. (Sorry, just kidding about those last two.)

carrots are ~5% sugar, and apples, oranges & pineapples -the writer has no common sense at all.

If food is undercooked you get less usable energy from it, so 500kcal of overcooked rice would make you fatter than 500kcal of raw rice.

Hanley wrote: »

Not really... there's no kcals in it so it can't be counted as a food.

Still is worth noting as a substance you can ingest and create an energy loss. If you drink chilled water you must increase its temperature to body temp. I have read of anorexics sitting in ice baths to use up energy, the act of shivering is involunatry muscle movement to heat you up.

An alternative to gastric banding would be to fill your stomach with low calorie foods so you cannot physically eat too much. They can put balloons in your stomach. You could drink psyllium husks mixed with water which will bloat out your stomach.

Another tip is to get off your fat ass and walk to the shop and carry your food home.;)

musicformedia · 19-07-2010 01:58PM

mkahnisbent wrote: »

Just try to eat healthily and be regularly active and you will lose weight and get the body you want.

If you have any sort of quick fix or dieting mentality you are probably going to fail miserably. For example, have you ever seen a slim person who eats Special K? I know I haven't, but I've seen plenty of obese people who do...

Yup, started last week and lost zero pounds - weighed last monday + today. Not unhappy as its ok that I didn't put on weight - had a weekend away with booze/food, so was to be expected.

Going to try keep a book of everything that I eat for the week and then look at how to improve upon it. Girlfriend and I want to loose a stone each in about 8 weeks, so hopefully will go well

cruizer101 · 19-07-2010 02:07PM

Just on the cold water technically could be considered as negative calorie as your body has to use energy to heat it up.

However doing the sums:
1kg(1litre of water)*4200J/kg.K(Heat Capacity of Water)*37(Temperature difference between ice cold water and body temp)=155,400J=37,123calories

So that means drinking a litre of ice cold water burns 37kcal which is a very little in the overall scheme of things.

Magic Eight Ball · 19-07-2010 02:23PM

There are such things as negative calorie foods. But who ever classed apples and oranges as negative calorie needs a slap.

Khannie · 19-07-2010 03:00PM

Zamboni wrote: »

I would say any contribution of a negative calorie food to weight loss would be immaterial.

Agreed.

I read an article on the straight dope (classic site if you have time to kill

) years and years ago. The guy there had an interesting approach to measuring it. As I recall he stuffed his face with as much celery as he could eat and figured out the calorie content of it. Then he worked out how many calories he had burned sitting on his bum during the time it took him to eat the celery. Turns out he couldn't eat enough celery to sustain himself indefinitely (i.e. in that way it is a negative calorie food).

You can't reasonably infer from this that you don't derive a net energy surplus from eating it of course. It was just interesting.

Khannie · 19-07-2010 03:09PM

Here you go.....

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2507/does-chewing-celery-consume-more-calories-than-it-provides

Inspector Coptoor · 19-07-2010 05:20PM

Celery is negative calories afaik.
you spend more cals chewing it tham it gives when it is absorbed.

However, adding sour cream, Philadelphia, salsa etc to the celery negates the negative calories

Cookie_Monster · 20-07-2010 11:27AM

cruizer101 wrote: »

Just on the cold water technically could be considered as negative calorie as your body has to use energy to heat it up.

However doing the sums:
1kg(1litre of water)*4200J/kg.K(Heat Capacity of Water)*37(Temperature difference between ice cold water and body temp)=155,400J=37,123calories

So that means drinking a litre of ice cold water burns 37kcal which is a very little in the overall scheme of things.

adds up though. 37*2.5L*7 days = 647 cals a week.
not to mention all the energy used to constantly go tot he bathroom

UALacrosse · 20-07-2010 01:00PM

As some one already mentioned. Celery burns more calories from chewing it then it actually contains.

Goreygal · 20-07-2010 01:31PM

IMHO the issues isn't so much the calorie content (although that is important from the maths issue of less calories in vs more calories used = weight loss) but the nutritional value of the food you are going to eat, how that will affect you physically (mood, energy, motivation) and how you develop a lifelong healthy eating approach or else the weight will just pile on again when you stop your "8 weeks".

Some of the best websites for validated weight loss advice and info are:

(both the above support/advocate healthy lifestyles for all not medical diets)

Good luck
Gg

alibaba12 · 20-07-2010 02:23PM

check out this website:http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/negative-calorie-foods.html

Mellor · 21-07-2010 03:29AM

Hanley wrote: »

Not really... there's no kcals in it so it can't be counted as a food.

My point was that ingest both leads to a using more energy than if you didn't eat it.
Isn't that the whole point of negative calories foods, a net calorie loss.

cruizer101 wrote: »

Just on the cold water technically could be considered as negative calorie as your body has to use energy to heat it up.

However doing the sums:
1kg(1litre of water)*4200J/kg.K(Heat Capacity of Water)*37(Temperature difference between ice cold water and body temp)=155,400J=37,123calories

So that means drinking a litre of ice cold water burns 37kcal which is a very little in the overall scheme of things.

Doing the sums with calories would of been easier.

1kcal=the energy used to raise 1 litre by 1 degree.
37 degrees=37 calories

slim4life · 27-07-2012 01:17PM

There is 100% no such thing as a negative calorie food...even celery! That belief is a total myth.
The belief comes from the fact that if you chew it for a very very very long time, along with your body going through the normal digestive processes, you will burn more calories than it actually contains. This does not mean that it is a negative calorie food though because technically this is true for every food on the planet...chew it for long enough and you will burn the calories.

Heres a better idea though, eat healthily and dont look for 0 calorie foods because you wont find them, you will have no energy, your hair will fall out and your going to feel like sh*t. If you really want to loose weight its simple, eat 3 meals per day of no more than 400 calories in each one. The downside to not eating allot is that it slows down your metabolism, which means its harder to burn off any food that you consume. To combat this you need to exercise, which boosts your metabolism (along with burning a few hundred extra calories). Do this for a couple of weeks and the weight will fall off you (around 3lb per week)

MrStuffins · 27-07-2012 05:00PM

slim4life wrote: »

Heres a better idea though, eat healthily and dont look for 0 calorie foods because you wont find them, you will have no energy, your hair will fall out and your going to feel like sh*t.

Wait what?

What's this about hair falling out? Is this true?

slim4life · 30-07-2012 09:16AM

MrStuffins wrote: »

Wait what?

What's this about hair falling out? Is this true?

MrStuffins, yeah this is true. When you start eating lots of food with very low calories over a period of time your hair begins to get thinner and will start to fall out. It turns into a kind of dry straw. It makes sence that this happens though, I mean your not giving your body the essential nutrients, minerals etc. that it needs from food. Once this goes on for a period of time your body changes into emergency mode as it knows its not going to have enoguh nutrients to fuel the whole body. It starts to stop feeding nutrients to any non-essential components of the body (such as hair) so it can reserve all available nutrients for the essential components. This is one of the reasons that you always hear about crash diets not working. You will lose weight very fast on them but you wont be able to keep it off, you will feel like sh*t and you will look like sh*t too. Most important thing in a diet is to balance your meals (around 400-500 calories each meal, 3 times per day, all containing a small portion of carbs, protein, vegetables etc.) This 100% will work long term, this is how you change your lifestyle its the only way that will actually work long term

slim4life · 30-07-2012 09:25AM

and on the topic of diets working/not working.... weight loss supplements like milkshakes etc will not work long term either. Trust me I know from experience. The milkshakes have the same effect on your hair and skin in the long term. You will lose weight but over the time you are on them your body gets so used to not having proper meals that when you finally do start to eat again your body keeps storing the fats from the food incase you start going on to the shakes again...sort of defeats the purpose! One thing I found that did actually work quite well was protein bars. I would eat a balanced breakfast usualy of an omellete and maybe a banana during the mid-morning. For lunch I would have a low calorie protein bar (these can be expensive but at the time I bought them in bulk and got a great deal on them). Then for dinner I would just have a half portion of whatever was cooked at home. With exercise this did work quite well and has worked for many friends of mine too. A trick I picked up was to put the bar into the fridge before I ate it. Protein bars are extremely dense and can be hard to chew. If you put them in the fridge they get even harder to chew. You would be working away on the bar for easily 15 minutes, by that time your jaw got sore from chewing and you get peed off and just stop eating it, or if you actually do finish it your too tired to bother with anything else. Obhiously this cant work long term though as its not practiacl to eat a bar every day for the next few years and I am unsure of the long term side effects of this but its allot better than the milkshakes etc. However, it must be noted that exercise is 100% essential. If you think you can lose weight and keep it off you long term your joking yourself. You need to exercise. Even doing light exercise makes a huge difference.

Stench Blossoms · 30-07-2012 10:18AM

Ah FFS!

Your hair will fall out? I know plenty of people with poor diets with f'all hair and I know plenty of people with excellent diets with f'all hair.

slim4life · 30-07-2012 11:00AM

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Ah FFS!

Your hair will fall out? I know plenty of people with poor diets with f'all hair and I know plenty of people with excellent diets with f'all hair.

"poor diets" can still have all the essential nutrients, they may just be very high in fat...The fact that you say yourself you know people with poor diets with no hair, this backs up what I jsut said..and as for the people with good diets with no hair unfortunately thats life lol some people lose hair, others dont. I have a friend that played international football, lost most of his hair before 20! I also know people with full heads of hair at 50.

Mellor · 30-07-2012 11:45AM

slim4life wrote: »

"poor diets" can still have all the essential nutrients, they may just be very high in fat...The fact that you say yourself you know people with poor diets with no hair, this backs up what I jsut said..and as for the people with good diets with no hair unfortunately thats life lol some people lose hair, others dont. I have a friend that played international football, lost most of his hair before 20! I also know people with full heads of hair at 50.

So if they a good diet it's down to "that's life", but if it's a poor diet then it's down to the diet. Bit of a double standard there.

slim4life · 30-07-2012 11:49AM

Mellor wrote: »

So if they a good diet it's down to "that's life", but if it's a poor diet then it's down to the diet. Bit of a double standard there.

No not at all, there are literally dozens of reasons you can lose/keep your hair. I am simply saying that if you dont give your body the nutrients it needs over long periods of time you will lose your hair, regardless of who you are its how your body works. You could be the fittest person in the world on the healthiest diet there is and still lose your hair for many other reasons, but they arent the reasons I was discussing. Simple fact is that if you dont give your body what it needs it starts to stop feeding non-essential components of it, like your hair!

Nervous Wreck · 30-07-2012 11:54AM

If I eat bullshit, will my hair fall out?!

Cork24 · 30-07-2012 11:56AM

Alot of people only eat for their Blood Type,,

"If you Eat the Wrong food for your Blood Type, it could be hard for your body to break down"

Some people get they bloods taken and then see what food is good and what is bad for that type.

slim4life · 30-07-2012 12:06PM

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

If I eat bullshit, will my hair fall out?!

Fill us in on your knowledge behind this

Cork24 · 30-07-2012 12:12PM

slim4life wrote: »

Fill us in on your knowledge behind this

Hair is made up of Proteins.. Lack of Proteins in the Body will Force the Body to take proteins from other parts of the body to use it else where,

So You body will Stop Hair Growth if you have are lacking in Protein and Amino Acids.

I have notice this my self, My Hair has always been fast growth but since i was out sick i could eat for a few weeks and was on a Liquid diet, my hair has not growing one bit.

Is there such a thing as Negative Calorie Foods?

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