Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Cabbage Soup Diet
This weight loss program uses a unique menu generator in addition to their idiot proof diet handbook to produce an 11 day menu plan.
The plan allows you to input 14 of your favorite foods and the menu generator gives you 4 meals a day for 11 days. Afterwards, you then have 3 "cheating" days in which you can eat any foods you wish, in moderation of course.
Does Fat Loss 4 Idiots work? I have found it to be a very effective weight loss system and you can read about my results on my blog at the end of this article.
The Cabbage Soup Diet Plan
The Cabbage Soup Diet Plan, or Mayo Clinic diet as it is also known, is a 7 day diet that is based on eating cabbage soup.
The plan calls for eating any amounts of cabbage soup you would like throughout the day. Why? Because there aren't many calories in a bowl of cabbage soup.
The diet plan also calls for eating other foods, but they are very specific in nature. For example, on one day you can eat cabbage soup along with all the fresh fruit you would like. On another day it may be soup and all the rice you want, but no fruit.
The Cabbage Soup diet plan is a little strange to say the least and would not be a weight loss plan that would appeal to most people.
Will it work? Absolutely. If your daily intake is limited to cabbage soup and some fruit, rice, etc, you will lose weight. And that's the appeal here. It's a quick weight loss plan for the short term.
The Verdict
Personally, I couldn't recommend the Cabbage Soup Diet Plan as a healthy, long term weight loss program. Although I do enjoy a bowl of cabbage soup every once in a while a steady diet of it throughout the day just wouldn't work for me.
Does Cabbage Soup Diet Help You To Loss Weight?
This website has everything that you need to know about the cabbage soup diet.
Cabbage Soup Diet
As this diet is designed for short-term weight loss and requires no long-term commitment, it is little wonder that it has become one of the most popular diet around. Another reason for its popularity is that with cabbage, which has negligible calorie, as the main ingredient of this fat burning soup, you need not worry about spending too much money on it or gaining weight. So Does This Diet Work? This do-it-yourself diet claims that you can lose up to 10 pounds within a week. While that may be true, nutritional experts have pointed out that the weight loss is mainly due to water loss and not fat. They noted that it is quite impossible to lose that much fat within a week. Another point to note is that the loss of weight from this diet is temporary and hence you will probably gain back your weight soon after that.
Another point to note is that the original Cabbage Soup Diet tastes bland, hence many recipes for this diet has high salt content to make it palatable. For people who are not able to take such high sodium content, they should stay away from this diet. Dieters should should realise that there is practically no protein from this diet. As a result, people have reported feeling weak and light-headed during the course of the diet. One common reported side effect that result from the diet is flatulence. Hence, you should be prepared should you take up this diet. Of course, it is always advisable for you to consult your doctor before following this diet.
The fact is that Cabbage Soup Diet, although is a low-fat and high-fiber diet, is not a nutritionally balanced plan nor can it bring about permanent weight loss. With the emphasis on cabbage as a main ingredient, the diet lacks certain important vitamins and minerals. To follow this diet, you must also be prepared for the monotonous meals.
Personally I believe that this diet can be counter productive. Since the diet would force your body to go into slower metabolism, it would then encourage your body to hold on to your fat reserves. In the end, you may be only delaying your weight loss plan.
Cabbage Soup Diet
The typical claimed intent of the diet is to lose 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of weight in a week, though nutritional experts point out that it is impossible to lose that much weight in fat within a 7 days.
The origins of the diet are unknown, and it first gained popularity as a piece of faxlore in the 1980s. The cabbage soup diet has many names, usually linking the diet to a mainstream institution, including the "Sacred Heart Diet", "Military Cabbage Soup", "TJ Miracle Soup Diet", and "Russian Peasant Diet". All of the institutions named have denied a link with the diet[1]. As a general rule, most if not all forms of the diet emphasize that the dieter can consume as much cabbage soup as he/she wants. On some original documents mentioning the diet, it was claimed the diet is designed for obese heart-surgery patients, so they could lose weight quickly and therefore be at lower risk of complications during surgery.
Many individuals and medical professionals are critical of the diet. It's claimed that most of the weight lost is water, and therefore not permanent. In addition, the recipe for the soup as often given has an extremely high sodium content, usually to make it palatable, and the diet provides practically zero protein for several days at a time. Many people report feeling weak and light-headed during the course of the diet.
On a practical level, the most common forms of the soup recipe have been criticized as being bland, though spicy variations have appeared. Even so, the blandness of the soup means that few manage the entire seven days [citation needed], and often report feeling nauseous whenever they smell the soup toward the end of the week-long diet. It has also been noted that farting is a common side effect of the diet. A frequent comment on the soup is that it makes a good low-calorie filler meal, but is not substantial enough to be relied upon as a dietary staple. The newer, healthier versions of the cabbage soup diet however take the fact of missing protein into account and add protein (dairy and protein shakes) to the diet plan while decreasing sodium.
From Wikipedia
How It Works: The New Cabbage Soup Diet
How It Works: The New Cabbage Soup Diet
The New Cabbage Soup Diet uses a strict and structured one-week menu designed to drop as many as ten pounds. During this week, one day you have just fruits and milk. The next is vegetables and milk. Another is bananas and milk. But each day you can have all the cabbage soup you can eat.
The diet works on the principle that it is low in calories. By giving you guidelines of certain ingredients to use on specific days, it is designed to keep the calorie and fat content as low as possible without sacrificing vital nutrients according to the author, Margaret Danbrot. The working agents are antioxidents and phytochemicals. Danbrot says these work to rid the body of toxins. While there are no "magical" ingredients in the soup, Danbrot claims it's a combination of the "superfoods" in the rest of the diet that make the weight disappear.
The author makes clear the diet is not designed to be a substitution for good nutrition. She says it is designed to run 7 days and then be abandoned for at least another 2 weeks before it can be used again. Danbrot says the periodic break from the diet is designed to replenish your body's nutrient needs and develop good eating practices.
Source: "The New Cabbage Soup Diet," by Margaret Danbrot
New Cabbage Soup Diet
This website has a seven day plan and more information on the cabbage soup diet.