Cabbage Soup Diet Plan, Results, and Shopping List

The Cabbage Soup Diet is a quick weight loss plan. It entails eating a lot of cabbage soup, as the name suggests.
The diet followers claim that it can help you lose up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in a single week, however, many health professionals say that the diet is harmful and the results are unsustainable.
In this article, we will discuss the Cabbage Soup Diet plan, how you can start it, and what results you can expect.

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Cabbage soup diet shopping list for 1 week

2-3 cabbage heads.
3 tomato sauce cans.
2 cans of mushroom slices.
1 Kg carrots.
Celery.
Onions 2 Kgs.
Green, yellow or red bell peppers (1 Kg).
Potatoes and other vegetables.
Fruits, however, try to avoid bananas and mangos.

Cabbage soup diet weight loss results

You will lose weight quickly because the number of calories you consume is significantly fewer than these. However, the initial quick weight loss is brought on by the loss of water and glycogen.

This implies that while you may think you are losing weight, you aren’t. Your weight will also return if you finish the diet and resume your regular eating routine.

Health professionals advise against following extremely low-calorie diets unless they are prescribed by a physician.

It is preferable to select a sustainable, well-balanced diet that can be followed healthily if you want to lose overall weight on your own. In this manner, you can shed 1-2 pounds each week and prevent long-term weight gain.

What to eat on a cabbage soup diet?

So, what can you eat on the cabbage soup diet?

The diet works just as its name implies:

you eat nearly nothing but homemade cabbage soup for one week.
You can also have 1–2 additional things each day, such as skim milk, fruit, or vegetables.
The diet is designed to last no more than seven days to slim down or kick-start a longer-term diet plan.
The Cabbage Soup Diet is also known as the Mayo Clinic Diet. allegedly because it was devised in a hospital to help heart patients lose weight quickly before surgery.

Check out HEART HEALTHY DIET; Foods & Tips To Protect Your Heart

Cabbage soup diet recipe

Cabbage soup diet recipe ingredients

2 large diced onions.
Celery.
2 bell peppers or green peppers.
Cabbage head.
2-3 carrots.
Mushroom slices.
2 tomato sauce.
6–8 cups of water or chicken soup.

How to cook cabbage soup for diet?

Cut all of the veggies into cubes.
Sauté onions in a modest quantity of oil in a large stockpot.
Add the remaining veggies and cover with water or vegetable cocktail, if preferred, and season with bouillon cubes or other seasonings.
Bring to a boil, then turn down to a medium setting. Allow to boil for 30–45 minutes, or until veggies are soft.
Season the soup with salt, pepper, spicy sauce, herbs, and spices to taste. You may also add non-starchy veggies like spinach or green beans.
You should have as much cabbage soup as you desire every day–at least for multiple meals.

Calories in diet cabbage soup

The minimal calorie intake advised for healthy weight loss is 1,200 calories per day, and the cabbage soup diet limits some foods and dietary groups.

One cup (79 g) of Weight Watchers cabbage soup has 42 calories.

The Cabbage Soup Diet will result in weight loss because it contains so few calories.

Despite being allowed to eat an unlimited amount of soup and a few other items while on this diet, it would be quite challenging to consume enough calories to maintain your current body weight.

The majority of the weight you lose on the cabbage soup diet is likely to return as soon as you stop the diet, even though it may help you lose weight.

Notably, your body responds by lowering your metabolic rate, reducing the amount of calories you burn each day when you severely restrict your calorie intake or lose a lot of weight.

How to succeed in losing weight on cabbage soup diet

Aside from the soup, you may have 1–2 additional low-calorie items each day. However, no additional substitutes should be made, and only water or other calorie-free liquids, such as unsweetened tea, should be consumed.
A daily multivitamin is frequently advised since the diet may be deficient in specific nutrients.

The cabbage soup diet plan (How do you follow the cabbage soup diet?)

So, you decided to choose the cabbage soup diet as your plan but don’t know how to follow it. Don’t worry. Here is the 7-day cabbage soup diet to help you know where to start.

Day 1: You can have cabbage soup as much as you want with fruit, but no bananas..
Day 2: Eat only soup and veggies. Concentrate on raw or cooked leafy greens. Peas, maize, and beans should be avoided. You may also eat one cooked potato topped with butter or oil.
Day 3: In addition to the soup, consume as many fruits and vegetables as possible. However, there will be no baked potatoes or bananas.
Day 4: Bananas, skim milk, and cabbage soup are all unlimited.
Day 5: You may substitute chicken or fish for 10–20 ounces (280–567 grams) of beef. In addition, you may enjoy up to six fresh tomatoes. Consume at least 6–8 glasses of water every day.
Day 6: Soup with meat and veggies If you did not do so the day before, you may substitute broiled fish for the beef. Concentrate on leafy greens. There is no baked potato.
Day 7: You may eat as many veggies, brown grains, and fruit juice as you like — but no added sugar.
The diet should not be followed for longer than seven days at a time. You may, however, repeat the diet if you wait at least two weeks before beginning it again.

Pros and cons of the cabbage soup diet

Cabbage soup diet side effects

Although the Cabbage Soup Diet may help you lose weight, its disadvantages may exceed its advantages.

Cabbage soup diet weight loss results may be hard to reach

One of the major disadvantages of the Cabbage Soup Diet is that it only lasts one week, which is insufficient for meaningful weight loss.

Your body can only burn a certain amount of fat every week. Only around 34% of the weight lost during the first week of a low-calorie diet is from fat.
The remaining two-thirds are because of reduced water weight and muscle mass.
Water weight is derived from glycogen stores, which are your body’s short-term energy reserves. Glycogen normally bonds to water molecules in your body.

Cabbage soup diet calories are extremely low

When you don’t eat enough calories, your body burns up the glycogen stored as energy and also sheds the excess water.
However, if you return to a less restrictive diet, your body will replenish those emergency stores and gain water weight again – even if you continue to eat.

You will struggle to avoid muscle loss on the diet if you do not consume enough protein.
Furthermore, the food is quite bland, making it difficult to stick to for a whole week.
It also necessitates regular large-batch boiling to make enough cabbage soup, which may be a disadvantage for some.
Although the Cabbage Soup Diet is not a starvation diet, the foods are so low in calories that it would be difficult to consume 1,000 calories a day.
This is less than the projected minimum number of calories required to maintain a steady weight. On average, that minimum is 1,200 calories for women and 1,500 calories for males.
Very low-calorie diets of less than 800 calories per day are only advised for obese patients under the strict supervision of a physician.

The nutritional value of the cabbage soup diet is low

Living only on a cabbage soup diet doesn’t provide all the nutrients your body needs.
Low-calorie diets should be taken under the direction of a doctor and are usually intended to be nutritionally adequate.
However, the Cabbage Soup Diet’s meal options are quite limited and imbalanced.
The diet has nearly little protein and is extremely low in carbohydrates, fat, and calories.
It is also lacking in numerous vitamins and minerals.
If you simply follow the diet for one week, there is no major risk of vitamin and mineral shortages, especially if you take a multivitamin.
However, this does not compensate for the diet’s lack of calories and protein.

Cabbage soup causes bloating

Because of the high fiber content of this diet, many people report flatulence and cramps as severe adverse effects. These side effects may be inconvenient enough to cause the diet to be discontinued.

Know how to debloat fast after binge eating.

Gallbladder Problems Could Occur

There have been a few anecdotal accounts of gallstones and gallbladder obstructions among long-term Cabbage Soup Diet users.
Any quick weight reduction might result in gallstones as an unwanted consequence.
When you eat high-fat foods, your gallbladder normally produces digestive secretions to aid with digestion.
However, if you don’t eat much fat, your gallbladder may not empty for prolonged periods, increasing the likelihood of stone formation.
Gallstones may be more prevalent in persons who follow a low-fat or very low-calorie diet, such as the Cabbage Soup Diet.

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The cabbage soup diet can affect people with diabetes

The cabbage soup diet can affect blood sugar levels in diabetics.
If you have diabetes and want to try the Cabbage Soup Diet, continue after consulting your doctor.
The low carbohydrate and calorie content may induce significant variations in blood sugar levels.
However, as long as the diet is only followed for one week, most healthy people are unlikely to have any harmful side effects.

Cabbage soup diet Pros

The cabbage soup diet Is Rich In Nutrient

Despite having a very low calorie count, cabbage offers an outstanding nutritional profile.

Insignificant levels of iron, riboflavin, and vitamin A are also present in cabbage.

It is abundant in vitamin B6 and folate, both of which are necessary for several critical bodily functions, including energy metabolism and the healthy operation of the nervous system, as you can see from the list above.

Cabbage also has a lot of fiber and strong antioxidants like polyphenols and sulfur compounds.

The cabbage soup diet aids in Improving Digestion

The best option for improving digestive health is fiber-rich cabbage.

This crunchy vegetable is loaded with insoluble fiber, a type of carbohydrate that can’t be digested in the intestines, which is good for the gut. Insoluble fiber makes stools more substantial and encourages regular bowel movements, which helps maintain the digestive system’s health.

Additionally, it has a lot of soluble fiber, which has been demonstrated to boost the amount of healthy bacteria in the stomach. This is so because friendly species like Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli primarily rely on fiber as a fuel source.

These microorganisms carry out crucial tasks like immune system defense and the production of essential vitamins like K2 and B12.

Increasing your intake of cabbage is a great method to maintain a healthy digestive system.

Helps improve Heart Health

Anthocyanins, potent chemicals, are present in red cabbage. They are responsible for the tasty vegetable’s vivid purple hue.

Plant pigments called anthocyanins are members of the flavonoid family.

Eating foods high in this pigment has been linked in numerous studies to a lower risk of heart disease.

Researchers discovered that those who consumed more foods high in anthocyanins had a significantly lower risk of having a heart attack in a study involving 93,600 women.

Similar results were found in another study of 13 observational studies with 344,488 participants. It was discovered that a daily flavonoid consumption increase of 10 mg was linked to a 5% decreased risk of heart disease.

It has also been demonstrated that increasing your intake of dietary anthocyanins lowers blood pressure and the risk of coronary heart disease.

Heart disease is known to be greatly influenced by inflammation, and anthocyanins’ protective effect against it is probably due to their anti-inflammatory properties.

Cabbage is a fantastic choice for heart health since it includes more than 36 different types of powerful anthocyanins.

A cabbage soup diet might Reduce Blood Pressure

More than a billion individuals suffer from high blood pressure, which is a significant risk factor for both heart disease and stroke.

Patients with high blood pressure are frequently advised by doctors to consume less salt. Recent research, however, indicates that boosting your dietary potassium may be just as crucial for reducing blood pressure.

The body needs potassium as an essential mineral and electrolyte to function effectively. One of its primary functions is to balance the effects of sodium in the body and assist in controlling blood pressure.

Potassium aids in the urine’s excretion of extra sodium. Additionally, it eases the walls of blood vessels, which lowers blood pressure.

The modern diet tends to be too high in sodium and too low in potassium, even though both sodium and potassium are crucial for health.

A 2-cup (178-gram) serving of red cabbage provides 12% of the RDI for the mineral potassium.

Consuming more potassium-rich foods, such as cabbage, can help lower high blood pressure and possibly maintain it within a healthy range.

Conclusion

Finally, there are hundreds of cabbage soup diet success stories that you can achieve by following the rules right. Also, you have to consult your physician before starting a cabbage soup diet plan, especially if you have an underlying health condition.