Negative Calories

lizzybathory

There is no such thing as a negative calorie food. The calories burned digesting is all part of your TDEE.

Okay, so not to freak everyone out but I am totally curious to see what people have to say on this one.
My husband says he is sure my breast milk is negative calories. Not to anyone else, of course, just to me. If I were to eat nothing else and only drink water then the more of my milk I drank, the more I would lose because of the amount of energy it takes to make it.

In that scenario, you'd keep losing weight because your body burns calories every day. The breast milk itself isn't negative calories, it doesn't cause weight loss for the person drinking it (thank goodness, because we want our babies to put on weight, right?) but because it contains calories, and it's coming out of your body, it's coming out of your diet. If you were to do what your husband is suggesting, you would lose weight because of all the calories your body burns just existing every day - not because of supposed magical negative-calorie properties of breast milk.

You can count breastfeeding as a calorie deficit while you're doing it, but the concept of negative breastfeeding calories is quite a bit different than the idea that chewing your celery burns more calories than are in the celery. You lose calories by producing breast milk, while "negative calorie foods" suggest you lose weight just by eating them.

Ready2Rock206

Negative calorie foods is some BS someone made up to feel better about overeating. All food has calories don't fall for this nonsense.

tiggerhammon

There is no such thing as a negative calorie food. The calories burned digesting is all part of your TDEE.

Okay, so not to freak everyone out but I am totally curious to see what people have to say on this one.
My husband says he is sure my breast milk is negative calories. Not to anyone else, of course, just to me. If I were to eat nothing else and only drink water then the more of my milk I drank, the more I would lose because of the amount of energy it takes to make it.

In that scenario, you'd keep losing weight because your body burns calories every day. The breast milk itself isn't negative calories, it doesn't cause weight loss for the person drinking it (thank goodness, because we want our babies to put on weight, right?) but because it contains calories, and it's coming out of your body, it's coming out of your diet. If you were to do what your husband is suggesting, you would lose weight because of all the calories your body burns just existing every day - not because of supposed magical negative-calorie properties of breast milk.

You can count breastfeeding as a calorie deficit while you're doing it, but the concept of negative breastfeeding calories is quite a bit different than the idea that chewing your celery burns more calories than are in the celery. You lose calories by producing breast milk, while "negative calorie foods" suggest you lose weight just by eating them.

Right. I would burn more than I would consume though. Because every calorie came from me, if I only consumed my own milk it would be completely impossible to consume more than I burned, right? Unlike the whole eating 8,000 calories in celery you would still gain. If I consumed 8,000 calories of milk (If I could actually make 8,000 calories in milk a day) I still wouldn't gain, I would still lose. This doesn't make breast milk a negative calorie food but wouldn't it be true, for me, consuming only in a day what I make in a day, this (again, for me) would be a negative calorie food?
Fascinating to think about. But, I could NEVER make myself do it. Haha!

hearthwood

There is no such thing as a negative calorie. Watermelon has calories, the positive kind.

heybales

There's no such thing as negative calorie foods in any amount. The amount of energy it takes to digest the food is factored into the equation when determining how many calories something has.

Well, that's absolutely not true either.

Don't replace one myth with another.

MyChocolateDiet

Those are the ones that cuss all the time and don't hi five my workouts right?

WatchJenShrink

...and any pizza is a personal pizza if you believe in yourself enough.

heybales

There is no such thing as a negative calorie food. The calories burned digesting is all part of your TDEE.

Okay, so not to freak everyone out but I am totally curious to see what people have to say on this one.
My husband says he is sure my breast milk is negative calories. Not to anyone else, of course, just to me. If I were to eat nothing else and only drink water then the more of my milk I drank, the more I would lose because of the amount of energy it takes to make it.

True, energy required to make it is not actually in it, you wouldn't gain what you put forth.

But that's not what is being talked about. That's totally different.

Negative calories - takes 100 calories to digest something, but it only provides 80 calories in it.

Usually high fiber items are listed, and while it's true the item has say 80 calories in it, you don't get all those calories out of the fiber part, so you actually only get 70 say. But then again, it didn't take 100 to digest it either.

To your milk if making it wasn't part of the equation - it provides say 200 calories for 8 ozs, and it takes 8% of that energy to process it for use in the body - so you are still getting 92% of the calories from it to do something with. It does NOT take more calories to process it then it provides. It is NOT negative calories.

The fact making milk takes more energy then it provides is not negative calories.

stephylynn190

There is no such thing as a negative calorie food. The calories burned digesting is all part of your TDEE.

Okay, so not to freak everyone out but I am totally curious to see what people have to say on this one.
My husband says he is sure my breast milk is negative calories. Not to anyone else, of course, just to me. If I were to eat nothing else and only drink water then the more of my milk I drank, the more I would lose because of the amount of energy it takes to make it.

In that scenario, you'd keep losing weight because your body burns calories every day. The breast milk itself isn't negative calories, it doesn't cause weight loss for the person drinking it (thank goodness, because we want our babies to put on weight, right?) but because it contains calories, and it's coming out of your body, it's coming out of your diet. If you were to do what your husband is suggesting, you would lose weight because of all the calories your body burns just existing every day - not because of supposed magical negative-calorie properties of breast milk.

You can count breastfeeding as a calorie deficit while you're doing it, but the concept of negative breastfeeding calories is quite a bit different than the idea that chewing your celery burns more calories than are in the celery. You lose calories by producing breast milk, while "negative calorie foods" suggest you lose weight just by eating them.

Right. I would burn more than I would consume though. Because every calorie came from me, if I only consumed my own milk it would be completely impossible to consume more than I burned, right? Unlike the whole eating 8,000 calories in celery you would still gain. If I consumed 8,000 calories of milk (If I could actually make 8,000 calories in milk a day) I still wouldn't gain, I would still lose. This doesn't make breast milk a negative calorie food but wouldn't it be true, for me, consuming only in a day what I make in a day, this (again, for me) would be a negative calorie food?
Fascinating to think about. But, I could NEVER make myself do it. Haha!

Mind blown. Lol

PrizePopple

Pizza is negative calorie. :bigsmile:

So is beer. :drinker: