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Saturday, January 10, 2015

The Cabbage Soup Diet

What is The Cabbage Soup Diet?
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 cup
Calories from Fat 29
Total Calories 71
% Daily Values*
Total Fat 3.26g   5%
Saturated Fat 0.62g 3%
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.975g       
Monounsaturated Fat 1.414g   
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 316mg  13%
Potassium 399mg            
Total Carbohydrate 7.69g 3%
Dietary Fiber 1.7g 7%
Sugars 4.04g     
Protein 3.92g    
Vitamin A 0%                 
Vitamin C 24%
Calcium 4%                      
Iron 3%

The cabbage soup diet is a short-term diet, followed for 7 days. While following the diet, you strictly limit your intake a vegetable & cabbage soup, consume only calorie-free beverages, and dine upon  low calorie foods.

Rapid Weight Loss: This diet is often used to lose weight and lose it fast, the cabbage soup diet is for you. Individual results vary, but most people tend to lose about 10 pounds (4.5 kg) over the course of 1 week, which is at least triple the weight than could be achieved from most other diets in the same period of time.

It is a consumption diet, meaning you can eat as much as you want of certain foods, there’s no measuring, weighing, or reading food labels. You eat the soup anytime and enjoy the strictly controlled fruit and vegetables on the remaining days. After the week you go back to your normal eating habits, which may be your downfall, you must continue on a sensible diet combined with an exercise program to continue losing weight. Consider the Cabbage Soup diet as a Kick Start diet.  After your week on the Cabbage Soup diet a balance food combining diet would work extremely well. 

Veggies: This diet regime requires a lot of planning and frequent shopping trips to the supply of vegetables and fruit. For many people it will involve cooking and eating separately from other family members not following this eating regime. The high amounts of colorful vegetables like bell peppers and tomatoes provide your body with plenty of healthy antioxidants and fiber during the diet. However, if you take multi-vitamin supplements continue to do so as the diet like most will not provide all which your body may require.

Many find the diet boring: the tedium of eating cabbage soup everyday makes them enjoy their meal less than they did before. This is the reason I have come up with the Chef Ks version of the diet. Seven days of eating the same main meal are tedious, my plan offers the cabbage soup, but it is presented with international flavorings.

This a Low-Calorie diet: Cabbage soup is very low in calories, about 71 per cup. Because cabbage soup will be the foundation of your diet, your caloric intake will range from 800-1,200 calories per day. The caloric shortage is large enough that it accelerates weight loss, bringing on a rapid drop in pounds.

My doctor says, and of course my culinary training tells us that fiber helps curb appetite and keep you feeling fuller and satisfied after meals. The Cabbage Soup diet  is packed with high-fiber vegetables, bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes, bringing to an end to high calorie cravings.

One study shows while another does not, that dining out frequently was strongly correlated with weight gain. Consuming high fat and high calorie foods will cause weight gain, a simple fact of life (a chef or cook can gain as much as five pounds a year just by breathing in the cooking oils from the kitchen fryers) therefore dining out upon such meals  will result in weight gain, sensible dining will not. Because the meals in the cabbage soup diet plan can’t be found in restaurants, it requires one to cook at home,  our plan will just provide variety and simplicity in home preparation of the meal plan, which is a good thing.

Be organized and get geared up before the diet starts, make sure your kitchen is stocked with the ingredients you’ll need -not as you go. Try to remove any diet killing food stuffs from your home, stay away from dining out, you will be on a strict and very limited diet, why tempt yourself? Don’t be a cheater, after all, you only hurt the one you love, that is you.  It’s important to strictly follow the diet for the full 7-day period. A single high-calorie cheat can spoil results.

7-Day Limit: Because the diet is so intense, it’s not advisable to follow the diet for more than 7-days at a time. Any longer than that and you could be setting yourself up for nutrient deficiencies.  Your consumption of leafy greens and non starchy vegetables like  green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, cucumbers, carrots, mushrooms, and celery aids in weight loss and weight management since fiber fills you up quickly and staves off hunger. Eating a diet rich in fiber can also help lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke so from this point of view the cabbage Soup diet will assist.

Starchy vegetables like sweet and white potatoes, winter squash, peas, and corn are high-quality carbohydrates that are rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber, however starchy vegetables are higher in calories than nonstarchy vegetables  so it’s important to moderate your portions, especially if you’re trying to lose weight, the Cabbage Soup diet allows just one baked potato during the seven days. There is no fat usage at all, good, bad, trans or olive, all are forbidden during the seven days, except just a minute amount for that lonely baked potato.

Drink a lot of water, tea, or low calorie unsweetened beverage, stay away from sodas of any kind (yes even diet). Diet sodas trigger insulin, which sends your body into fat storage mode which leads to weight gain.  They increase hunger which is often only satisfied with high calorie, high fat food stuffs, leaving you stuffed and with a ruined diet.

Do not consider that the soup plan will be a cost saving measure, in the dead of winter vegetables ounce for ounce, can be more costly than most proteins and you need to eat a lot of vegetables on this diet.

Typically the 7-day Cabbage Soup plan is:


Day 1: Cabbage soup and any fruit (except for bananas). Consume plenty of calorie-free fluids like tea and coffee (unsweetened).
Day 2: Cabbage soup, and more and more non-starchy vegetables. A baked potato is allowed at one meal, with a teaspoon of butter.
Day 3: Cabbage soup, fruit, and non-starchy vegetables.
Day 4: Cabbage soup, 2 glasses of skim or soy milk, not fat, non sweetened Greek yogurt and fruit which is only bananas.
Day 5: Cabbage soup, 15 ounces of lean meat like chicken, lean pork, or fish and any non-starchy vegetable. Use a light pan spray to grill the protein and season with any one of Chef K seasoning blends.
Day 6: Same as day 5.

Day 7: Cabbage soup, up to 2 cups of rice, (long grain, short grain, Basamati or Jasmine but brown rice is best), and unlimited fruits (except bananas) and vegetables.