The Safety and Effectiveness of Cabbage Soup Diet
The cabbage soup diet is a diet with high fiber, very low fat and caloric content that is recommended to be used for seven straight days to attain a fast and effective weight loss.. According to the official website of the cabbage soup diet, this diet plan can be used only on special occasions to have a fast weight reduction and is not originally designed to long term adherence.
The Effectiveness of Cabbage Soup Diet
According to a study presented by The Pharmaceutical Journal released in July 2002, the cabbage soup diet is another fad diet that seems to be effective because of its recommended caloric intake of only 800 to 1000 kcal per day. This diet is mostly composed of a variety of vegetables added into an onion soup. This diet method also allows a very limited list of foods that can be eaten during the diet regimen such as fruit juice, fruits and other vegetables. It also allows occasional potato and beef intake. Because of the low energy intake, the body uses and converts the stored fats to into usable form of energy resulting into losing weight.
Safety of Cabbage Soup Diet
1. This type of diet can cause weight cycling. Although it is very effective, there are some questions regarding its safety in weight reduction. According to a study presented by The International Journal of Obesity, short term weight reduction regiment encourages the body to undergo weight cycling or yoyo phenomenon, the phenomenon used to describe weight-loss, weight-gain, then weight-loss-again cycle. This type of diet regimen causes some psychological stress that may trigger on and off binge eating and overeating.
2. Cabbage soup diet is most often salty. According to the official website, the cabbage soup is usually bland for most people. Because of this, people who try cooking the cabbage soup tend to add more salt to compensate for the lost taste commonly contributed by the added fat in the usual diet. And as a result, this cabbage soup diet becomes an unhealthy dish that gives additional load to the kidneys, which can be a detrimental event to patients with kidney problems.
3. It can also cause decrease iodine absorption by the body. This diet is really designed to be used for 7 days only. However, there are some people who find the Cabbage soup diet to be so effective that they decide to prolong the application of this fad diet in their diet regimen. This can be potentially dangerous since cabbage, the main vegetable in this diet can cause decrease in the absorption of iodine, a trace mineral used by the thyroid gland to produce the thyroid hormone, a hormone. This may lead to the development of goiter, a term used to describe the thyroid enlargement brought about decreased iodine in the diet.
Any diet that promotes lower caloric intake, such as the cabbage soup diet, can successfully result into weight reduction. However, the key problem with low caloric diet is the maintenance. Finding a better diet regimen is necessary to have a moderate weight loss reduction trend that can be maintained for a lifetime.