Many years ago, I worked with a woman who was anorexic. She counted every single calorie she ate or drank. One day she asked whether saliva has calories. She wanted to know whether she could lose a few calories by spitting rather than swallowing. The conversation then turned to the topic of oral sex.
So . . . spit or swallow (saliva, that is)?
Saliva is about 98% water so IF it has any calories at all they would be ridiculously miniscule. When I was in high school that fact didn’t stop guys on the wrestling team who were trying to make weight from walking around with a cup in their hand to spit in. That was in the 70’s, but according to both my sons the practice still occurred when they were in high school in the late 90’s/early zips.
Saliva does, however, cause stomach cancer. But only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. ( :rolleyes: alright, I ripped that off from George Carlin. Sue me.)
The wrestlers weren’t concerned about the calories in saliva, they were shedding water weight. Neither I nor anyone on the teams I was on ever used this method, but if you sucked on a button you could lose a not insignificant (in terms of wrestling, when you might need to shed those last .2 lbs to make weight) amount of weight. Of course, this method is much much slower than going to work out and making sure to dry the sweat off your body.
Swinging water weight is one of the biggest parts of a wrestler’s routine, in fact. Every practice (I wrestled at 160-175 through HS and college) I would lose 4-6 pounds, just in water weight.
Ummm…whatever saliva you swallow is saliva that you make, so there is NO way to actually gain calories from it, you actually lose calories making it and swallowing it, since no energy transfer is 100% efficient. Sure, I guess you will lose slightly more if you spit it out, but seriously?