The Sacred Heart Diet, or Cabbage Soup Diet, is a soup-based, seven day diet plan that helps adherents lose up to ten pounds in a week. The diet plan recommends a different vegetable-based soup or broth each day and this is to constitute the dieter’s primary source of food intake. Foods such as bread, fried foods, alcohol and carbonated drinks are proscribed by the diet regime. The soup’s recipe changes per day and adds incrementally to its calorie content with a new addition from its specially selected Sacred Heart Diet ingredients.
The provenance of the Sacred Heart Diet is uncertain, with some claiming it was the brain-child of the Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital that was formulated to expedite the weight loss of patients before they underwent surgery; however, the hospital refutes this claim. Regardless of its origins, the Sacred Heart Diet does have health benefits, especially in the short term. For one, it cleanses the body and purges it of impurities and foreign bodies. With its high intake of vegetables and fruits and avoidance of refined sugars, it is an effective way to lose weight quickly, eat healthily and feel full.
A typical Sacred Heart seven-day diet plan will mean that the week typically starts with the basic Sacred Heart Diet soup accompanied by the obligatory fruit (any except bananas); on day two, fruit is struck off the menu and the soup is taken with a baked potato and butter; day three, dieters should forgo the baked potato, but plenty of soup and fruits are recommended; day four, Sacred Heart Diet soup, lots of skimmed milk and three bananas; day five, ten to twenty ounces (280 to 560 grams) of beef or chicken accompanied by tinned vegetables and the soup; day six, the soup along with unlimited amounts of beef or chicken; day seven, the soup, brown rice, a no-sugar fruit drink and vegetables.
The Sacred Heart Dieter is considered a good quick fix diet, with dieters able to shed pounds in a relatively short period of time. However, the regime’s limited range of foods means that it doesn’t constitute a good long term diet. The weight will be inevitably regained once the diet is stopped. In addition, a high and rapid intake of fruit and vegetables is likely to cause stomach cramps if the dieter is unused to the quantities involved.