How to Calculate Negative Calorie Counts

The idea behind eating negative calorie food while on a diet or trying to eat healthier is to gain nutrients without gaining calories, because gaining calories leads to gaining weight. Raw fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber take more calories than they actually contain to digest, leading to a negative calorie count. In losing weight, you need to make sure you regularly take in fewer calories than you burn. Counting these negative calories will help toward your goal of losing weight, but eating these foods alone won't be enough to achieve significant weight loss.

Instructions

• 1

  Find the estimated number of calories in your negative-calorie food. For example, a medium-size stalk of celery contains about five calories. See "Resources" for calorie charts for raw vegetables and fruits.

• 2

  Calculate the number of calories you burn in chewing the food. According to dietitian Dina Aronson of VegFamily, chewing for a total of 60 seconds burns one calorie.

• 3

  Estimate the number of calories your body uses to digest that piece of food. Around eight percent of a person's daily calorie intake is used in the digestion and elimination of his food. Negative calorie foods take more calories to digest than others because they are higher in fiber and the body has to work harder to break them down into usable units of nutrition. According to dietitian Dina Aronson, digesting a medium-size stick of celery takes up to eight calories.

• 4

  Figure out your negative calories. In this example of eating a celery stick, you burn a total of nine calories while taking in only five. If you subtract nine from five, you get a negative calorie count of four calories from one stalk of celery.