If you’re determined to lose weight, the first step is to create a healthy and smart diet plan. It’s challenging to succeed in dieting without dietary control. How about eating minus-calorie foods you can consume without worrying about gaining weight? Let’s find out which foods around us are minus-calorie foods and whether they really help reduce calories.
If exercise is challenging, start with your diet
It’s natural to reduce calorie intake to lose weight. However, a sudden decrease in meal size can lead to increased hunger, which can cause diet failure. To minimize these side effects, eating foods that don’t cause weight gain, even in large amounts, can be helpful. If you can’t exercise immediately, why not start by gradually changing your diet and restoring your appetite?
What are minus-calorie foods?
Minus-calorie foods have low calories but require more calories to digest. In other words, they leave relatively few calories in the body after digestion and are usually rich in dietary fiber, such as vegetables.
Celery
Celery has 12 calories per 100g. An adult requires 20 kcal to digest 100g of food, making celery a suitable minus-calorie food since the energy consumed exceeds the food’s calorie content. Besides, it is rich in various vitamins, enzymes, and dietary fiber, including Vitamin K, Vitamin C, potassium, and folic acid, making it an excellent food for those on a diet. You can eat celery raw, but it is known that you can consume more energy when juicing it.
Cabbage
Cabbage gives a feeling of fullness, stimulates bowel movements, and helps with constipation. It contains sulforaphane, which protects the stomach and is recommended for those with weak stomachs. To minimize the loss of nutrients, it’s best to eat it raw. Cabbage also benefits skin beauty and can be used in various recipes, making it great for long-term consumption.
Konjac
Konjac, which has 15 calories per 100g, is good for dieters. It is composed of 97% water and is made from the underground tubers of the Konjac plant. It is known to be effective in improving constipation and preventing adult diseases such as diabetes, and it does not contain harmful saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, or sodium. Konjac comes in various forms, such as noodles and jelly, so you have many choices when consuming it.
Tomato
Tomatoes are among the world’s top 10 foods. They contain a powerful antioxidant called lycopene, which prevents aging. They’re also rich in potassium, which helps expel sodium from the body and to avoid swelling. Tomatoes purify the blood, increase blood flow, enhance the supply of nutrients and oxygen in the body, strengthen hair, and have various other effects.
Most have a high water content
The common characteristic of minus-calorie foods is that they mostly have a high water content and give a feeling of fullness. Gaining weight signals that fat accumulates in the body, and if you focus only on eating less while dieting, you’re bound to fail. Therefore, consuming these foods to burn calories and reduce calorie intake can be one way to manage weight.
Low-fat, high-protein foods also help
Raw vegetables and high-protein products are suitable as minus-calorie foods. The low-carb, high-fat diet was once a trend and is still among the most popular. When protein, the muscle-building nutrient, enters the body, it immediately gives a feeling of fullness, and the brain sends a signal to burn the body’s energy. However, if protein is not ingested, our bodies naturally reduce energy consumption and gradually change into a physique that doesn’t lose weight easily. To prevent this, consuming low-fat, high-protein foods like squid, chicken breast, and tuna is beneficial.
Can we only eat minus-calorie foods?
Can we effectively lose weight if we only eat these low-calorie, minus-calorie foods? The answer is NO! Suppose you only eat these foods and exclude other nutrients. In that case, it can lead to nutrient imbalance, and excessive dietary fiber intake can inhibit the absorption of some minerals, leading to problems such as abdominal pain, hair loss, and anemia.
Add them to each meal
If you add minus-calorie foods to each meal, the calories your body needs to digest them are higher than the calories they contain, which can be advantageous for weight control. Reducing carbohydrate intake and consuming enough protein while eating these foods as side dishes can also benefit weight management. Also, drinking a smoothie made with vegetables or fruits can reduce hunger and decrease snack consumption if you feel hungry between meals.
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