How to follow the cabbage soup diet – Part 1

Venturing down the road to being healthy is a bumpy one. Along that road, you’ll come up to many different turns. You may decided on the standard diet and exercise routine, or perhaps that new weight loss pill that just hit the market. For most however, it is the popular diet of the year that they turn to. For some time now, many dieters seeking quick weight loss have been drawn to the Cabbage Soup Diet.

The Cabbage Soup Diet, like many other fad diets, makes the same old promises – “…lose 10lbs in one week!”. Who wouldn’t be drawn to that? As someone who has been on this diet, among many others, I can safely say it is one of the worst. Though it may work for some people looking to just drop a few pounds quickly, I would never recommend this diet to someone looking for long term weight loss.

The basis to this diet is fairly simple: eat cabbage soup. Run out to your grocery store and buy as many vegetables as you can get; like onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery, and, of course, cabbage. Stew these all with some soup mix and bouillon cubes and you got yourself some healthy cabbage soup. Though a little bland and not filling, it is diet food, so whose to complain? Well, many people, actually. Complaining about dizzy spells, feeling weak, and overall lack of concentration. But on the plus side, you’ll drop those holiday pounds in no time! Now, I may have exaggerated a little bit. You are, in fact, allowed a few other foods on this diet too. On day one, you can have as many fruits as you want (except bananas) and then on day two, stop eating those fruits and bulk up on your veggies. Your reward for being so good for two days? A baked potato with butter (go easy, though). On your third day you can have as many fruit and veggies as you want! But no baked potato, today. Day four, you get to curb that sweet tooth with up to eight bananas and all the skim milk you can drink. Day five and six are a bit alike, you basically get beef and vegetables any way you like them. And on your last day, stuff yourself full with brown rice and more veggies. By the next day, you should be able to step on that scale and be rid of 10 pounds of excess flab. For me, and my whole family, that was not the case. Most of us either gained weight or stayed the exact same. This is simply due to the strange intake of food you’re giving your body. You are basically confusing your metabolism, starving your body one day and stuffing it with fatty beef the next. For some this diet may work, for many others, though, it probably won’t. You may want to look into this diet only if you need to lose a few pounds or if you want a good “jump start” for a more healthy diet. All I can say after being on Cabbage Soup Diet is that I will never be able to eat cabbage again.