The Sacred Heart Diet is not associated with Scared Heart Hospital or any other medical institution. The diet makes claims that you can lose between 10 and 17 lbs. in a single week if you follow the meal plan exactly. Similar to the cabbage soup diet, the Sacred Heart Diet is a very low-calorie diet that restricts vital nutrition and is not safe for long-term use.
The Sacred Heart Diet
Part urban legend, part fad diet, the Sacred Heart Diet also has been called the Cleveland Clinic Diet and the Miami Heart Institute Diet, but isn't associated with any real medical center. It's a seven-day diet that involves eating a lot of vegetable soup in combination with very specific foods, which vary each day. Weight loss is supposedly caused by the the "fat-burning" properties of the soup, but the soup is just a high-sodium vegetable soup that uses canned and processed ingredients -- nothing that would "magically" melt away fat. You can repeat the diet two weeks in a row, but then need to take a week off before using the diet again to reach your goal weight.
The Sacred Heart Soup
The soup uses water, canned beef broth, Lipton's chicken noodle soup mix, canned tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, carrots and celery with spices and Worcestershire or hot sauce. You can eat the soup as often as you want during the diet. This soup is very high in sodium from the canned ingredients and powdered soup mix. There is very little protein, coming only from the beef broth. Although you do eat additional foods, depending on the day there might be no other protein source.
The Diet Day By Day
On the first day you may eat unlimited quantities of soup and any fruit you'd like, except bananas. Day two is soup and vegetables, but not peas or corn. You should eat a baked potato and butter with dinner. Day three is more soup and the fruits and vegetables from the previous two days, but no baked potato. On the fourth day, eat soup and bananas and drink skim milk. You can eat as many bananas as you like, but you have to have at least three. Day five is more soup, beef and tomatoes. You may eat between 10 and 20 oz. of meat and no more than six tomatoes. Day six is soup, beef and all the non-starchy vegetables you want. The last day is soup, fruit juice, vegetables and brown rice -- as much as you'd like.
Dangers of the Sacred Heart Diet
You will lose weight on the Sacred Heart Diet but most of it will be water, not fat, and you will regain that weight as soon as you resume normal eating. It's an extremely low-calorie, low-fat diet that might not contain essential nutrients because it eliminates all grains and legumes. The American Academy of Family Physicians would classify the Sacred Heart Diet as a fad diet to be avoided because it eliminates entire food groups and makes unrealistic claims about weight loss. The AAFP notes that "people who use fad diets usually end up gaining back any weight that they initially lost."
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