A lot of people misunderstand what the term 'negative calories' means. All it means for a fruit or a vegetable to contain negative calories is that your body expends more energy digesting the food than it gives you in return. These foods are not a guaranteed way to lose weight, but they should be included in any calorie-controlled diet.
Many nutritionists now argue that the traditional method of counting calories is inaccurate, and we should take into account the amount of energy expended in the digestion of various foods. Different food items like fats take less energy to digest than they give you, and therefore you need to do more exercise to use this energy or it will turn into fat.
The fruits that fall into the negative calorie food list include apples, blueberries, cranberries, honeydew melons, lemons, limes, oranges, strawberries, watermelon, tangerines and plums. There are other fruits on this list, but these are the most readily available in supermarkets. They are all affordable and appetizing, and you should try to eat at least five of these fruits every day.
As for vegetables, there are many on the negative calorie food list, but not all of these are high enough in nutritional value to be worth eating. Celery might be a pleasant addition to a salad, but it contains very little besides hard cellulose and water. While eating celery will help you to lose weight, the amount you would have to eat to show any significant weight loss would probably wreak havoc with your digestive system.
There are a lot of ways to use the negative calorie food list to lose weight, but there are also a lot of reasons why this list can be harmful to dieters. Your body needs a certain amount of energy per day to keep running. Give it more than this and you put on weight, give it less and you lose weight. If you were to only eat the items on the negative calorie food list, your body would eventually not have enough energy to keep its basic metabolic processes running. You will experience fatigue, loss of appetite, lack of concentration, headaches, dizziness and a lot of other worrying symptoms.
The best way to eat the negative calorie food list items as part of a healthy diet is to make sure that they make up at least half of a meal. This way your body will be getting the right amount of energy, but you will use more of it by simply eating. You will be getting all of the important nutrients you need from the fruits, vegetables and proteins you are eating, and you will manage to keep your calorie intake low enough to sustain weight loss or maintain your current weight.
It is important to remember that no diet alone can make you lose weight. A calorie controlled diet containing negative calorie food list items is a great way to speed up your metabolism, but in order to make use of that metabolism you need to stick to a disciplined exercise program. Keeping your protein intake at a reasonable level will help to control your appetite, as many of the items on the negative calorie food list can leave you feeling unsatisfied.
No single type of food or food group can sustain the human body, and a regular, balanced diet is the only way you are going to lose weight. The negative calorie food list is a good guide to some of the fruits and vegetables you should be eating if you want to lose weight, but you need to remember to eat foods that will give you fuel to be active as well.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Negative-Calorie-Food-List&id=743860
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