The cabbage soup diet lasts seven days and has a specific list of foods required on each day. It mainly includes vegetables and fruit, along with meat on two days. You also eat cabbage soup every day. Proponents of the cabbage soup diet say you can lose 10 lbs. in one week. A vegetarian variant is available.
Time Frame
The cabbage soup diet is not suitable for long-term weight loss as it does not provide adequate nutrition. Nevertheless, it can help you quickly drop some pounds for an upcoming special occasion, or get a head start on a more moderate diet. Cabbage-Soup-Diet.com notes that you should only do the diet for seven days and then take a break for at least two weeks.
Features
This diet is restrictive but varied, with different requirements for each day. On the first day, for instance, you can eat all the fruit you want to except for bananas. Day two allows all vegetables and nothing else, while the menu for day three includes all fruits and vegetables aside from bananas and potatoes. On the fourth day you can eat up to eight bananas along with three glasses of milk. Day seven is another no-meat day with brown rice, vegetables and fruit juice. You're encouraged to drink lots of water on all seven days.
Variation
The original diet requires meat on days five and six. The instructions encourage eating up to 20 oz. of beef on day five and two or three steaks on day six. The Successful Diet Cabbage Soup website provides a vegetarian option, replacing the meat with beans, tofu or brown rice. Day five in either version requires eating some tomatoes and day six requires some vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables, but not potatoes.
Foundation
The fundamental food of this diet is cabbage soup. You should eat this soup every day of the diet, and you can eat as much as you want. A recipe provided by Cabbage-Soup-Diet.com includes several kinds of vegetables in addition to cabbage, along with a package of dried soup mix, and optional seasonings such as bouillon, vegetable juice, and garlic, curry, salt and pepper.
Considerations
The cabbage soup diet is based on the theory that cabbage has fat-burning properties. This is not actually a benefit of cabbage, according to nutritionist Anne Collins. Although the diet should not be followed on a long-term basis, it provides a break from an average diet with junk food and other unhealthy eating habits, Collins says. Cabbage-Soup-Diet.com recommends taking a good multivitamin during the diet.
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