The Secret Guide to Making Any Food Calorie-Free

Creative commons licenced image from Flicrk by Roboppy
As every serial dieter knows, there are certain occasions where calories don't count and aren't counted. Here's some (and the reasoning behind each):

"There are no calories in food belonging to someone else"

This includes anything...

  • Taken from your partner's plate in a restaurant
  • Made for you by your mom
  • Stolen from a communal fridge

The unwritten "rules" say that whoever owns the food should get the calories from it ... regardless of who eats it.


"There are no calories in free food"

This includes anything...

  • Eaten at a buffet or pot-luck
  • Packaged with a magazine
  • Given away as a sample (see also "There are no calories in small pieces of food")

Free food is too good an opportunity to miss. And if it doesn't cost you a dollar, it shouldn't cost you any calories either.


"There are no calories in food eaten outside normal circumstances"

This includes anything...

  • Eaten in the dark
  • Eaten in the middle of the night
  • Eaten on New Year's Eve
  • Eaten on your birthday

Calories don't exist when you can't see them, or when you're not sure what day to record them on in your food diary. This goes doubly on New Year's Eve as you don't even know what year it should be, and on your birthday, as your body is still adjusting to suddenly growing a year older.


"There are no calories in small pieces of food"

This includes anything...

  • Which could be called a "smidgen"
  • Which weighs too little to bother counting
  • Smaller than your thumb

Since most "smidgens" come in at under a hundred calories, they can be rounded down to zero calories. Note: expert dieters know that a giant slice of chocolate fudge cake can be rendered calorie-free in this manner, by eating it as a series of thin slices.


I'm sure I've missed a few of the "rules" of calories: do you have any of your own to add?

(Disclaimer: The above "rules" are not intended to replace conventional dieting advice! Read What is a calorie to find out the real facts about calories.)

More like this in Psychology · Aug 18, 2008

35 Comments

Lauren on 08/18/08

"There are no calories in my kid's dripping ice cream cone"

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MizFit on 08/18/08

if Im dancing vigorously with my Toddler to YO GABBA GABBA whilst consuming.

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Mark on 08/18/08

That link doesn't work.

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Ali Hale on 08/18/08

Whoops! One missing forward-slash ... I've fixed it now. Thanks for the heads-up, Mark!

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Heather on 08/18/08

Awesome!

Another rule: If it has no nutrition information available, it has no Calories (or you can estimate as low as you want)

One of my friends and I joke about there being a comparative size method of determining Calories when we go out and splurge.
This candy bar is smaller than a carrot, thus it has fewer Calories. This bowl of icecream is smaller than a head of lettuce... ;)

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apinkpony on 08/18/08

There are no calories when you eat standing up. :-D

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Ali Hale on 08/18/08

How could I forget that one? And, of course, if you eat standing on your head the food has NEGATIVE calories...

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Linda on 08/18/08

...but you could wind up with fat legs :)

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jo on 08/18/08

ah the free food gets me every time and free food is always the junkiest

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Pam on 08/18/08

There are no calories at weddings with an open bar (cocktails and dancefloors burn all calories). And calories do not exist on Thanksgiving Day.

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Kailash on 08/18/08

There are no calories in food labeled "Zero Trans Fat" or "A Source of Whole Grains". Not to forget, "Provides Five Essential Vitamins"

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Judy on 08/18/08

If you stand while you eat the calories travel through your body and into the ground beneath you.

If you eat a high calorie food (candy bar) and drink a diet drink, they cancel each other out and you consume no calories.

(I think my mom heard these way back when she was in Weight Watchers in the mid-80s.)

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Laura on 08/18/08

If you eat a high calorie food (candy bar) and drink a diet drink, they cancel each other out and you consume no calories.

That was always my favorite, especially when I was back waiting tables. There was a family that would come in, they were all extremely overweight and would all order cheeseburgers, fries, and dessert......and diet cokes. I always figured they must be operating under that theory..

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Katie on 08/18/08

Don't forget the appetizer of fried mozzarella sticks. I've seen that too many times as a waitress, too.

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Kyla on 09/03/08

Or they order "Low-carb" meals and a large milkshake

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Susanna on 08/18/08

There are no calories if you eat while walking.

This rule enables me to get a scoop of ice cream at our local ice cream shop. I walk to the shop about 1/2 mile away, this is worth at least 50+ calories. Then I walk back home while eating ice cream. Balancing while walking and eating surely count for around 100+ calories on the same 1/2 mile back.

And a small cup of ice cream (nevermind that it is over flowing) can't possibly have more the 100 calories.

So I really just burned 50 calories... Right???

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Lyds on 08/18/08

Healthy foods cancel out unhealthy foods to equal zero calories.

Example: 1 celery stick + 1 item of "junk" food = zero calories.

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nodietneeded on 08/18/08

There no calories in junk food if you promise you won't eat it again...

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Heather on 08/19/08

ha! :)

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A different Laura on 08/18/08

My favorite "food-rule" of all time is this: if you break a cookie (or whatever the food is), all the calories fall out. So eat two.

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lynn on 08/18/08

what do they mean there are calories on my birthday!!?! its next week and my friend makes red velvet cake every year with no calories even if i eat the whole cake!

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caffeine free on 08/18/08

The more you cook something, the less calories it has. So if you burn things, which I am famous for, there are no calories and the fat was definetly burnt out of it.

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Gabrielle on 08/18/08

I here to much of this sort of thing from clients. That's one the reasons why our program has room for a little slippage.

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The Baroness on 08/18/08

*stares at the floor in shame*

It's me.

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bijou on 08/18/08

uh, yea. sure.

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Bob Allen on 08/19/08

A variation on the cancelling out rule -- in fact, this is even better:

If the brownies sit next to the celery on the snack table, the celery actually absorb the calories (and fat) of the brownies but leave all the taste. Then, it's actually better to eat the brownies than the celery because the celery would make you gain weight.

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Jen on 08/19/08

Calories never ever count on VACATION!!!

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Pelikan on 08/19/08

Calories in healthy food (raisins, avocado, salmon, nuts...) don't count.

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Chris on 08/21/08

There are no calories in the broken cookies. This is a corollary to the rule that food eaten in small amounts may be safely rounded down to zero--however breakage requires its own rule because the calories leak out. You can intentionally break a cookie to destroy the calories.

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Spectra on 08/23/08

You can't forget about the thermodynamics of this rule: The colder the food/drink is, the fewer calories it ultimately has because your body has to warm it up. Oh, and any food consumed while you are drunk has zero calories because you probably can't remember exactly what you ate!

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b on 08/28/08

Man, I'm a grad student. If free food has no calories, I should be a size 6 by now. :( What gives?

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Jordan on 09/05/08

This article is hystertical if only it were true though. I generally don't count calories from vegetables since they tend to be so low and you can get away with eating a lot more. Take for instance a bag of spinach has about 2.5 servings in it and has less than 30 calories for the entire bag. What's the point in even counting them and the way I eat spinach one bag equals one serving. Treating yourself to a bite of something here and there shouldn't be counted against you as long as you are not doing this all day long because yes eventually all those little bites can add up to a substantial amount of calories not including all the other calories from your meals or snacks. The key is moderation and not self deprivation.

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PODp on 09/12/08

There are no calories if it's dipped in Olive Oil or marinated in Olive Oil.

And there are no calories in food eaten in front of the TV because you cannot remember what you have eaten when you eat in front of the TV.

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Amanda on 09/14/08

I usually don't post, but I have to say this: there are no calories in food not in its "final" form. For example, cookie dough or cake batter do not have calories because they are not yet cookies or cake.

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personal trainer on 09/24/08

"Since most 'smidgens' come in at under a hundred calories, they can be rounded down to zero calories" ... hilarious and so true!

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