The Cabbage Soup Diet
Cabbage? What Cabbage?
For a number of years I have been hearing bits and bobs from different people about The Cabbage Soup Diet. This Diet has various names, including The Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital Diet (Which I am told is a myth). A number of people I have spoken to have said they couldn’t finish the diet due to it’s strict regime and limited content of mainly fruit and vegetables. The worst offender seems to be the cabbage, not the nicest vegetable out there, some people seem to like it but I have never been one of those people. It can be made more pleasant by blanching it or pickling it but to me and many others it is still a boring old cabbage. Now in this diet, as the name gives away, there is quite a bit of cabbage in it due to it’s fat burning qualities and the fact that there are only good calories in it, but it seems to be the very thing that deters people from trying the diet. So I decided to make the cabbage the item to obliterate without actually taking it from the diet, along with a number of other vegetables that seem to make the diet rather unappealing.
Here is the diet in it’s entirety for you to review.
Fat Burning Soup
6 large onions/ 3 onions and 3 leeks
2 green peppers,
2 cans of tomatoes
1 bunch of celery,
1/2 head of cabbage
1 pkt of dried soup,
2 stock cubes
seasoning
cut all veg into small pieces and cover with stock and re-hydrated soup, boil fast for 10 minutes. Reduce to simmer until veg is soft. Season to taste.
Eat as much of this as you want, when you want. The more you eat of this the more you will lose.
DAY ONE – ALL FRUITS EXCEPT BANANAS
Your first day will consist of all the fruits you can eat except bananas, Eat all fruits and your soup. For drinks – water, unsweetened teas and cranberry juice.
DAY TWO – ALL VEG.
Eat until you are stuffed with all fresh, raw or cooked veg of your choice. try to eat leafy veg and stay away from beans, corn and peas. Eat all the veg you can along with your soup. At dinner time reward yourself with potatoes of some sort – preferably baked. You may have butter. Eat all the soup you want but no fruit.
DAY THREE – MIX DAY ONE AND DAY TWO
Eat all the soup, veg and fruit you want but you cannot have a potato today.
DAY FOUR – BANANAS AND SKIMMED MILK
Eat as many as eight bananas and drink as many glasses of skimmed milk as you can this day along with your soup. Your body will need all the nutrients that these can bring this day.
DAY FIVE – BEEF AND TOMATOES
You may have as many as 20 ounces of beef and 1 can of tomatoes, or six fresh tomatoes this day. Drink at least 6 glasses of water today to drain the uric acid from your body. Eat your soup at least once today.
DAY SIX – BEEF AND VEG
Eat to your hearts content beef and veg on this day, you may have 2 or 3 steaks and some leafy veg but no potato. Be sure to eat your soup at least once today.
DAY SEVEN – BROWN RICE, UNSWEETENED FRUIT JUICE AND VEG
Eat as much as you like and be sure to eat some of your soup too.
If you do not cheat you will find you have lost 10 – 17 lbs after the week. Continue on as long as you like. If you have lost more than 17lbs take a two day break. Stop the diet 24 hours before drinking alcohol. Although you can have coffee with this diet, you will find your need for caffeine has vanished after the third day.
Definite NO NO’S
BREAD
ALCOHOL
FIZZY DRINKS
FRIED FOODS
PASTA
Using this diet as a base I created a meal plan that would suit me and a number of other people who seem to be afraid of this diet.
Meal Plan
Day 1
Breakfast – Soup (Minestrone)
Lunch – Soup (Minestrone)
Dinner – Fruit salad of raspberries, strawberries, pineapple, peach in orange juice and soup (Minestrone)
The Minestrone soup was created from the basic fat burning soup and then separated the veg from the stock, added the veg to a blender with a couple of spoonfuls of stock and blended until smooth. With this method, I found I could make almost any flavour soup with the base without having the over powering flavours of some of the more bitter vegetables.
Day 2
Breakfast – Soup (Minestrone)
Lunch – Mushroom and onions, cooked in Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar and garlic tossed over tomatoes and lettuce
Dinner – Ratatouille (Courgettes, tomatoes, onions, peppers, garlic, mushrooms stewed with Worcestershire sauce and balsamic vinegar and boiled garlic potatoes rolled in butter
Day 3
Breakfast – Grapefruit (no sugar) or some melon
Lunch – Salad and soup (Mushroom)
Dinner – Pineapple and beansprout stir fry
The Wild Mushroom and veggie soup recipe is on the website and still starts with the basic fat burning veggies, blended together, just without the tomatoes. The Beansprouts in the stir fry give the illusion of noodles in their absence. They are cooked with the pineapple, onions and mushrooms in soy sauce and garlic and make a lovely stir fry. You will notice an abundance of mushrooms due to their meaty consistency, and up till day 5, you will need something to satisfy that meat craving.
Day 4
Breakfast – banana
Lunch – Mushroom Soup and a Banana smoothie
Dinner – Mushroom Soup and several more bananas
Day 5 (drink water only today)
Breakfast – Soup (Beef and tomato)
Lunch – meatballs and tomato based sauce
Dinner – Beef and tomato stew (Made from soup)
The recipe for the Beef and Tomato stew is also on the website, and once again starts with you basic fat burning veggies, cooked with the same method.
Day 6
Breakfast – stew with added carrots (Made from Soup)
Lunch – Bolognese sauce with salad
Dinner – Steak topped with Mushrooms and onions + salad
Day 7
Breakfast – Soup (Minestrone)
Lunch – Chinese style rice with mushrooms, spring onions and bean sprouts
Dinner – Meat Free Chili Con Carne (Rice with tomatoes, kidney beans, onions, peppers in a chili and paprika sauce)
At the end of this diet – you may or may not have lost weight, but you begin to appreciate the food we eat everyday more. Carbs and such things come as quite a shock to the system when you introduce them back in and can make you bloated so it is best to ease them in slowly. By day 3 or 4 you will be craving something as simple as some baked beans or perhaps a bowl of pasta, but once you get past this stage and go onto beef day, you will have never tasted something so wonderful when you take that first mouthful of meat. My husband is a typical man and feels that a meal without meat is no meal at all, however, he has done very well on the diet and found its rules a good deal less restricting with my meal plan.
In review though, you can see that a very daunting and strict diet is made much more interesting and much less cabbage related. Give it a go, I think you will find that you struggle less than you think.
Dee