# Can you lose weight eating celery?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 7, 2003, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557 "2003-08-07T09:57:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Somnambulist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Somnambulist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Somnambulist)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557/1 "2003-08-07T09:57:47Z")

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There seems to be a belief (possibly myth) that the energy required in eating (chewing and digesting) celery is actually greater than that which is provided by celery as food.

I’ve searched on this on the boards and although it appears to come up in discussion occasionally there appears to be no conclusion as to whether or not this is true…

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**Author:** ![biqu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7feea3/32.png) [@biqu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biqu)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557/2 "2003-08-07T11:06:31Z")

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**Re: Can you lose weight eating celery?**

You can lose weight eating anything, as long as your energy expenditure exceeds your energy intake. First law of thermodynamics and all that.

However, you seem to be referring to the widespread belief in [negative calories](http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=negative%20calories), which has its [adherents](http://www.weight.addr.com/negativecalorie/index.html) and [detractors](http://www.tafkac.org/faq2k/food_341.html).

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**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557/3 "2003-08-07T11:18:44Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Six minutes, 40 seconds of chewing two stalks of celery: 10 calories (Two stalks have 10 calories) ([www.whas11.com/lifestyles/092002dnlivcomatose.3ea8b.html](http://www.whas11.com/lifestyles/092002dnlivcomatose.3ea8b.html))

And BTW,

> [@](#):
>
> Chewing sugar-free gum increases weight loss over non-gum condition by 11 calories/hour ([http://www.fitscape.com/diet/articles.cfm?articleid=65](http://www.fitscape.com/diet/articles.cfm?articleid=65))

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**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557/4 "2003-08-07T11:21:36Z")

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…That last is actually a paraphrase, not a quote.

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**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-lose-weight-eating-celery/193557/5 "2003-08-07T13:37:55Z")

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Well, celery has about 100 calories a pound. If your body burns about 2000 calories a day, that’s 20 pounds of celery.

Even if I didn’t get sick of it, and notwithstanding the fact that I wouldn’t be getting a lot of the vitamins and minerals I need, I don’t think I could eat 20 pounds of _anything_ in a day.