Do you factor in negative calorie foods?

Hello everyone!! Newbie here and I'm loving this site! I've learned so much from reading just the forums alone. I have a question, and I've tried to find the answer already but no one seems to have talked about it.

I read up on the whole Negative Caloris food thing and it seems great! I'm very fortunate enough to NOT like dipping sauces or things like that so I would much rather have my carrots and celery just plain. Now, my question is...if it's a negative calorie food...do you put it on your food log?? I could eat carrots, celery, broccoli, and apples ALL day!! But when I see my "Total Calories" start to creep up, I stop. Are those foods something you track?? How do you factor them into your total calorie intake if you're really not taking in any calories??

I really hope I'm not too confusing!! Any input would be great...escpecially if it's someone telling me I can eat all apples I want!

What do you mean by "negative" calories? To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing. If you eat more calories than you spend, you gain weight, regardless if those calories come from carrots or Big Macs. Of course, I may be completely wrong here, and then I stand corrected.

I know what you mean. I don't use any dips/dressings/ or sauces on my food.

I personally track all of the food I eat daily, including the negative calorie foods. I love grapefruit,carrots and celery. I eat them almost daily because it's a great snack food. I add them to my log because I'm normally below my calories that I need for the day. when I add my calories for those foods, it goes up to the appropriate amount. Just know that the calories from those foods are really good for you, so if you are still hungry and don't have room for any other calories, try a negative calorie food, do a couple  minutes of stretching for each serving, and it will make up for it. I hope that makes sense.

negative calorie foods means that the food has less calories in it than the calories it takes to digest it. carrots, celery, onions, garlic, apples, citrus fruits, and some others are considered negative calorie foods.

(just a little disclamer) Make sure that the negative calorie foods only take up a small part of your diet, and not the whole diet. I knew a friend who did this, and it's not healthy if you don't get enough protien and fats from other sources.

I count everything, even celery sticks.  There's no way to measure how many calories you burn chewing and digesting, so I ignore that factor.  The only exception is vinegar because it takes more vinegar than anybody could stomach to make even one calorie.

You'll find what works for you.

You account for chewing in BMR so you have to count all food. Least I do.

Well, gee, I had 148 calories worth of carrots today! I don't call that a negative! LOL!

It means that it takes more calories to digest than there are in the food.

"Negative calorie" foods are some of my favorites. I don't know if include cooked and raw, or just raw.

I would add these to your log anyway.

I add them if for no other reason than it improves your grade LOL---  I eat a very large salad 2 times a day and if I am hovering on a B grade it will bump me back up to an A

I agree that you should count them.  The only time I think about a food being negative calorie is if I'm hitting my calorie limit for the day.  I go for a negative calorie food at that time, something like an apple or celery.

Let me get this straight: if I ate my daily calorie quota of 2,500 in Apples, I would lose weight? I find that very hard to believe (not that I would anyway, I do realize that I need other things in my diet as well). This sounds to me a little like the myth of losing weight by drinking cold water, the idea being that the body uses calories trying to warm the water.

I am new to this too, but I would like to maybe clear up some of the confusion about "negative calorie" foods. 

Celery to my knowledge is one of the few, if not the only food that can be considered "negative calorie" because the body uses more energy to digest celery then it takes in from it. Infact a whole stick of celery may be just 1 or 2 calories. The reason why Celery is like this is because it is almost completly water and fiber. Water of course has no calories, and fiber is not absorbed and offers no calories. So yes you could eat a diet of all Celery, but that would be just like drinking water all the time.

Any other negative calorie food would work like this, but some of the foods mentioned like onions, carrots and apples are definatly not negative calorie foods, they contain carbohydrates  in the form of natural sugars along with water and fiber. They are all very nutritious and great sources of vitamins and minerals. Look them up to learn more about them.

I would recommend that the idea of negative calorie foods reamain nothing more then just a fun little fact to keep in your mind. If it helps you understand how calories work in your body then that is priceless, unfortunatly There is no diet that can be designed made around it. Moderate portions, wholesome foods, and physical activity remain the only combination that leads to weight loss.

Exactly right!  The "negative" side of that calorie is included in your BMR.  but they will definitely fill you up faster, don't hesitate to eat them (sans sauce, like you said).

Plus, more nutrients per ounce is always awesome!