Over the past 20 years we’ve seen a lot of fad diets come and go, and the negative calorie diet is no different. Maybe you’ve heard your perfectly plump Aunt Bertha boast about the weight loss she experienced eating only fruits and veggies and dropped a whopping load of weight in just a few days. Or maybe you’ve done a little Google search of your own and your curiosity led you to finding out more information on the negative calorie diet. No matter what you’ve heard or what you’ve read, let’s go over this in a simple pro’s and con’s sort of way and get down to the nitty gritty of this so-called miracle diet.
The Good
The concept is simple. The negative calorie diet is based on the premise of ingesting less calories than it takes to burn them. Let’s say you horked down a delicious serving of chocolate cake weighing in at 500 calories. And let’s assume the energy your body uses to digest this magnificent piece of work was 150 calories. You’re left with 350 calories which will inevitably stake their claim on your thighs and buttocks. On the flip side of the coin let’s say you ate a single serving of broccoli and loved all 25 calories of it. Your body is going to use about 80 calories of energy to simply digest it, leaving you with a negative balance of 55 calories. Hence, the negative calorie diet phenomenon. If your body has to work harder to digest a meal, you are burning calories. The reported weight loss can be up to 2 pounds a day and you’ll never feel hungry again. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it?
The Bad
With a diet like this you are limited to very few foods. Granted, most of these foods are scrumptious fruits and vegetables rich with many vitamins and nutrients. But even still you aren’t really getting all your body needs to maintain a healthy lifestyle. You indulge in all the apples, strawberries, grapefruit and melon you can stand. And don’t leave out the celery, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and green beans! Stuff yourself until you can’t stuff anymore. But where is the calcium? Where is the protein? And what about the carbohydrates and healthy fats?
The Ugly
The belief that you are burning fat calories for energy is a farce. Your body naturally hoards fat. This is why exercise is vital to weight loss, and maintaining weight loss. Essentially you are tricking your body into thinking it is starving, no matter how full you feel. The fact of the matter is fat cells are the last resort of energy your body will look to burn.
Not to mention, this style of weight loss isn’t permanent. Oh! It might be drastic weight loss and tempting to jump on the fad diet band wagon, but eventually you are going to go back to eating the things you previously ate that forced you to turn to dieting in the first place.
The Final Answer
Weight loss should be looked upon as a lifestyle change and not dieting. The word “diet” alone comes with the thought of something that is temporary. Why would you temporarily want to lose weight? If you do choose the negative calorie diet, because of the daily intake deficiencies listed above, please consult your physician and definitely keep it short term. It’s perfectly normal to search for a quick fix to shed the weight, but the reality is that becoming overweight wasn’t an overnight process. So don’t expect to lose your excess weight overnight either.
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