The Vegetable Soup Diet is one of the best ways to lose weight and keep in shape in a healthy manner. It is also a relatively cheap diet being that you are mainly just eating soup. The diet revolves around a vegetable soup, which tastes great by the way, and supplements varying foods every day. The diet is scheduled throughout a 7 day period and should not be don’t more than 14 days in a row. You can get off it for a week and then go back on it if you want. This diet was actually originally created as a prerequisite to open heart surgery patients; it cleans out the system getting it ready for the procedure. It is a strict diet but varies with every day, so it is actually surprisingly easy to follow through (at least through my experience it was). For beverages, try to concentrate on drinking mainly water, but you can definitely have some fresh natural juices, unsweetened tea, and maybe some black coffee for you coffee fanatics. Not only does the diet trim you down, it gives your digestive system a huge performance boost, which is very important for all around health.
7 Day Vegetable Soup Diet:
Day One – You can have as much fruit as you want, except for bananas; and as much soup as you want.
Day Two – All vegetable day. You can have salads, with mainly leafy green ones as opposed to startchy ones. You may also have a baked potato, without butter, and of course as much soup as you want.
Day Three – Same as Day One.
Day Four – You can have up to 8 bananas, and trust me you are going to be craving them, and skim milk. This will provide potassium, calcium, and protein, diminishing your cravings for fatty goods and sweets. And of course as much of the soup you want.
Day Five – And finally it’s meat day! However, don’t eat too much meat and preferably lean red meat. Meat supplies iron. And as much soup you desire.
Day Six – It’s another meat and vegetables day! You can have meat, vegetables and soup.
Day Seven – And the last day, brown rice (hurray), vegetables, and soup.
Vegetable Soup Recipe:
Prep: 20 minutes Cook:50 minutes Makes: 28 cups·
1 lb. carrots, sliced·
3 med. onions (1 1/2 lbs.), chopped (4 c.)·
4 lg. stalks celery, sliced·
2 lg. cloves garlic, crushed with press·
2 cans (28 oz. each) whole tomatoes in juice·
1/2 sm. head green cabbage (1 lb.) thinly sliced (6 c.)·
3/4 lb. green beans, trimmed and each cut into thirds·
1 can (48 to 49 oz.) chicken broth·
6 c. water· Salt and pepper·
3 med. zucchini (1 1/4 lbs.), sliced into half-moons·
2 bags (6 oz. each) baby spinach leaves
1. Coat 12-quart stockpot (or 2 large saucepans) with nonstick cooking spray. Over medium-high heat, add carrots, onions, celery, and garlic; cook 8 minutes or until vegetables soften, stirring occasionally.
2. Add tomatoes with their liquid, breaking up tomatoes with side of spoon. Add cabbage, green beans, broth, water, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper; heat to boiling over high heat, stirring occasionally.
3. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Increase heat to high; stir in zucchini and spinach and heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 10 minutes or until all vegetables are tender.
Each cup: About 45 calories, 2 g protein, 9 g carbohydrate, 1 g total fat (0 g saturated), 4 g fiber, 0 mg cholesterol, 410 mg sodium.
In my case I made a little adjustment to the vegetable soup diet recipe, because I was working out a lot during that time and I wanted to have some more protein in my diet, so I added lentils to the recipe. If you want to be thinner and healthier, give this diet a try, it works! Remember you can buy all these ingredients using coupons at Publix.
