When I asked leading Australian nutrition commentator, Catherine Saxelby, to guest post, her topic surprised me. She really hates to reveal it, but the most popular page – by thousands of hits – on her highly successful Foodwatch website is one called The Soup Diet: Can you Lose Weight on It. Even though she rubbishes the diet as a silly fad diet, readers keep coming .. and looking for it. And it ranks way ahead of “sensible” pages such as eating more salads, upping your omega-3s or eating mindfully. So as we are about to Spring out of our clothes into warmer weather downunder, we know that enough people will be looking for a weight loss answer…in soup. And as our Northern friends get set for Fall and soup season. It was high time to revisit if soup diet is the solution:
About our expert
Catherine Saxelby Accredited Practising Dietitian
Catherine Saxelby is a leading Australian dietitian, media commentator, speaker and award-winning author. You can find easy recipes, articles and check lists at her popular website and subscribe to her e-newsletter www.foodwatch.com.au
The Soup Diet isn’t anything new. Every couple of winters, it reappears under a new name or with a slight twist – to catch unsuspecting dieters. The latest re-incarnation was as the “Kickstart Diet” made famous by a current affairs program. You lived on soup for a week to kickstart your dieting efforts. Before that, the same diet was big as the “Cabbage Soup Diet”, the only difference being that the soup contained lots of shredded cabbage. Not fun for the family or friends around you!
The rationale of soup diet
Whatever its current guise, the soup diet in itself is pretty simple, which is part of its long-lasting appeal. You cook up a big pot of low-fat vegetable soup using tomatoes, onion, celery, green beans and other non-starchy vegetables and stock. Then you sip the soup as a meal replacement or heat up a mug of it whenever you feel hungry.
The Diet feels like an “instant fix” for your weight problem, producing rapid weight loss in a week (even if most of this is fluid and will be regained). It tells you exactly WHAT and WHEN to eat, rather than you having to learn how to choose your meals according to nutrition principles.
The soup is the “gimmick” and acts as a high-fibre low-kilojoule meal substitute for one, two or – if you have the stomach for it – three meals a day as well as in-between. Compare the kilojoules and fat. A 250ml mug of vegetable soup has only 315kJ (75 cals) and less than a gram of fat, way less than a typical diet meal of tuna salad and wholemeal bread at 970kJ (240cals) and 3 grams of fat. Will you lose weight? Sure!
The silly part
The latest reincarnation has weird rules about when and how much fruit, potatoes, meat, bread, peas and corn you can eat which makes no nutrition sense at all! Can you make sense of this diet regime?
On Day 1, all you eat is soup and fruit. You can eat any fruit except bananas (supposedly because they are “high in kilojoules”).
On Day 2, all you’re allowed is soup and vegetables but NO fruit.
Day 3 is soup, vegetables and fruit – but no potatoes.
Day 4 you can eat up to three large bananas per day as well as unlimited soup.
In addition, you’re allowed unlimited quantities of unsweetened fruit juice or cranberry juice, which would add carbohydrates in the form of fruit sugars.
Go figure.
Soup, soup and more soup
The big reason for the Soup Diet’s success is simply monotony. If you are allowed to eat “as much as you like” of any one food, it soon becomes boring and so you limit the total amount you take in. How many bananas can you eat in a day without getting tired of them? Or fruit? Or rice or soup? The same principle of monotony is the secret behind the once-famous Israeli Army diet (two days of chicken, two days of lettuce, two days of apples and two days of cheese) and the Eggs Only diet. They sound fabulous but you soon tire of the same old thing day in, day out.
My single biggest criticism is that this is a short-term fad diet and doesn’t help you re-learn healthier eating habits. You “endure” the diet for a week or so. But what do you do once the week’s over? Go back to how you ate before and watch the weight pile back on? On the plus side, vegetable soup itself is a winner for any diet. There’s lots of research showing that soup – any sort – is a dieter’s best friend, filling you up and keeping you satisfied for less. Finally remember there are NO magic wands to wave. For long-term weight loss AND future weight maintenance, you need a healthy eating plan. But that pot of veggie soups makes the weight loss effort a lot easier.
Editor’s note:
Thanks Catherine. I now love my veggie soup. And I love reading the research on soup and energy density by Professor Barbara Rolls, nutrition researcher and author of The Volumetrics Eating Plan. We know that people who eat soup as a meal starter will take the edge off their appetite and eat less kilojoules at the main meal – in one study saving over 400kilojoules. There is also something about water in foods that offers superior appetite satisfaction or satiety. So by all means slurp your way through soup this Spring and Fall. But don’t fall into the trap of believing that it is your single weight loss solution. Chat to a Registered or Accredited Practising Dietitian about that.
So over to you dear readers? Go on be honest. Bet you have a super, soup diet, doozy to share? What’s your favourite healthy soup? Leave us a comment about soup diet and feel free to share recipe links below.
