Is The Cabbage Soup Diet A Healthy Choice For You
Though there are no guarantees, the cabbage soup diet might help you lose weight quickly for the short term. However, it is not a long-term weight loss solution or a healthy eating plan, nor does it teach skills like healthy meal planning and preparing, which are needed for sustained weight loss.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines include recommendations and tips for a healthy, balanced diet. The following nutrient-dense foods are recommended as part of a healthy diet:
- Vegetables and dark, leafy greens
- Fruits
- Oils
The USDA recommends consuming roughly 1,500 calories per day for weight loss, but this number varies based on age, sex, weight, and activity level. Because cabbage soup diet recipes vary, there isn’t one standard set of nutrition facts for cabbage soup, but on average, a bowl has about 50100 calories. Use this calculator to determine the right number of calories for you and your weight loss goals.
While the cabbage soup diet is high in vegetables, the overall diet does not adhere to USDA guidelines. The diet is highly restrictive and does not provide a wide variety of nutrients or calories. It is not considered a healthy eating plan.
Other Low Calorie Soup Recipes For Weight Loss
If you dig soups, check out my other low-calorie soup recipes, such as the Fat Flush soup recipe. Mixing things up can help you keep your healthy diet from feeling boring! Here are a few more ideas:
Broth-based soups can be a fantastic option for fat burning, but many other foods are great as well. I have a whole section of low-calorie, tasty, and satisfying recipes over in my Recipe Finder that may interest you. If you prefer to focus on reducing carbs rather than calories, I have a low-carb section as well.
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Can You Lose Weight Eating Salads
Eating salad does burn fat when you combine your salad with healthy grains for a full and complete meal. When you combine a portion of healthy vegetables with your mealsbe it pasta or a sandwich you will be surprised to see what an incredible difference this can make on your lean body transformation.
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Touted Health Benefits Of The Cabbage Soup Diet
Although there is no scientific evidence that suggests the cabbage soup diet is safe and effective for weight loss, eating cabbage soup alone as part of a balanced diet may be beneficial.
For example, a preliminary study on the effects of red cabbage consumption in obese mice found decreased cholesterol over the course of eight weeks. The study was published in December 2016 in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, though its unclear whether the same results would be found in humans and in a randomized controlled clinical trial the gold standard for medical research.
How Much Weight Can You Lose On A Cabbage Soup Diet
The Cabbage Soup Diet is a short-term weight-loss diet that includes cabbage soup. As the name indicates, it entails consuming copious amounts of cabbage soup. Diet supporters claim it can help you lose up to 10 pounds in a single week however, numerous health professionals caution that the diet is dangerous and that the benefits are not long-lasting.
Also Check: Campbells Chicken And Rice Soup Recipe
How Can I Lose 20 Pounds In A Month
To lose 20 pounds in a month, limit the quantity of calories you consume on a daily basis by eating less and eliminating junk food from your diet. Concentrate on consuming nutritious, low-calorie foods such as fruits, vegetables, and lean meats. Exercise for one hour three to four times a week, in addition to eating more healthfully.
Instant Pot Cabbage Soup:
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Pros Of The Cabbage Diet
The cabbage soup diet is considered a fad diet that can provide quick, short-term weight loss, but it is not necessarily healthy. Review the pros and cons so you can make an informed decision about trying this diet plan.
- Easy to follow: The simple rules of diet are fairly easy to follow. With unlimited amounts of cabbage soup, the diet can also be filling. As a short-term diet, those who follow this plan only need to stick with it for a week.
- Quick weight loss: Proponents of the cabbage soup diet claim you can lose 10 pounds in one week, but there is a lack of evidence to support those claims. While no research studies have examined the effectiveness of the cabbage soup diet, the seven-day plan consists of mostly low-calorie foods. Research has shown that reduced-calorie diets can help promote weight loss.
While the plan may provide quick weight loss results, it is not a long-term solution for managing your weight.
What Happens If You Just Eat Soup
Consuming soup can help improve satiety and keep you feeling full for longer, both of which can contribute to eating less food overall. 1 Even while this might result in weight reduction, there is no evidence to suggest that a diet consisting solely of soup could successfully support weight management over the long term.
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Cabbage Soup Diet Ingredients
Heres what you need to make the cabbage soup diet recipe:
- Lean ground beef
- Tomato paste
- Cilantro or parsley, chopped
Quantities of all ingredients are listed in the recipe card at the end of the article!
As mentioned above, one of the most significant changes I made to the original cabbage soup is that I added more protein! The bone broth here and lean beef add flavor as well as protein to help you feel satiated. This cabbage soup just got an upgrade from a side dish or snack to a full entrée.
Using some flavorful bone broth allowed me to nix the ultra-processed foods in the original recipe. The balsamic vinegar also adds deliciousness to the soups broth. So goodbye, powdered onion soup mix and chicken bouillon cubes, there is no need for you here.
There is also no need to purchase special Cabbage Soup Diet spice blends like youll find for sale on the web. Regular dried herbs will work just fine.
Another change I made was to adjust the vegetables to improve the flavor. I love onions, but six seemed like a lot to put in a soup .
Pros And Cons Of The Cabbage Soup Diet:
As with most weight-loss plans, there are both healthy elements and drawbacks. The cabbage soup diet is no exception.
Pros:
- Cabbage is in the cruciferous vegetable family and contains vitamins E and C, which are antioxidants that protect cells from damage. These vegetables have been found to protect against breast and colorectal cancer and reduce tumor growth.
- Cabbage also has a high fiber content, which is good for weight loss because it keeps you feeling full.
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How To Improve The Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet will deliver pretty awesome weight loss results on its own.
But let me show you some science on how it’s possible to boost your calorie burn rate even further.
Before we get to that, let’s take a look at what you can do to deal with easily the single biggest drawback of the cabbage soup diet.
Substitutions For The Cabbage Soup Diet Recipe
- You may use red onions instead of yellow ones.
- You may use boiled shredded chicken instead of mushrooms.
- You may include vegetables like zucchini, spinach, and kale.
- You may add corn instead of sugar.
- You may also change the flavor and smell of the soup by adding different herbs such as bay leaves, parsley, dried thyme or basil leaves.
- You may use fish or chicken instead of beef in the diet plan.
- Instead of milk, you may drink soy milk.
- If you are craving for butter, use any butter spray available in the market instead of using butter for the soup.
- You may eat papaya, apricot or kiwi instead of banana.
So, how exactly does cabbage soup help you lose weight? Here is the science behind this diet plan.
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What Are The Ingredients Of The Diet Cabbage Soup
Although most recipes have bouillon/water and veggies in common, there are different recipes for the diet soup. Our diet cabbage soup is low-fat and has low carb veggies, among other ingredients that are detox and anti-inflammatory, such as spinach, garlic, turmeric, tomatoes, and lemon juice. It is similar to Weight Watchers Cabbage Soup!
Here are the ingredients for the diet cabbage soup that maximizes weight loss while detoxing:
- Olive oil
- Spinach
Level Of Effort: Medium
Limitations: Your menu options are severely limited on this diet. It gets very boring, very quickly. If you want to try it again, its recommended that you wait 2 weeks first.
Cooking and shopping: Get out your soup pot. You will need to make the cabbage soup and cook some of the vegetables recommended in the plan. Your shopping list will be very short for the week.
Packaged foods or meals? No.
In-person meetings? No.
Exercise: The cabbage soup diet doesnt include exercise, and working out at high levels isnt a great idea on such a low-calorie diet. Your body just wont have enough gas in the tank for exercise.
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Does Cabbage Clean You Out
Cabbage includes a variety of anticancer and antioxidant chemicals, and it also aids in the breakdown of excess hormones by the liver. Cabbage also has the additional benefit of cleansing the digestive tract and neutralizing some of the harmful substances contained in cigarette smoke . It also helps to improve the livers ability to cleanse the body. 6.
Do This To Make The Cabbage Soup Diet Feel Less Restrictive
The simplest way of keeping all the benefits of the cabbage soup diet, but make it a little less restrictive, is to find…
Recipes that rely on extremely low-calorie ingredients, just like the cabbage soup diet does.
If you can find more recipes designed in the same way as the cabbage soup diet, you can keep stuffing your face with food all day without gaining weight.
But you get to do it with while enjoying a lot more variety, which in turn skyrockets your chances of actually staying on the wagon.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at a science based way of boosting your weight loss results on the cabbage soup diet even further.
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The Major Benefits Of Doing The Cabbage Soup Diet For Weight Loss
The single biggest benefit of the cabbage soup diet is the fact that there’s no set limit on how much cabbage soup you’re actually allowed to eat.
Like I said, this happens because the ingredients for the soup are all so extremely low in calories, meaning that you can literally stuff your face with cabbage soup all day and still lose weight.
Naturally, this solves one of the biggest issue of most weight loss diets that tell you to limit your portion sizes to ridiculously small amounts.
Another major benefit of the cabbage soup diet is that not only are the ingredients low in calories, they’re also low in price. Forget expensive powders, pills, and supplements, and get used to natural, healthy, and inexpensive foods.
But even the cabbage soup diet isn’t without flaws.
Would A Nutritionist Advise You Try The Cabbage Soup Diet
Bottom line? No.
While the diet may appear healthy on the surface due to it centring around healthy vegetables, I wouldnt recommend it, Windas shares. Its restrictive and unsustainable, low in protein, fats, and complex carbohydrates, and lacks dietary diversity, which our gut bacteria thrives on to keep our bodies healthy, she shares.
If you do want to lose weight, it really is as simple as making sure youre in a weight deficit and eating foods you still enjoy, so you dont end up in a restriction-binge cycle.
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Extra Precautions To Take If You Try Following The Cabbage Soup Diet
If youre already at a healthy weight, do not have underlying health conditions that would make the plan unsafe, and want to lose a few extra pounds, talk to your healthcare team about whether the cabbage soup diet is right for you. Chances are theyll recommend a longer-term, safer eating plan that can help you lose a pound per week instead. Know that losing smaller amounts of weight at a time is better for you in the long run, as its more likely to stay off and not pose nutritional deficiencies during the plan period.
About The Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet is a rapid weight loss diet. Many people have claimed that following the cabbage soup diet helped them lose at least ten pounds in seven days . The majority of the diet consists of eating cabbage soup, as implied by the name. But, other foods are allowed on specific days of the diet, mostly low-fat and high-fiber foods such as lean meats, brown rice fruits, and vegetables .
While there are specific rules on what foods can be eaten on each day of the week, you are allowed to eat an unlimited amount of those foods. Overall, even though the cabbage soup diet is not restrictive in the amount of food you can eat, it is very restrictive in the type of foods you can eat.
While we do not know for sure when or where the cabbage soup diet originated, we know that it has been around since the 1950s . There are rumors that the cabbage soup diet was invented by the Sacred Heart Hospital to help obese patients lose weight in preparation for heart surgery . But, they deny this claim, and it is not supported by evidence . It wasnt until the 1980s that the cabbage soup diet became popular for rapid weight loss . It is still a very popular diet today that is marketed as a rapid weight loss diet . Many people gravitate towards following this diet when they are looking to lose weight quickly to prepare for a special event or vacation .
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The Best And Worst Diets For Sustained Weight Loss
Perhaps one of the most concerning risks associated with fads like the cabbage soup diet is the havoc they can wreak on your metabolism. Indeed, they can lead you to gain weight when you go off of the plan. I have had a client come to me and say they did the cabbage soup diet prior and it did work in the short term, but she ended up gaining the weight back with an additional 5 lbs. the following week, Rothenberg says.
Another consideration with fad diets such as the cabbage soup diet is that short-term weight loss of more than the recommended 1 to 2 lbs. per weeks is likely attributed to water weight, and not the coveted fat loss so many dieters are vying for. To put this in perspective, the University of Florida estimates that 10 to 15 lbs. of body fat is equal to between 40 and 60 sticks of butter, something thats impossible to lose in a weeks time.
Its important to weigh the benefits against the risks carefully before trying out any new diet, but especially one as extreme as the cabbage soup diet, and ideally work with a registered dietitian-nutritionist when following it.
How To Follow Cabbage Soup Diet
The diet allows you to have one or two calorie foods daily in addition to the soup. The diet may be low in some nutrients so a daily multivitamin is recommended. You can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want. But baked potato, beans, corn, peas and bananas should be avoided for the first three days. Added sugar needs to be avoided. The diet should not be continued for more than seven days at a time.
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How Does Cabbage Soup Diet Help You Lose Weight
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