100-Calorie Additions to Make Soup a Meal and Still Lose Weight (2024)

FAQs

Can you just eat soup and lose weight? ›

Eating soup may help increase satiety and help you stay full, which might allow you to eat less overall. 1 While this may lead to weight loss, there is no evidence that a soup-only diet could effectively support long-term weight management.

Soup is a good evening meal to have every day because it is typically low in calories and high in nutrients, making it a healthy option for weight management. It is also easy to make and can be customized with a variety of ingredients to suit personal taste preferences.

Although research seems to indicate that soup can be an effective part of a weight loss plan, there is no research that conclusively demonstrates how much weight you can lose if you only eat soup for two weeks. Most likely, your results will depend on how much soup you eat and how calorie-rich it is.

Broth-based soup diets generally last for 7 days. However, some can last as long as 10–14 days. Over that time, proponents of a broth-based diet claim you can lose up to 10 or even 20 pounds (4.5 to 9 kg). On a broth-based soup diet, cream-based soups are restricted, as they're higher in calories and fat.

The idea behind a soup cleanse is that you eat only vegetable soups for a certain number of days, and afterward—poof—you're magically slimmer and healthier.

Most of this weight loss is related to dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Over several weeks of starvation, changes in the body usually cause weight loss to slow down to an average of 0.3 kilograms (0.7 pounds) per day. The more fat stores available, the longer a person can typically survive during starvation.

While you may lose weight in the short term, it is not a healthy or sustainable weight loss solution. Your metabolism slows down, you burn lean muscle and store fat, and your body's overall function decreases. Additionally, not eating has the potential to cause serious harm to your mental health.

As the soup diet usually only lasts for 7-14 days, it's not recommended in the long term. The NHS also highlights how very low-calorie diets like this often lead to short term weight loss, but it's likely that you'll put some or all of the weight back on once you go back to eating normally.

Why am I not losing weight on the cabbage soup diet? ›

One of the main problems with the Cabbage Soup Diet is that it can only be followed for 1 week, which is not long enough for meaningful weight loss. Your body can only burn so much fat per week. In the first week of a low calorie diet, only about 34% of the weight lost is from fat.

"Souping, often seen as a method for clean eating and weight loss, involves adhering to a diet consisting exclusively of vegetable soups for a set duration, typically seven days," says Kelsey Costa, MS, RDN, a nutrition consultant for Diabetes Strong, Inc. "In essence, 'souping' is the soup version of a juice cleanse."

Likely unsustainable: While proponents of the Sacred Heart diet claim that rapid short-term weight loss is possible on this seven-day plan, there is no evidence to suggest this plan is a healthy or sustainable way to lose weight. What research does show is that similar fad diets do not promote weight management.

Weigh the pros and cons and talk with your doctor before starting a Progresso soup diet or any other diet that restricts you only to certain foods. While a canned soup diet may result in weight loss initially, it might not help you keep it off in the long term.