- Definition
- What Is the Cabbage Soup Diet?
- Food List
- What Can You Eat on the Cabbage Soup Diet?
- Weight Loss
- How Does the Cabbage Soup Diet Help You Lose Weight?
- Advantages
- What Are Advantages of the Cabbage Soup Diet?
- Disadvantages
- What Are Disadvantages of the Cabbage Soup Diet?
- Guide
What Is the Cabbage Soup Diet?
The Cabbage Soup fad diet promises dieters can lose up to 10 pounds in seven days. The main reason for this is that it severely restricts calories. Do not go below 1,200 calories a day without a doctor’s supervision.
The Cabbage Soup diet is a low-calorie fad diet designed for quick short-term weight loss.
The origins of the diet are unknown and at times it has been falsely attributed to a famous doctor as well as to a certain hospital. It gained in popularity in the 1980s as the diet was spread by fax.
What Can You Eat on the Cabbage Soup Diet?
As the name would imply, cabbage soup is a mainstay of the diet. There are a number of different recipes that can be found online for the cabbage soup used in the diet.
The Cabbage Soup diet consists of:
- A fat-free cabbage soup consumed several times daily
- Other vegetables may be added to the soup
- Drinking plenty of water
- Fruits (except banana) may be eaten as snacks
- Other foods permitted on a limited basis on certain days and according to a specific schedule include:
- Skim milk
- Beef
- Baked chicken without skin
- Brown rice
It is a very strict diet that specifies exactly what to eat and when, and there is no room for deviation.
How Does the Cabbage Soup Diet Help You Lose Weight?
The Cabbage Soup diet promises dieters can lose up to 10 pounds in 7 days. The main reason for this is that it severely restricts calories.
Some days, the daily caloric intake on the diet plan is less than 1,000 calories per day which is far less than the average adult requires. In general, daily caloric requirements for adults range from:
- 1,600 to 2,400 calories per day for women
- Calorie requirements are higher for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding
- 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day for men
The low end of the range is for people who are sedentary while the high end of the range is for people who are active. Calorie requirements also tend to decrease for adults as they age.
People who lose weight gradually, about 1 to 2 pounds per week, tend to have more success over the long term than people who try fad diets.
What Are Advantages of the Cabbage Soup Diet?
Due to the limited caloric intake of the diet, most people who follow the Cabbage Soup diet will likely lose weight in the short-term.
Other advantages of the Cabbage Soup diet include:
- It is relatively inexpensive, with fruits and vegetables being the mainstay of the diet
- There are no packaged foods to buy or meetings to attend
- It is only intended to be followed short-term, for about a week, so many people may be able to stick with it for this short time
- Because the diet is specific on what to eat and when, there is little guesswork
What Are Disadvantages of the Cabbage Soup Diet?
There are many disadvantages of the Cabbage Soup diet, including:
- The diet contains fewer than the recommended daily allowance of calories for adults
- The diet plan is extremely rigid
- Most of the weight lost will likely be water weight
- The diet is only meant for short-term weight loss
- The diet does not yield long-term results and most dieters will gain the weight back as soon as they stop the diet
- Because the caloric intake is so low, exercise while following the diet probably is not a good idea
- May not be nutritionally balanced; dieters may need to take a vitamin and mineral supplement
- Not suitable for diabetics because it is so low on carbohydrates
