cabbage soup
I’d plateaued for a really long time. From July to August I’d only lost one pound. I suppose it’s less of a plateau and more of a mary-got-slacky. I did learn how not to gain weight, so the month was not without its lessons. I still lost a pound. I needed to get back on track by counting calories again. My eyes got bigger than my stomach – the problem which caused me to balloon to over 300 pounds in the first place. At least this time, I am active. I still continue to do my morning routine of walking (though I’ve abandoned running for now – my knees are thanking me for it)
So anyways, back in the yo-yo diet days, I gave the cabbage soup diet (CSD) a whirl. I liked to use it as a kick starter to whatever plan I was going to try out. I thought it might be a great way to shock my body back into weight-loss mode. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried the CSD but lemme tell ya, the soup is delicious and your mission is to eat as much of it as humanly possible. You become a windy, pissing machine but it’s worth it for the quick pound droppage. I pee’d away a pound after day one. Literally…pissed my brains out. Water pills? Pffft NO NEED. Just spend a day eating nothing but fruit and cabbage soup and I promise…you shall relinquish any and all excess fluids from your stubborn, fluid retentive body. (along with anything else you might have hiding any any other orifices) haha!
Well, I thought I’d do the CSD to shake myself out of this funk and it worked. It’s a seven day diet. You don’t want to do it for more than that in a row because its not meant to be a long term thing. I went three days with virtually no protein, and then loaded up on it during days on days 5 and 6. It was difficult doing my morning walk with such a huge protein deficiency – even though I do take supplements, it wasn’t enough. However, the break that I took from walking allowed my knees to heal so again, a lesson learned through trial and error.
Today is day 7 of the CSD and I cannot wait for it to be over. As delicious as the soup is, you do get sick of it after a while. My family loves it too, which meant I had to make a few batches of it. It’s a little expensive – days 1, 2 and 3 are vegetable and or fruit days. All you can eat. That’s a lot of produce. The worse day is the bananas and skim milk day. One day of well…bananas and skim milk. (grumble) I ended up just blending them together and making shakes all day long, otherwise it would have sucked so much worse. I enjoy bananas and I use skim milk when I need to have milk in something but I’m not a milk drinker. It was a bland food day for sure. I’m glad its over.
Soooooo here’s the plan, copied from www.cabbage-soup-diet.com/eating-plan/
Day One:
Fruit: Eat all of the fruit you want (except bananas). Eat only your soup and the fruit for the first day. For drinks- unsweetened teas, cranberry juice and water.
Day Two:
Vegetables: Eat until you are stuffed will all fresh, raw or cooked vegetables of your choice. Try to eat leafy green vegetables and stay away from dry beans, peas and corn. Eat all the vegetables you want along with your soup. At dinner, reward yourself with a big baked potato with butter. Do not eat fruit today.
Day Three:
Mix Days One and Two: Eat all the soup, fruits and vegetables you want. No Baked Potato.
Day Four:
Bananas and Skim Milk: Eat as many as eight bananas and drink as many glasses of skim milk as you would like on this day, along with your soup. This day is supposed to lessen your desire for sweets.
Day Five:
Beef And Tomatoes: Ten to twenty ounces of beef and up to six fresh tomatoes. Drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water this day to wash the uric acid from your body. Eat your soup at least once this day. You may eat broiled or baked chicken instead of beef (but absolutely no skin-on chicken). If you prefer, you can substitute broiled fish for beef on one of the beef days (but not both).
Day Six:
Beef and Vegetables: Eat to your heart’s content of beef and vegetables this day. You can even have 2 or 3 steaks if you like, with leafy green vegetables. No Baked Potato. Eat your soup at least once.
Day Seven:
Brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices and vegetables: Again stuff, stuff, stuff yourself. Be sure to eat your soup at least once this day.
Here’s the recipe from the same website: http://www.cabbage-soup-diet.com/recipe/
- 6 large green onions (also called “spring” onions)
- 2 green peppers
- 1 or 2 cans of tomatoes (diced or whole)
- 3 carrots
- 1 container (10 oz. or so) mushrooms
- 1 bunch of celery
- half a head of cabbage
- 1 package spice only soup mix (In the US, Liptons is a good choice)
- 1 or 2 cubes of bouillon (optional)
- 1 48oz can Low Sodium V8 juice (optional)
- Season to taste with pepper, parsley, curry, garlic powder, etc. (Little to NO SALT!)
Directions:
- Slice green onions, put in a pot on medium heat and start to sauté with cooking spray. Do this until the onions are whiter/clearer in color (about 4-6 minutes).
- Cut green pepper stem end off, then cut pepper in half to take out the seeds and membrane. Cut the green pepper into bite size pieces and add to pot.
- Take the outer leafs layers off the cabbage, cut into bite size pieces, add to pot.
- Clean carrots, mushrooms, and celery, cut into bite size pieces and toss them in. Add tomatoes now, too.
- If you would like a spicy soup, add a small amount of curry or cayenne pepper now.
- For seasonings, you can use a spice soup packet of your choice (no noodles!) or use beef or chicken bouillon cubes. These cubes are optional, and you can add spices you like instead (make sure not to add much salt, if any at all).
- Use about 12 cups of water (or 8 cups and the 48 oz of Low Sodium V8 juice), cover and put heat on low. Let soup simmer for a long time – about 2 hours or until vegetables are tender.
I just take all the vegetables, water and V8 and put’em in a giant pan and let it all simmer till the veggies are soft.
**Update**
The 4 pounds I lost during my CSD week returned in a few days. I’ll share my thoughts on this later, but wanted to put this in here so I’d remember to. I have since lost it again so it’s all good in the hood.
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