Cabbage Soup Diet

Is It Difficult to Follow?
by Francisca Cahyaningsih

It's very easy to describe the cabbage soup diet - FAKE. There's no need to know anything more about this ridiculous diet. But in case you're curious here is some more information.

The origins of the cabbage soup diet are nebulous. It was one of the diets faxed from machine to machine in the early 1980's. The diet went under many names, often using a part of the name of a well respected institution such as the Russian peasant diet, or the St. Jude's diet. Needless to say, the diet has no relation to any of the institutions, nations, or people used in these names.

The cabbage soup diet calls for drinking nothing but water or unsweetened fruit juice on days when juice is allowed. A general outline of the diet is something like this.

Day one -- cabbage soup and fruit, but not bananas.

Day two -- cabbage soup as usual, and vegetables including a half baked potato without butter.

Day three -- add vegetables and fruit to the daily cabbage soup, but no bananas or potato.

Day four -- cabbage soup, eight bananas, skimmed milk.

Day five -- as much as 20 ounces of beef +6 tomatoes along with cabbage soup.

Day six -- cabbage soup plus as much beef and vegetables as can be eaten, but no potatoes.

Day seven -- cabbage soup, brown rice, vegetables, unsweetened fruit juice, but no potatoes.

The cabbage soup diet claims that people can lose 10 pounds in only one week. While it may be possible, most of that weight will be water weight. It's impossible to lose 10 pounds of fat in a week. It is however, possible to get sick from a lack of nutrition which is one danger with the cabbage soup diet.

The other problem with the cabbage soup diet is that it's a very difficult diet to follow. Not because it's too complicated, but rather because seven days of cabbage soup becomes monotonous. It was common for people to last only a couple of days before quitting. Even as more exciting cabbage soup recipes, including some with various spices, made the rounds people still quit early.

You don't have to turn to something goofy like the cabbage soup diet for weight loss. Exercise more and cut out calories in order to accomplish a goal.