Zero or Negative Calorie Food- What's the Fuss all about?

People's lifestyle has undergone a remarkable change in the last few decades. This change has had an adverse impact on the metabolic rate of the body, of its ability to burn the calories consumed. A comfortable lifestyle with less physical activity coupled with an increased intake of calories has led to the emergence of obesity, coronary heart diseases, diabetes, and high sugar levels in blood amongst kids, adults and old people.

This situation has become prominent and now everybody has started taking precautions to avoid it. The first step in this direction is to lose weight. Many methods have been employed for losing weight. Different types of weight loss diets, dieting tips, exercise regimes, surgeries, and other types of methods are taken up by people to lose those extra pounds off their body. Eating zero or negative calorie food is one more method of losing weight.

What's the working principle behind the weight loss through zero calorie foods?

The concept of losing weight through zero calorie food employs the principle that weight gain (and subsequently loss) is all about the number of calories consumed by us. If we eat more calories than what our body can burn, the extra calories would increase our weight. Further, if we eat fewer calories than our body's daily requirement, the deficit would burn the fat stored inside us and hence we'll lose weight.

Weight loss can be attained by eating negative calorie foods as well. These are those foods which, once eaten, take out more energy from the body than supplying it. In this way, a deficit is created in the body which is then replenished by burning the fat stored inside our body, eventually resulting in weight loss.

Examples of these Zero or Negative Calorie foods

Some people have doubted the concept of zero calorie foods. In their view, only water is a zero calorie food. It does not provide any amount of calories and only has some minerals in it. However, water is not essentially a food. No one can even think of subsisting on water for an entire day.

Examples of negative calorie foods can be green leafy vegetables. They contain a lot of dietary fiber and water, with a very less amount of calorie. Further, this calorie content is not as high as the calorie content of fruits and those vegetables which contain the naturally occurring sugar, sucrose. As a result, the body ends up burning more energy in their digestion than receiving from it.

Zero Calorie or Negative Calorie foods- Are they 'Healthy'?

Eating zero calorie or negative calorie foods may sound a wonderful method to lose weight. However, if they form a bulk of your meal then you are making an unhealthy choice. By reducing the amount of calories taken in your meal, you are creating an unhealthy shortage of readily available energy for the body. This will have a negative impact upon you as lack of free energy makes the body slip into an energy-conserving mode. You will become sluggish in your movement and this might also have some other serious consequences as well. Hence, subsisting entirely on zero calorie or negative calorie foods is an 'unhealthy' option.