So Are Negative Calorie Foods Really a Diet?

Do Negative Calorie Foods = Diet?

Negative calorie foods have come under fire for a lot of things, and it brings up a really basic question that maybe even the very title of this blog muddles: are negative calorie foods a diet in and of themselves? The general thought seems to be that negative calorie foods are meant as a diet, and that an eating plan should be composed wholly out of the vegetables and fruits that are included in this list. That said, were they meant that way, or not?

This is a hard question to tackle, because there are so many asterisks to any statement I could make, or a lot of "ifs, ands, or buts." That said, all of these foods are extremely low in calories, have high amounts of water and fiber, and are all seen as great snack foods because of the lack of calories and general healthiness of all these garden samplings. That said, negative calorie foods are not meant to be a diet where they are the only food that anyone ever eats. So in that sense, no, there shouldn't be a "negative calorie foods diet," unless you consider it a temporary crash diet that allows you to lose some weight or get past a plateau before going back onto a far more sustainable eating plan for weight loss.

What a negative calorie food list offers is a list of foods that you will not gain weight from, but that will fill your stomach and provide water, fiber, and some basic vitamins that will help your body function and help supplement any diet or work out schedule. This list of foods is very useful in helping out an eating plan, but use them as a heavy supplement to a diet, not as the end all be all of your new weight loss plan. These foods are like hypnosis for weight loss, they can be a huge help, but they won't be enough alone for permanent positive change.

Negative Calorie Fruits: More on Negative Calorie Fruit

Fruits with Negative Calories

While there might be more vegetables than fruits listed among the long lists of negative calorie foods, the majority of people I know will definitely prefer to eat a lot of fruit as opposed to a lot of veggies. Fruits tend to be sweeter, taste better, and are more filling than many of their equally healthy but less tasty counterparts. Negative calorie fruit is a huge part of changing your diet to be far healthier, which for many overweight people is enough alone to start really ramping up the weight loss.

While this blog has already made one (well more than one) very specific post on negative calorie fruit, this is a subject that can definitely be hit in more detail. What might surprise you as you read this list is that many of these fruits are also staples of other weight loss plans that tend to be more respected, or at the very least, less controversial, than negative calorie food. This shouldn't be surprising since everyone should know that fruits and vegetables are often the most healthy food you can eat.

Without any further wait, here is a list of negative calorie fruits:

• Apples
• Pineapple
• Cranberries
• Raspberries
• Strawberries
• Papayas
• Grapefruit
• Mango
  
• Oranges
• Tangerines
• Blackberries
• Blueberries
• Lemons
• Limes
• Watermelon
• Kiwi
• Prunes
• Cantaloupe

You mean apples have negative calories? And pineapple (good time to mention that this blog also has a post on the popular pineapple diet), too? Yes, and yes. At the very least, both of these fruit are on the negative calorie diet list. While I don't know too many people who would eat lemons and limes just because of the negative calories, it's probably very safe to say that there are plenty who would love to eat more strawberries, kiwi, and cantaloupe!

This is a fairly complete list of every single fruit I've seen that is mentioned as negative calorie fruit. Even if you decide not to go on a negative calorie diet, use this list as a great way to simply improve your overall health and your over all diet. From grapefruit to apples to oranges and pineapple, adding these zero calorie fruit to your diet will only help you prosper!

Negative Calories Diet: Can You Really Lose Weight By Eating?

The negative calories diet is not only one of the most popular diet plans of the last couple years, but it's also one of the most controversial diet plans out there. There have been huge arguments over if there is a such thing as a "negative calorie," or if it's all hocus pocus. Adding fuel to the fire are the high and mighty attitudes of some of the people strongly swearing that this diet is a fraud.

The technicalities of what a diet is named or how it scientifically does or doesn't work does not interest me nearly as much as the bottom line of any weight loss plan: does it work? The negative calories diet does work, in part because it calls for the majority of your food to be either fruits or vegetables. This is usually a big improvement on most people's diets, but in addition to that you are kept away from foods like coconuts and potatoes, which are not good for weight loss at all.

A negative calories diet above all else, however, is a supplemental diet. This means you can't only eat the foods on the list and nothing else. If you do this, you will eventually starve to death. This can make the diet tricky. A lot of people will argue that this diet isn't effective: but they'll eat three cheeseburgers loaded with negative calorie foods like green peppers, carrot slices, or other foods. That's like ordering water with a 1,000 calorie fast food burrito: at that point the H2O doesn't really matter.

That does relate to one valid criticism of the negative calories diet is that it is hard to implement into a normal day. Eating apples as a snack or adding green beans to a meal is easy, but that's not enough, so how can you use this diet in your weight loss plans?

There are good books and e-books out there about negative calorie foods and how to use them, and some other diets, like the cabbage soup diet, are designed around negative calorie food principles. Many of the ads you see online for negative calorie foods lead directly to a negative calorie foods cookbook.