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Negative Calorie Foods: Fact or Fiction? | Ask The Fitness Nerd

December 27, 2008 on 11:15 am | By Matt | In Ask The Fitness Nerd | 5 Comments

Are Negative Calorie Foods for Real or Just A Bunch of Diet Hot Air? The Fitness Nerd Separates Fact from the Fiction Around Negative Calorie Diets.

Dear Fitness Nerd,

What’s your opinion on negative calorie foods? I’ve read that certain foods like celery require more energy to digest than they provide in calories. Is this true? And if it is, do you have a list of negative calorie foods? Thanks! (Aimee B — Dallas, TX)

Negative calorie foods are one of those dieting concepts that sound so good that you want to believe it’s true.

Just the term “negative calorie foods” conjures up images of eating all you want, and still losing weight. It’s a very powerful promise — and one that fad diet and weight-loss pill marketers rely on on every day to sell you their latest pill, potion or ”weight-loss-secret-revealed” eBook.

Take a look under the hood though, and you’ll find that the concept of negative calorie foods has more in common with a good urban legend than with solid nutrition advice. And like an urban legend, negative calorie foods do have a grain of truth at their center, but that’s about it.

What Is A Negative Calorie?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of negative calories and negative calorie foods, here’s the short version:

The theory is that a negative calorie food is any food that requires more energy to digest than the energy (calories) actually contained in the food. The idea here is that by eating these foods, you can burn more calories than you consume and lose weight more rapidly and efficiently. 

Origins of the Negative Calorie

The concept of negative calorie foods has been around for almost a decade, and has been popularized via two main sources: Internet discussion boards and the 1999 book, Foods that Cause You to Lose Weight: the Negative Calorie Effect, by Neal D. Barnard, M.D. 

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