The Cabbage Soup Diet

Don't Fall for Tricks or Gimmicks that Might End Up Ruining Your Health

The American Heart Association recommends adopting healthy eating habits permanently, rather than impatiently pursuing crash diets in hopes of losing unwanted pounds in a few days through fad quick weight loss plans.

Many of these fad diets, such as the notorious and outright insane Cabbage Soup Diet, will undermine your health, cause physical discomfort (abdominal discomfort and flatulence or gas) and lead to the ping-pong effect of gaining weight soon after losing it. In other words the risks aren't worth the rewards.

Quick-weight-loss diets generally put far too much emphasis on one particular food or type of food. They don't include a variety of foods or good balance, a violation of the first principle of good nutrition, eat a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods.

If you are able to stay on such a diet for more than a few weeks, you may develop nutritional deficiencies, because no one type of food has all the nutrients a human being needs for good health. The Cabbage Soup Diet is one example. This so-called fat-burning soup is eaten mostly with fruits and vegetables.

People supposedly lost 10-17 pounds in only a week, eating mostly cabbage soup. Even if the weight loss claim were true, all the damage due to a lack of a host of important nutrients would far outweigh (pun intended) the benefits of losing the weight. There are no magic beans, or magic cabbages, or miracle foods when it comes to weight loss and good nutrition. Moderation and consuming all the major food groups is the best bet.

The second principle of good nutrition is that eating should be enjoyable. You think eating only cabbages every day is enjoyable?. These diets are so monotonous and boring that it's almost impossible to stay on them for long periods. Consider a week on the Cabbage Soup Diet. By mid week crawling bugs would look good. They'd cart you off in a straight jacket on Sunday.