Diets Reviewed

Negative calorie diet consists of foods, which take calories from your body for digesting these foods. The premise of this diet sounds reasonable, but how reasonable it is in function is questionable. Of course, the negative calorie diet cannot serve as a total substitute for a complete weight loss or whole health program.

Your body uses your own calories to digest food you eat and then nutrients of food get absorbed. Some types of food need more calories for digestion. Here, the number of calories you receive from these foods exceeds number of calories necessary for digestion of these specific foods. Under this pretense, you lose weight through the negative calorie diet by burning more calories through natural digestion than you originally consumed.

The Negative calorie diet creates a negative balance in calorific value of food. Different foods under this category include vegetables and fruits like cucumber, celery, asparagus, beets, cabbage, broccoli, garlic, carrot, spinach, grapefruit, apples, cabbage, papaya, cauliflower, zucchini, lettuce, turnip, raspberries, strawberries, oranges, and pineapples.

The problem with the negative calorie diet is its practicality -- it depends largely on the consumption of foods entirely in their unprocessed, natural state. As they are cooked, processed, oils for cooking or butter are added, the caloric condition is changed. The ultra-restrictive nature of the diet makes it much harder to follow - and the condition of constantly counting calories is much like point-counting systems that are difficult to maintain for long term weight loss.

We recommend other weight loss programs that do a better job in our reviews at providing a balanced approach to nutrition than the negative calorie diet. Programs like eDiets provide for a complete nutritional program that include diet and exercise - essential for long term weight loss. Other reputable options include the South Beach Diet and the Eating for Life Diet program.