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Cabbage Soup Diet

Lose as much as 10 pounds in a week thanks to the powerful fat-burning properties of cabbage? That's the hopeful promise of this classic fad diet that's been around for decades. Instead of counting calories, the Cabbage Soup Diet has dieters fill up on cabbage soup (recipes vary but it's generally made from cabbage, green peppers, onions, celery and water) for a seven-day period. In addition to soup, dieters are also allowed to have certain foods, such as tomatoes, meats, vegetables and skim milk, depending on the day of the week. (Certain versions of the diet may call for different portion sizes of these foods.) However, the diet stresses that the more soup you eat in lieu of these additional foods, the more weight you'll ultimately lose. After one week, dieters are expected to go back to their regular eating habits for two weeks before attempting the diet once more. Although there doesn't seem to be any limited set number of times you can keep use the plan, it's recommended to check with a physician beforehand each attempt.

The origin of the Cabbage Soup Diet remains shrouded in mystery, despite the fact that some authors have written books around the subject. The diet's allure is that it promises to help you lose up to 10 pounds in just seven days, but there are no magical weight-loss properties attached to cabbage, the fact of the matter is that soup is extremely low in calories. Eating ample amounts of it instead of food simply places dieters on a severely restrictive plan that some nutritionists speculate falls between 800-1,000 calories a day.

Although eating the soup is meant to suppress your appetite, starving yourself this way basically forces your body to burn anything it can for energy, which dieters assume will be unwanted fat. Unfortunately, much of the weight loss from the diet ends up being water weight and lean muscle tissue instead.

Most nutritionists also agree that it's virtually impossible to get all the essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients your body needs to stay healthy eating less than 1,500 calories a day. Because the Cabbage Soup Diet goes one step further and only allows certain foods on certain days, it's even more nutritionally unbalanced than other low-calorie diets, especially when it comes to protein, calcium and Vitamin D.

Is the diet healthy?

Absolutely not, which is why it's not recommended for longer than seven days. Dieters may feel disoriented, tired and weak from lack of calories and nurients.

What do the experts say?

"The biggest drawback is definitely the fact that it's very low in calories and certain key nutrients, including protein, zinc, calcium, iron and other essential vitamins and minerals that the body absolutely needs for good health and wellbeing," says Lona Sandon, MEd, RD, LD, assistant professor at University of Texas Southwestern and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.

The Cabbage Soup Diet also tends to be the diet many people turn to after they've tried other diets with no success. "Since many fad diets tend to be nutritionally-unbalanced, that means the odds of dieters already being malnurished before starting the diet is highly likely," says Sandon, "By using the Cabbage Soup Diet, these dieters restrict their nutrition even further, which certainly isn't healthy at all."

Another drawback? Many dieters find the cabbage causes gastrointestinal problems such as excess gas and diarrhea. Even if these are two issues you can bear, the water loss caused by diarrhea could lead to some electrolyte imbalances which can be problematic, especially when dieters aren't getting enough nutrients to start with.

Finally, the weight loss from the diet is fleeting at best. "You're not likely to lose any fat in a seven-day fast, but you will lose primarily water and lean muscle tissue," says Sandon, "Most people find themselves instantly going back to their old way of eating and regaining their previous weight fairly quickly without experiencing any loss of body fat whatsoever," Sandon says.

Who should consider the diet?

No one.

Bottom Line

The cabbage soup itself is actually a nice, low-calorie option to have once in a while when watching your weight. But then again, so is any type of low-calorie vegetable soup. The major problem is that constructing an entire diet around a soup results in a calorie-restrictive and nutritionally-unbalanced plan. Between the health concerns it poses, plus the fact that what you're really losing isn't fat but water and muscle tissue, the Cabbage Soup Diet is simply unsafe.

Checklist

Cabbage Soup Diet Books
The New Cabbage Soup Diet	The Ultimate Cabbage Soup Diet	Cabbage Soup Diet Recipe Book