The Cabbage Soup diet is all about cabbage soup. This 7-day diet really does work for short term, fast weight loss. With this fast weight loss diet, you eat large amounts of the soup to fill yourself up. This diet has been around for many years and there are still lots of people that use it when they want to lose weight quickly for an approaching event.

Never stay on the Cabbage Soup diet for more than a week at a time; the caloric intake is so low that you can become malnourished.

Ingredients of the cabbage soup: 1 fresh head of cabbage, 6 green onions, 2 green peppers, 16 to 28 ounce can of diced tomatoes 6 carrots 1/2 pound green beans 1 bunch of celery Vegetable broth

Peel and slice all the vegetables and add them to a big soup pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and boil lightly for 10 minutes. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until all the vegetables are cooked. Add the black pepper and chopped herbs and stir well.

You can season to taste, and ingredient proportions can be varied to fit how you like it. Black pepper to taste and add chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, sage, dill, cilantro, or thyme as you like. Some recipes call for bullion cubes, if you use bullion make sure it does not contain Monosodium Glutamate, this can give you a massive headache.

No alcohol, bread and carbonated drinks. You can have as much coffee or tea as you want, one (8-ounce) glass of skim milk or low-fat yogurt, and 1 tablespoon of low-fat or fat-free salad dressing per day. As with any diet you need to be careful, and you should consult your doctor if you have any health worries.

On the first day eat only fruit and as much soup as you want. Drink unsweetened tea, black coffee, cranberry juice and water. I was on a sugar high from all of the fruit.

On the second day eat raw and cooked vegetables, at dinner you can have a large baked potato and butter, and as much soup as you like, but no fruit.

On the third day mix days one and two, eat as much fruit, vegetables and soup as you want.

On day four eat as many as eight bananas, skimmed milk and as much soup as you want.

On the fifth day, you may eat 10-20oz of beef or chicken or fish and or six fresh tomatoes. Try to drink 6-8 glasses of water and eat the soup at least once.

On the sixth day eat 2-3 beef steaks with salad or fresh vegetables and soup at least once. On the seventh day eat brown rice, fresh vegetables and unsweetened fruit juice, eat as much as you like, plus soup at least once.

I tried it and did well, I did not get weak and had lots of energy by the middle of the week. I was hungry most of the time and did get sick of eating soup, but I was determined and stuck with it. I cheated a couple of times with a weight loss nutrition shake, just to get some badly needed nutrition. I lost 8 lbs by the end of the week; I think most of what I was losing was water weight. I started to gain the weight back soon, after so I went on a better long term healthy diet. If you are trying to do this diet during stressful times keep in mind that this diet deprives your body of essential nutrients, you can have difficulty concentrating, and may get weak and light headed.

The biggest drawback of the Cabbage Soup diet is that you can get low in the nutrition you need to get through the day, you can get very tired of Cabbage Soup and it most likely will give you gas. The rapid weight loss probably has nothing to do with fat-burning power in the cabbage; it has more to do with the perilous loss of calories. Don't even try to exercise; you will not have the fuel your body needs.

If you are not looking for a long-term solution, and you have the willpower for 7 days this diet works great for a fast weight loss diet. I cannot recommend it because it is not good for your body, a modified form could be used as start to a better and healthier long term diet. This diet is dangerously low in nutrition, and it could do harm.