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14th June 2009
A Diet Urban Legend "Bites" The Dust -- Almost!
Burning Fat Through Your Diet
Cliff Baker
It's the most famous urban legend among dieters.
More appropriately, it's probably the most popular collective "wishful thinking" act ever created. What is it?
Eat celery! Not because of its nutrients, or its antioxidant qualities, but because . . .
You can burn more calories eating this particular vegetable than you actually ingest. Which would make it a "negative calorie" food. The ultimate diet food.
Now, isn't that what we're all looking for? A way to burn fat by eating. Wow!
Well, if this were indeed the case, I think we'd all have already tried the "Great Celery Diet."
But there's a shred of truth in this theory. Different types of foods have what experts call thermogenic effects on your body.
This term which appears pretty intimidating merely refers to the way the foods you eat actually increase the amount of heat your
body creates during the digestive process. The more heat your body creates . . . bingo! . . . the faster you burn the calories
and in effect the greater your metabolism rate.
Research is now showing that some macronutrients actually have a greater thermogenic effect on your body than others. And of the
three different macronutrients -- fats, carbohydrates and proteins -- one has a greater effect on your body than the other two.
Proteins. In fact, protein wins this contest hands down. On average, nearly one-third of the calories you eat from proteins are
actually used in the digesting of them. Before your body can use this type of food, it needs to be broken down into amino acids.
Your body considers this a "labor-intensive" job.
Let me give you an example. Let's say you ate 300 calories of pure protein. It doesn't matter what type of protein, but for the
purposes of this illustration, we'll just say that it's 300 of egg whites. Of those 300 calories, 81 of them are used in the
actually processing and digesting of the food.
Now, I'm sure you're with me on this. If you're using 81 calories eating this food, that means your system only has 219 net
calories to burn off later.
Not bad!
But that's really only part of the story. Keep all these facts in mind as I tell you how you can use this in concept with
changing the way you eat. All your life, you've probably been told to eat "three square" meals a day. Well, I'm going to
tell you, as much as you loved your Mum -- and she was no doubt right about a lot of things -- she didn't get this one quite right.
Instead of three larger meals in a day, switch your eating patterns to six or even eight smaller meals. Be careful though.
The idea is to eat about the same amount of calories as in the three large meals, just not all at once. Don't consider this
a license to eat more! Just more often. Yes, there really is a difference. Spread your calories as evenly throughout the day as possible.
Now, we're talking about an urban legend that's worth getting excited about. How about that piece of celery? I'll take my with a
little dab of peanut butter please!
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