Cabbage Soup Diet: Best Pick to Lose Weight in One Week

Planning to shed a few pounds? We’ve got you the perfect diet to lose weight in just one week. If you are someone who loves cabbage and wants to lose weight, then you’re reading the right blog. Cabbage soup diet plan is the best option to lose weight and you’ll know exactly why after you finish this article.

Proponents say the cabbage soup diet helps you lose around 10 pounds of your weight just in a short span of seven days. It’s a very economical and easy diet to follow. You can simply count the days on your fingers, and you’ll be in perfect shape by adding this diet to your daily routine. Scroll down and you’ll know more about the cabbage soup diet.

How is the cabbage soup diet plan?

The Sacred Heart Hospital Diet is the alternative name to the cabbage soup diet, as it was initiated by the hospital. They actively took up this initiative to help heart patients to lose weight quickly before they undergo their heart surgeries. However, many other hospitals disapproved of this, as it would not be feasible for people who are already sick. This has further led to many conjectures regarding how it actually eventuated. But it still became very popular in the 80s, and since then, people just kept trying out this diet to lose weight.

How does it work?

The cabbage soup diet is a seven-day diet plan, and you need to invest that time if you wish to be on this diet. You’d have to consume mainly cabbage soup for the next seven days, which has to be homemade. But the diet also grants you to have a few other foods like skim milk, fruits, and veggies, along with the cabbage soup.

The diet works best if you have a short-term goal to lose weight. Just in case, you think you’ll follow this diet all your life, then you’re wrong. If you need to lose weight within a few days to be a part of an important gathering, then this is your best option. But you need to go back to your regular diet after you have achieved your target.

What will you eat?

The cabbage soup diet is absolutely fat-free, and you will need to have the soup almost 3 times a day along with some other foods. The other food allowances apart from the cabbage soup are:

• 1^st Day: Some fruits except bananas
• 2^nd Day: Leafy greens with no starch-content and no fruits.
• 3^rd Day: Both vegetables and fruits
• 4^th Day: Bananas and skimmed milk
• 5^th Day: Chicken or beef (without skin) baked with some cherry tomatoes
• 6^th Day: Beef and vegetables
• 7^th Day: Homemade fruit juices (without artificial sweeteners), vegetables, and brown rice.

You can try out the cabbage soup recipe differently every day. Some common ingredients you can add to the soup are tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers, bouillon, and onions.

Fast facts about cabbage soup diet

• Effort: The parameter of harshness in this diet is medium. Too much effort is not required when you follow this diet.
• Limitation: You can try out this diet maximum of two weeks, but not more than that. Since the ingredients are confined, you may find it monotonous to consume for a long period of time.
• Shopping: You’ll need some fresh veggies, and fruits for seven days. A soup pot will help you make the soup well. So, the grocery list for the week is going to be quite easy and short.
• Packaged food: You cannot consume any packaged food for the seven days of your diet.
• Exercise: The cabbage soup diet is a very low-calorie diet, and exercising is not recommended. Your body will not have the energy to burn out further calories, while you’re on this diet.
• Restrictions: You can’t tweak much about this diet since it’s mostly a vegan diet. But you can always add meat to it on selected days.
• Cost: The cost will depend much on the ingredients you buy. But apart from that, there isn’t much you need to buy. However, a few websites do promote nutrient supplements, but you’ll play it smart if you simply stick to what the original diet tells you.

Does the Cabbage Soup Diet work?

The answer is an absolute yes! But you must remember this isn’t a long-term solution to lose weight. The calorie intake in this diet is less than 1000 in a day with a limited choice on the menu. This extremely low-calorie intake helps you to lose weight in no time. You even start losing your water weight. However, you may get that weight back, once you are on your usual diet again.

Health experts do not advise a very low-calorie diet unless people are under a doctor’s guidance. They recommend to gradually lose weight with a balanced diet rather than an extremely low-calorie diet.

Who cannot follow a cabbage soup diet?

If you have pre-existing medical conditions you should avoid this extreme diet. For instance, diabetic people must not try out this diet as, it would be extremely harmful to the body. The immensely low-calorie diet can lead to a drastic fall in sugar levels. Or, even people suffering from hypertension, cholesterol, heart problems, etc. may complicate their health conditions further. So, you should consult your doctor before you start off with this diet challenge.

Cabbage soup diet: pros and cons

You need to be completely sure before you opt for the cabbage soup diet. First, know all the strengths well enough and if they at all surpass the weaknesses. This is important because your health is in question. So, know the cons and study the pros well, before you start off with the diet.

Pros

The cabbage soup diet proponents already claim of you losing 10 pounds of weight within a week, but there isn’t any proper evidence to back this claim. However, you will see numerous people on social media to share their journeys on how this diet influenced their lives. This gives you an idea and you can follow them henceforth. But before that, you should be well aware of your health and absolutely sure if you are up for it or not.

You find this diet to be absolutely simple and not at all complex in comparison to paleo or keto diets. It also limits your guesswork on dieting for a week and gives you just a simple soup diet.

While you’re on this diet, you can have any amount of cabbage soup, which will let your body go through a huge amount of stress. At the end of seven days, you see a drastic change in your body shape, but how long it will last is tough to answer.

Cons

Even though the diet helps you to lose weight very quickly, there are certain cons you need to consider. The principal problem of this challenge is that, you can only try it for a week. Many people are seen to try this diet for two weeks too, but we would not support that.

You can allow your body to lose only a limited amount of fat and not more than that. The first week of the diet will allow you to lose only 34% of your actual fat. If you carry on the diet onto the next week, you will only lose water weight.

Our body contains its water weight due to the energy reserves and its glycogen stores. These glycogen levels are connected to water molecules of the body.

When your body is not supplied with enough calories, your body uses the stored glycogen. It converts it into energy which helps you to get rid of excess water. But whenever, you return to your normal diet, the body restores the glycogen and restores the used-up water. Even if you maintain a healthy diet, it is inevitable for you to gain weight.

Another problem of this diet is the lack of nutrients in it. For seven days, your body hardly gets minerals and vitamins. The protein supply in this diet is also insufficient and makes it almost impossible to prevent muscle loss.

You may find the diet to bland to persist through it long. Lastly, you need to cook huge amounts of soup for your whole day.

How to make cabbage soup?

It is quite evident that in this diet the cabbage soup is the most significant part. You may lookup for a number of recipes online but you’ll get the basic glimpse from us. We have given you a plethora of ideas for you to make the soup differently each day. You can just swap the ingredients to whichever your palate suits best.

1. Shredding: You need to shred out the cabbage first. You can even shred all at once, and use it when you need it.
2. Add on colors: You can try out red cabbage as it’s high in antioxidants and gives a tint of color to the bland soup.
3. Vegetables: You can add a lot of veggies like carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, squash to enrich the nutrient content of your soup.
4. Mix spices: It’s absolutely fine to make your soup a bit spicy. Use Sriracha, chili powder, cayenne pepper, or some Tabasco.
5. Try Italian: Some Italian seasonings like basil, oregano can give an added flavor to it.
6. Try a mix: You can also add onions and make it an onion cabbage soup.
7. Curry flavor: For that one day you can have rice, give the soup an Indian twist. Add the aromatic spices- cloves, ginger, garlic, cardamom or any of your favorite spice to turn it into a flavored curry.

USDA Recommendations

Just as you finish your seven-day challenge of completing the cabbage soup diet, you need to go back to a healthy diet. You will definitely not want to go back gaining the weight you’ve lost. So, USDA has brought forth certain recommendations for you to get a balanced diet with the right food inclusions.

The US Department of Agriculture has given the following food inclusions to maintain a healthy diet:

• It says to add dark greens like spinach, green beans, broccoli, swiss chard, in your daily intake veggie chart
• Berries, apples, and melons are perfect fruits to maintain weight.
• Grains like brown rice, oats, quinoa are a must
• You must only have lean meat of turkey, chicken, and fishes without oil.
• You must include legumes and beans.
• Nuts like walnuts and almonds are very important.
• Sunflower seeds also a must inclusion
• You can also have dairy products like yogurt, cheese, and low-fat milk.
• Use olive and avocado oil.

USDA recommends an adult to consume approximately 1500 calories daily. The calories may vary according to your weight, sex, age, and even activity levels.

It is true the cabbage soup diet has loads of veggies, but it does not fit in the USDA guidelines. The diet lacks many nutrients and is not a balanced diet. So, you mustn’t follow this diet for a very long time, or else it may lead to health issues.

Conclusive Insights

Its quite evident that the cabbage soup diet is a quick solution for weight loss. It’s economical and very easy to follow. But you can’t follow this all your life. It will make you sick, weak, and lethargic if you try this longer than seven days. Your body will be a deficit of many nutrients if you carry on for long.

You will notice the diet not to encourage any change in your lifestyle, which is a vital part of a weight loss regime. If you wish to be healthy and fit at the same time, a balanced diet and exercising are your doings.

You must always consult your doctor before you take up any diet. Your body needs a proper assessment and he will tell you if you can try the diet out or not.

If you’ve got the consent from your health personnel, then you can make headway to the cabbage soup diet, and lose your weight just in a jiffy!