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[Personaltrainer]

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.