The Flaws Of The Cabbage Soup Diet

There is some question as to whether the Cabbage Soup Diet is a diet at all. Many people have followed it. Many have also lost weight with it. But it has been determined that this diet may result in nothing more than water loss. The diet is intended to last seven days. In that week, you eat nothing but low-calorie cabbage soup and supplemental foods that change daily. Because there are no long-term commitments involved with this diet, it is often called a fad diet.

Eating cabbage soup for an entire week may not attract too many followers. Apparently, though, it works. This would explain the widespread interest in the diet. However, this weight loss is only temporary. Which is why the diet has now gone by the wayside. So, what exactly is this diet?

With the cabbage soup diet, your drink choices are limited. No soda is allowed. Unsweetened tea is permitted on the first day. Black coffee is permitted to an extent. The positive is that you can eat as much as you want. Unfortunately, you have to eat at least two bowls of cabbage soup per day. Fruit, skim milk, meat and vegetables are allowed. Some of the other foods encouraged include tomatoes, brown rice, onions and potatoes. This is quite the opposite of the Atkins diet, which prohibits eating starchy foods.

What makes the Cabbage soup diet so controversial is not just that you eat one food at the expense of others. It is what happens after you lose the weight. It is not a diet you can follow for more than a week. The plan itself discourages it. This is because the diet is just a week of fasting. Calories brought in are so low as to be useless. It is not the cabbage that controls the weight loss. It is simply the lack of food. This means you can go on a pickle diet just as easily. Or a celery diet. Or any other food that has little to no calories. And after you go off of it, you gain the weight right back.

One of the bad things about the cabbage soup diet is that it is more like an assembly line program than anything else. It is not individualized. Everyone follows the same program. Also, the plan doesn't encourage exercise. It doesn't give you any tips to success. It doesn't even provide advice on discarding old habits. It is simply a list of foods that you must eat. It could be likened to the supposed "American Heart Association diet" that claims people can lose ten pounds in a week if they eat grapefruit, hot dogs and cantaloupe. The American Heart Association has alerted consumers that this diet is not affiliated with them. Yet, people still follow it. They follow it because they will follow just about anything that promises quick weight loss with little work. Following a healthy, varied diet is still much more effective in losing weight. A good exercise program helps too. A good attitude helps the most, and this is something not offered with any diet.

Author Resource: Jason Hulott is Director at UK Diets Online (http://www.uk-diets-online.co.uk), a service that provides information about all the major diet systems available, healthy eating and diet information. Visit now and take advantage of our special deals with Weightwatchers.

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