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How do you
eat more while losing more weight at the same time? One of the best
answers is to eat “negative-calorie” foods, meaning that these foods
actually take more energy to digest than they deliver to your body.
While these foods may be an important source of phytonutrients,
they are not sources of fat-packing calories.
Because of
their surprising lack of calories, these foods can essentially be
consumed in unlimited quantities without you gaining weight
(body fat). That works because your stomach senses when it is physically
full, and it will trigger your brain to stop eating when you can’t
handle more food. You know that “I feel stuffed” feeling? That’s
your stomach (which has its own complex nervous system, by the way),
telling your brain to tell you to stop eating.
This is why,
believe it or not, the simple act of drinking a glass of water
before each meal is a proven weight loss strategy. It fills your
belly with water, thereby reducing the amount of space left for
other foods. So your stomach gets full more quickly, triggering
the “stop eating” signals in your brain.
Eating an
apple before each meal also works in much the same way. This is
true even though apples are not negative-calorie foods. But they
are rich in water, and water takes up space in your stomach.
In fact, that’s
the common property among all negative-calorie foods: They all
contain a lot of water locked in a fibrous matrix. Apples are
essentially “water fruits,” as are grapes and watermelons (hence
the name). Many vegetables are also “water vegetables,” meaning
that they’re loaded with water. Celery, for example, is the classic
example of a water-rich negative-calorie food (see below).
As you read
this list, remember that all foods contain calories, and
that the term “negative-calorie food” is a bit of a misnomer. It
refers to the effective net calories subtracted from your
body through the preparation, eating, digestion and elimination
of these foods. In other words, you expend more calories eating
them than they deliver to your body.
The upshot
is that the more water you consume in your foods, the more
quickly you’ll feel full and stop eating. Water, it turns
out, is the most effective appetite control substance in the world.
So here’s
the list of the five best negative-calorie foods that you can enjoy
every day as part of a healthy weight loss diet:
#1) Celery
One cup of
celery (120g) contains only 19 calories. It takes far more than
19 calories to prepare, eat, digest and eliminate this one cup of
celery, and that’s what qualifies it as a negative-calorie food.
You can eat as much celery as you want, and you won’t gain body
fat.
Even though
celery contains effectively no contributing calories, it does contain
powerful medicine. Celery juice is a powerful anti-inflammatory
medicine, and one of the active constituents in celery –
apigenin
– slashes the risk of ovarian cancer, too.
Celery juice
is fantastic for your health, but if you want to feel more full,
eat whole celery with simple seasonings (see below).
#2) Lettuce,
onions and greens
Lettuce is basically
just structured water locked into a vegetable matrix. One cup
of typical iceberg lettuce contains just 8 calories, meaning
you can munch on this to your heart’s delight and you’ll never gain
an ounce of body fat.
Much the same
is true with onions, which contain only 64 calories per cup
and yet deliver an amazing assortment of anti-cancer
nutrients and immune-boosting medicine.
Virtually
all salad greens are “negative-calorie” foods, meaning you can eat
as many of them as you want. But be careful: Slopping on 300 calories
worth of oily salad dressing changes the entire equation. While
lettuce by itself is a negative-calorie food, salad dressing is
mostly definitely NOT. In fact, salad dressings are often loaded
with cheap soybean oils and even MSG (monosodium glutamate), a chemical
taste enhancer linked to neurological damage and obesity. MSG is
almost always found in “Ranch” flavor dressings, in particular.
#3) Kelp noodles
Eating noodles
is not normally known as a way to lose weight. That’s because traditional
noodles are made with calorie-rich starches derived from grains like
wheat. But even spelt noodles, brown rice noodles and quinoa noodles
still contain a lot of calories.
That’s why
kelp noodles are so amazing: They’re made out of sea kelp,
and they’re packed with water. Yet they perform amazingly well in
soups, raw noodle dishes and even Italian-style dishes like spaghetti.
Kelp noodles
contain just 6 calories per serving, and yet they take up
a lot of physical space in your belly, contributing to that “full”
feeling that reminds you to stop eating.
You may be
able to find kelp noodles at your local health food store. You can
also find them at the
NaturalNews Store, where we’ve just introduced them to readers
who have replied with an overwhelmingly positive response. I’ve
personally been eating these kelp noodles as part of my own health
maintenance program. For example, during the week between Christmas
and New Year’s Day, I went on a juice fast that involved
drinking fresh vegetable juice every morning, then eating steamed
broccoli and cabbage with kelp noodles every evening.
It was a very
cleansing and healthful experience. I also used several key supplements
such as Oxy-Powder from Ed Group’s Global Healing Center (www.GlobalHealingCenter.com)
to help speed my cleansing.
Kelp noodles
are also great for adding substance to light soups or vegetable
broths. They make a broth eat like a full soup (and they make you
feel full, too).
#4) Pickles
Pickles are, of
course, made from cucumbers, and cucumbers are themselves a
“negative-calorie food” because they’re so sparse in calories. One
cup of cucumbers contains a mere 16 calories.
Does that
mean one cup of pickles contains 16 calories, too? Well, not exactly.
You have to watch out for the sugar content in some brands of pickles.
Just pickling cucumbers in vinegar, water and spices won’t add any
calories, but a lot of today’s most popular pickle brands contain
added sugar. This typically adds only a slight amount of calories
to the food. Dill pickles made from cucumbers, for example, have
17 calories per cup.
So they’re
still a negative-calorie food because it takes more than 17 calories
to consume and digest them. If you’re looking to lose body fat or
maintain a healthy weight, eat all the pickles you want.
Beware, however,
of this: Many pickles are made with artificial yellow food coloring
chemicals. In fact, I recently checked this out at the grocery
store and found that 95% of the pickles sold there were contaminated
with FD&C Yellow #5. This chemical should be avoided by everyone
– especially children.
So only buy
natural pickles made without the yellow #5 food coloring!
By the way,
speaking of pickled foods, you can also eat unlimited kimchi
and raw sauerkraut as those are also negative-calorie fermented
foods (they’re actually good for your digestive tract because of
all the probiotics they contain).
#5) Grapefruit
Grapefruit
technically isn’t a negative-calorie food, but it deserves mention
for another reason as you’ll soon see. For starters, it’s still
fairly low in calories, delivering only 74 calories per cup.
But the best
part is that grapefruit contains naringenin, an antioxidant
derived from the bitter flavor of grapefruits, which triggers the
liver to break down fat. So as part of a fat-loss strategy, grapefruit
is truly essential to your daily diet!
Fascinating
research about the fat-reducing properties of grapefruit was just
published in the online journal PLoS. It shows that naringenin
activates two kinds of PPARs (dubbed PPAR-alpha and PPARy) and blocks
LXR-alpha – resulting in fasting-type benefits to the
body.
“It is a process
which is similar to the Atkins diet, without many of the side effects,”
Martin L. Yarmush, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Center for Engineering
in Medicine and one of the paper’s authors, said in a media statement.
“The liver behaves as if fasting, breaking down fatty acids instead
of carbohydrates.”
To get more
grapefruit into my diet, I like to peel it, remove the seeds, then
blend the whole grapefruit into a fruit smoothie. This is
how I get the white grapefruit inner skin, too. And that contains
the best medicine of the grapefruit!
Drinking so-called
“grapefruit juice” does not offer the same benefits, especially
if it’s pasteurized. Only raw grapefruit that includes the
white inner skin (the bitter part) offers these health benefits.
Don’t forget
full-spectrum sea salt
Believe it
or not, full-spectrum salt (not processed salt) is actually a kind
of negative-calorie substance. I’m including it as an addition to
the list of five for reasons you’ll see below.
There’s a
lot of mythology surrounding salt that needs to be dispelled here.
First off, I’m not talking about processed white salt (sodium chloride).
That’s a dietary poison and should never be consumed. Only full-spectrum
salt that’s rich in sea minerals can be considered real food.
In fact, many food cravings are really just cravings for
minerals.
All land animals
(and humans) have an innate biological need for real salt. That’s
why animals go crazy over salt licks. It’s also why deer
wander onto the roadways when they’re salted in the winter. Land
animals need salt, just like you and I. When we lack the trace minerals
found in salt, we get cravings for salt.
Many cravings
for salty snack foods are really just your brain telling you to
eat more salt. And yet the salt used in processed foods isn’t
real salt – it’s fake salt; a shadow of real salt that lacks
the trace minerals found in real salt.
So if you’re
craving chips or salty snack foods, you’re probably deficient in
real salt minerals and need to correct your nutritional deficiency.
So sprinkling full-spectrum salt on your meals (steamed veggies,
smoothies, etc.) can actually satisfy your cravings and reduce
your consumption of unhealthful snack foods.
That’s why
full-spectrum salt is, for many people, an effective “negative-calorie”
substance; because in those who are mineral deficient, eating full-spectrum
salt can ease cravings by satisfying your body’s desire for minerals.
However, if
you show symptoms of high blood pressure, be sure to check with
your naturopathic physician before adding salt to your diet. Most
people consume far too much (processed) salt and need to drastically
reduce their consumption of it before adding full-spectrum salt
to their diets.
Some recommended
full-spectrum salts include Royal Himalayan pink crystal salt, Celtic
sea salt and other truly natural brands. Watch out for cheap “sea
salt” at your grocery store – it turns out that any salt can
claim to be “sea salt” even if it’s highly processed white salt.
The thing to look for in salt is the color of the salt. Real
salt will look pinkish, sandy or brown. The “dirtier” the color
of the salt, the more real it is. The whiter it looks, the less
healthy it is, just as in white bread versus wheat bread.
Feel full
and drop the pounds anyway!
To summarize,
then, here are the five negative-calorie foods that may help you
feel full while greatly reducing your caloric intake:
- Celery
- Lettuce,
onions and greens - Kelp noodles
- Pickles,
kimchi and sauerkraut - Grapefruit
.. and the additional item of: - Full-spectrum
sea salt
Isn’t it nice
to know you don’t have to starve yourself to reduce your calories?
Just eat more of these negative-calorie foods and you’ll
get the benefits of calorie restriction with all the suffering.
Fill your grocery-shopping cart with these foods, and you’ll be
the healthier for it!
Watch for more
healthy tips and strategies here on NaturalNews. And be sure to
check out some of the amazing juicing videos on www.NaturalNews.TV
For example,
watch
this video to learn a cool recipe for making fresh, healing
juice right in your own kitchen.
Reprinted
with permission from Natural
News.
Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning
journalist. He has authored and published thousands of articles,
interviews, consumers’ guides, and books on topics like health and
the environment. He is the editor of Natural
News.
