Negative calorie foods are those that need more calories to metabolize than the calories they have. For example, if you eat an apple, which has about 65 calories, your body spends about 100 calories in digestion. That is, the body loses about 35 calories in the process and results in weight loss to that extent. Therefore, the apple you have eaten is a negative calorie food. Normally, when you eat any food, your body burns anywhere between 150 and 250 calories, on an average, for its digestion. So if the food you eat has more than 250 calories, say 350 calories, then your gain in weight is equivalent to 100 calories, which represent the excess calories contained in the food eaten over the calories used up in the digestion of that food. Negative calorie foods result in net loss in terms of calories for the body and, naturally, cause weight loss.

Can I lose weight with negative calorie foods alone?

Based on this theory, negative calorie foods have gained immense popularity as means of losing weight quite effectively. However, considerable controversy surrounds the theory. Negative calorie diets attract criticism because of several factors that go against them. There are people who overeat negative calorie foods under the mistaken notion that they will not gain any weight, but instead, they can lose their excess weight faster that way. There is another wrong notion that negative calorie diets work for weight loss, without any physical exercise being included in the weight-loss program. There is no conclusive evidence based on scientific studies that negative calorie foods work the way they are believed to work. Negative calorie foods are only vegetables and fruits, so it is rather difficult to depend exclusively on them, even if you are a vegetarian.

On the other hand, supporters of negative calorie diets say that they are the only diets that work in fact for weight loss, while the other diets never work. You can always add other foods like fish or lean meat to a negative calorie diet containing fruits and vegetables, and they will not fail.

Starvation diets are, they say, a myth, as starvation or skipping meals will only slow down the metabolism in the body, which holds on to its stored fat in times of food deprivation, but will not result in weight loss in the long run. Fat-free and low-fat diets also do not work; speeding up metabolism is the only way for losing weight. There is no end, however, to the criticism directed against one diet or the other.

Almost all negative calorie foods contain antioxidants. They are also full of vitamins and minerals. Most of them possess properties beneficial for preventing diseases and promoting good health.

One can list more than a hundred negative calorie foods that really help you to lose weight. You must incorporate a lot of physical exercise in the negative calorie diets for them to work much better.

Like most others, you may be in search of a wonder weight loss program, which is easy and quick, which works painlessly, which is safe without side effects, which does not put you through unpleasant and strenuous physical activity, which does not deprive you of your favorite dishes and so on, but negative calorie foods do not meet all your conditions.