What is the Cabbage Soup Diet?
The Cabbage Soup Diet is a 7-day diet that is popular at the moment. It claims you will lose up to 10 pounds in a week. But as it is a low-calorie, low-fat approach, scientific research indicates it will not be an effective way to lose weight, and will lead to weight regain, perhaps of far more than you may have lost. In this blog post I will take a look at the diet the way it is, and how it will have to be tweaked to make it ketogenic and a way to lose weight for the long-term.
I have looked at one version of the Cabbage Soup Diet and on this version, on each day you are allowed different food items in addition to your daily bowl of home-made cabbage soup. On one day you can eat ‘all the fruit you want.’ On other days you can have unlimited veggies and a baked potato, brown rice, fruit juices, skinless chicken, and, on one deadly day, up to 8 bananas and skim milk! And several times you are instructed to ‘stuff yourself’— presumably on veggies, and it doesn’t forbid starchy veggies. Note: there are probably a million other versions of the Cabbage Soup Diet out there. What I say about this version may not be true of them all.
This diet allows so much in the way of carbs that many dieters will not only not lose weight, they might actually gain a pound or two in spite of being hungry for a week. But that’s what happens when you go back to the failed low-calorie approach that is rightly called the ‘semi-starvation diet.’ It’s like the ‘Biggest Loser’ diet. Nearly all winning ‘Biggest Loser’ contestants have gained all the weight back, and possibly more as well.
But— I like the idea of cabbage soup. It’s so Eastern-European-y, and since cabbage is allowed on the Induction level of Original Atkins (the original ketogenic lifestyle) you can make a version that is basically allowable on Atkins— it can replace your daily Atkins-Induction salad. Which is great in winter to replace a cold salad with a warm soup.
Ketogenic Tweaks to the Cabbage Soup Diet
The first step toward doing the ketogenic version of the cabbage soup diet is to get into ketosis, the body’s fat burning mode. The easy was to do that is to get out your copy of the original Atkins Diet Revolution book, look up the rules for the Induction stage, and follow those rules strictly. And don’t try to do a low-fat version of Atkins. We now know that good fats are not only good for you, they help you lose weight by keeping you from getting hungry.
Don’t have a copy of the original Atkins Diet Revolution? Get one!
To make this into a version of the Cabbage Soup Diet, you have to make a pot of cabbage soup. Look at the list of ‘Diet Revolution Vegetables.’ You will see it includes cabbage, Chinese cabbage, onions, mushrooms, sauerkraut, and other good things you can use for cabbage soup. (I’d say you can also feel free to add a bit of garlic, or some kimchee.)
You can replace some of the water in your cabbage soup recipe with home-made bone broth for a real health-and-nutrition boost! What about tomatoes? They are among the Diet Revolution veggies, but they can add too many carbs if you overdo it. I’d suggest not adding them to your first batch of cabbage soup, but you can add a bit to later batches to see how it works for you.
You can also add various herbs and spices, depending on what you like. To made your daily or twice daily serving (1 cup) of cabbage soup more interesting, make it a little differently each time. Add peppers to one batch, and okra or snow pod peas to another. Change up your spices. And when you heat up the soup for serving, you can add a bit of soy sauce one time, a different spice on another day, and a pat of butter on a third. You can make every serving taste a bit different, or you can mostly make it the same way. It’s up to you! Note: if you don’t want to skip your daily Atkins salads, you can either have salad at lunch and cabbage soup at supper, or you can have 1/2 servings of both soup and salad at each meal. And when you leave Atkins Induction level to add back more carbs, you might swing a full serving of each at one or both meals.
What about other foods? You can eat whatever is allowed on Atkins at the Induction level. Instead of stuffing yourself with veggies (which do have carbs, which add up if you overdo it,) or eating 8 bananas, you can have a snack of a few slices of bacon— and a hour later, you can have more! There are no limits on zero-carb foods like meats, and you don’t have to count or care about the calories! And, yes, people do lose weight this way and keep it off as long as they stick to a low-carb eating plan. (If you decide to eat loads of carbs, though, you will gain it back. So don’t!)
What about the different-foods on different days thing? You can do that if you want to, choosing among the allowed Atkins Induction foods. One day you can eat devilled eggs, another day ham, another day you can have avocado ‘fries’ wrapped in bacon. Or you can eat pretty much the same thing
No matter how many years you do a ketogenic diet like Atkins, from time to time you might need to go back to the stricter level of something like Atkins Induction. The problem is that when you start adding carbs back, even if you are not cheating on Atkins, you are likely to be seeing less of the benefits of the Atkins/keto lifestyle, such as weight loss, lower blood pressure and normal blood sugar, more energy, mental health benefits, and so on. Going back on Induction periodically will help you!
What about the cabbage soup? Now, I don’t know if there is a whit of scientific evidence saying that cabbage is a health food or will magically make you lose weight, either in soup form or some other form. But cabbage is a healthy low-carb veggie, it’s traditional among many European-Americans, and it’s often very cheap if you can buy it from the farmer instead of from the grocery store or organic food store. My Serbian-American friend once bought a trailer-load of giant cabbage heads that were probably grown as deer bait for hunters, but I made soup and sauerkraut from it all the same. It’s a great budget saver for those of us on keto.
So, in conclusion: a high-carb Cabbage Soup Diet with limits on calories and fat will do what other high-carb, low-calorie, low-fat diets will: it will fail you. You won’t lose weight except maybe temporarily, you will likely gain more in the long run, and your insulin resistance (why you got fat/overweight in the first place) will get even worse. And you can only do it 7 days, even according to its advocates.
However, doing a low-carb version of the Cabbage Soup Diet is helpful if you are getting the low-carb/ketogenic part right. And staying on low-carb/Atkins is something that people can do for decades, and since cabbage and thus cabbage soup is allowed daily, if you happen to like cabbage soup you can have a bowl every single day until you are 90. You will be allowed so much other healthy low-carb foods that you won’t be in danger of having nutritional problems.
Terminology: A diet is a temporary way of eating that is not intended to be followed for a long time, such as the normal Cabbage Soup Diet or the semi-starvation diet (low-calorie.) A diet is something you go on, and then go off. A lifestyle or way of eating (“WOE”) is a dietary change, as in Atkins, low-carb, or keto which is meant to be followed for life.
I've got cabbage soup brewing in my Crock-Pot right now! I am working on the recipe and if it turns out good I will share it on this blog. I recommend getting a Crock Pot if you don't have one yet--- the model shown below is one I own (I have 4 slow-cookers, and I live alone!). And of course Dana Carpender's low-carb Crock Pot recipe book!
