Monday, October 11, 2010

Cabbage Soup Diet

The diet on which Anil and I went a few weeks back was a cabbage soup diet. I don't think it is a particularly good diet, but I like that it is teaching you self-control.

On different days throughout 7 days this diet takes, you are allowed to eat different group of products (on top of the cabbage soup, of course, which is allowed on all days):

  1. Any fruit you want, but no bananas. (We ate apples, oranges, grapes, watermelons, peaches, grapefruits.)

  2. Any veggies you want. A baked potato for dinner. (We ate baby carrots, celery, pickles, cauliflower, and a salad with avocado, tomatoes, and cucumber.)

  3. Any fruit and vegetables you want, but no baked potato. (We ate the same things as on day 1 and day 2.)

  4. As many as eight bananas and as many glasses of skim milk you want. (I believe I managed to eat 5 and Anil 6 bananas, and we drunk 2-3 glasses of milk each.)

  5. 10-20 oz of beef and up to six fresh tomatoes. (We substituted beef with soy patties.)

  6. Beef and vegetables, no baked potato. (Again, instead of beef we ate soy patties.)

  7. Brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices and vegetables. (We did not eat brown rice and the only juice we drunk was orange juice. We ate baby carrots and salad with avocado. We broke the diet in the evening and rewarded ourselves with a poppy seed cake.)

I found two first days of the diet difficult, but after that it became pretty easy. I believe Anil felt the same way. I do not think I lost any weight, but I do feel better and lighter after it. So I decided to go on it again and, just like the last time, I started it on Monday as it makes it easier for me to remember what I am allowed to eat on each day. Hopefully this time around I will be able to shed some of the extra fat that accumulated around my hips :)

A small tip: The official soup recipe is rather bland, so I would strongly advice you to add lots of other spices as well, like cayenne pepper, oregano, basil, cumin, powdered garlic and onion.