Cabbage Soup Series: Day One

Day 1: Fruit: Eat all of the fruit you want, except bananas. Eat only the soup and fruit. For drinks – unsweetened teas, cranberry juice and water.

(I have to admit, I had half a muffin and iced mocha before I remembered this was Day 1 of the diet. Dangit. Day 1 officially began at 10:30 am.)

Well, I thought it would be a few days before I would have to prove my theory that it is not a mental phenomenon that makes you crave junk foods while on a diet. It’s those damn coworkers. Not more than 30 minutes into work, this was dropped off at my desk:

Pure evil.

Look at all of ‘em. Staring up at me like a box of abandoned puppies. I really hate my coworker. I stayed strong though, and devoured my lunch of assorted dried fruits and fruit salad:

Divine intervention

Other than the doughnuts dangling in front of my face, I didn’t struggle with temptations. I am a very sweet-toothed person and can eat fruit until my heart’s content. I can do this! I have the will power of a Mongolian Monk! Burn fat, buuurnn! Okay maybe I’m getting a little excited that I was able to go eight hours only eating fruit. Baby steps. And even no ill-side effects…yet. But then again, no soup…yet.

I made the soup that evening and needless to say I was more than ready for some sodium intake. It actually was a lot tastier than I expected, so much so that I thought maybe I shouldn’t have included the soup mix, as the original recipe didn’t say when to add it and emphasized the meal’s blandness. My vegetarian counterpart confirmed that her soup was flavorless and it must be the use of chicken bouillon that jazzed mine up. Another win for the meat eaters!

Finished the night off with a steaming pile of cabbage soup and called the day a success.

Wait, don’t forget those dreaded “results”.

Total weight loss after day 1: 0 lbs.

So much for thinking Day 1 a success, but my hopes are still high.

Cabbage Soup Series: Whats Stewing Up

I don’t diet. I cant, I won’t. It is a mental aversion. I am the type of person that when a “diet” is mentioned, my mind goes into instant junk food mode, causing me to consume every carb, starch and sugar within a mile radius. After I smother them in gravy.

I wouldn’t say I am in bad shape – at least I’m not offensive to look at in a bikini, but I’m also not about to strut down a runway anytime soon. Of course I fuss over the 10 lbs of fluctuating weight that probably only I notice. But I’m still young so I can get away with eating a less than well-rounded diet. I’m pleasantly average, what doctors and nutritionist like to call “ideal”. Please, since when is average ideal? C’mon, every girl wants to be bag-of-bones skinny and a whole lot of them will go to any measure to get there. Again, I can’t. I won’t. I don’t know how. Inevitably, the word “diet” will come into play and I’ll be trampling people to get to the front of the line at Lolo’s Chicken and Waffles. And I’ll smother it in gravy.

So why, after proclaiming again and again that I can’t, won’t and don’t know how to diet, would I voluntarily embark on a 7-day, no holds, grab- the-veggies-by the-balls crash diet? It’s not for my health – I highly doubt a meal plan that advises NOT doing more than a week can be healthy. Ohh no, health shmealth. I am doing it as a testament to my willpower, a challenge of self control. And because I’m very, really, super bored. So I welcome you to my blog mini-series: The Cabbage Soup Diet.

Here’s what The Cabbage Soup Diet entails: one week of certain foods paired with unlimited consumption of cabbage soup. It’s a fairly popular diet, or “cleanse”, though I am beginning to suspect that word is thrown out a lot more in the nutrition world than necessary. I shopped around, looked into the “Master Cleanse” (aka the Lemonade and Cayenne pepper diet), but the pricey ingredients - $25 grade D maple syrup? - combined with the fact that there would be no masticating in the process quickly turned me away. Although they may not be my favorite foods, at lease FOOD is a part of The Cabbage Soup Diet.

I will document my experience of each day, hopefully amounting to monumental results. Of course, to calculate the results I must know my start weight so first step is the hardest- onto the scale.

Ouch.

Well the bad news is that I am at my heaviest this year, but the good news is the new pounds should shed quickly, giving me more dramatic results and making me feel that much more successful and awesome. I hope.

So here it is, the magic concoction:

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 6 large green onions
• 2 green peppers
• 1 large can diced tomatoes
• 3 carrots
• 8 oz container of mushrooms
• 1 bunch of celery
• ½ head of cabbage
• 1 package onion soup mix
• 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon
• 48 oz of V8 juice
• 8 cups water
• Dash of pepper, few shakes of garlic salt

Where are the Pot Pies?

Directions:

• Slice green onions, sauté in deep pot with a TBS olive oil
• Deseed and chop the green peppers and add to pot
• Remove the outer layers of the cabbage, chop and add to pot
• Clean carrots, chop and add to pot
• Slice mushrooms (if needed), add to pot
• Chop celery and add to pot

Ewww.

• Add chicken bouillon and soup mix
• Add water, V8 juice, and canned tomatoes
• Cover and put on low heat, allowing it to cook for about two hours

Now this is something I might eat.

This recipe was originally pulled from here, however this version leaves out a few steps and provides some different options. The above is exactly how I made it.

Then the last and probably most important ingredient is a friend (aww). Really though, support systems are crucial to success in diets, even if they are only ridiculous week long crash diets. You can visit my friend Denise's eerily similar account of the exact same experience on her blog.

Bon Appetite!