Negative Calorie Foods: Common Foods That Actually Help You Lose Weight

Negative calorie foods are foods that take more calories to burn than they offer naturally. Negative doesn't mean that the food actually has a negative calorie value as this is impossible. It simply means that the body has to work harder to convert these foods into energy than the food is worth.

Lets use celery as an example. A serving of celery offers an average of 6 calories. It can easily take over 12 calories to digest that stalk of celery leaving us with a loss of 6 calories. A myth that chewing burns the calories has surfaced lately but its actually the digestive system's attempt to break down the cellulose in the celery that takes so much energy. There are many foods such as celery that has this property.

A stalk of celery alone will not shave off the pounds of fat there is more to the solution. A pound of fat has about 3,500 calories in it. That means we would have to eat 85 servings of celery and nothing else for a week to lose 1 pound of fat. Sound like fun?...not really.

Below is a list of negative calorie foods in no particular order:

apples, apricots, beets, blackberries, blueberries, broccoli, brussels sprouts, mushrooms, muskmelons, prunes, pumpkin, raspberries, red cabbage, cantaloupe, cherries, eggplant, garlic, grapes, oranges, peaches, pears, peas, pineapple, tangerines, tomato, turnips, watermelon, rhubarb, corn, cranberries, cucumbers, green beans, honeydew, lemons, limes, strawberries, and string beans.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. In fact, nearly all fruits and many vegetables are on the list. I am not going to suggest a specific diet regimen in this article. However, changing the majority of your daily calories to fruits and vegetables it will have a dramatic impact on weight loss.

According to a recent study performed by Dr. Dean Ornish, M.D., of the University of California, at San Francisco, a vegetarian diet consisting mostly of fruits and vegetables, was adhered to by research subjects as an experimental study on the reversal of heart disease. As a result each of the research subjects (all suffering from heart disease), lost an average of 20 pounds without cutting calories or limiting serving sizes.

These subjects were 40 years and older which means they had a relatively slowed metabolism and the research performed involved no prescribed exercise program. This constitutes a dramatic weight loss that could only be attributed to the consumption of various fruits & vegetables. Typical weight loss from a negative calorie diet is about a pound a day. Keep in mind that most nutritionists say it isn't safe to maintain a weight loss of more than 8 pounds a week for very long as it can become a danger to your health.

Keep in mind, completely removing meat and grains from any diet is not advised. To get the benefits of negative calorie foods they should be eaten as large amounts of your daily diet but not by totally replacing the proteins and carbohydrates your body needs. A doctor should be consulted before making any drastic changes to your diet or exercise regimens.