You may have heard of the Cabbage Soup Diet. Many people have lost immediate weight the first week or two they go on this diet, but have lost interest after that and regained the weight, which is much like the results on other low to no carb diets. For a diet to work long term, it must offer enough variety to be enjoyed and eaten over a period of time.

This diet is well known as a fat burning soup diet, being that it contains ingredients which are believed to help the body burn off fat. However, other than the cabbage soup, dieters on this regimen do not have a lot of dietary choices besides low to no carb foods such as fruits and vegetables.

When taking a closer look at the recipe for this cabbage soup or fat burning soup, it is clear that this can be considered a low to no carb diet. The soup includes fat burning vegetables like onions, peppers, tomatoes and cabbage. You can also substitute other cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower or broccoli for the cabbage. Spices and hot sauce can be added to liven up the soup.

This diet is very carbohydrate-poor, since carbohydrates are turned into sugar by the body and then stored in fat cells. This soup is vegetable based and low-carb; the ingredients encourage your metabolism to burn off more calories. This is why most people lose weight on the diet, but as stated above, a lot of people quickly lose interest in the cabbage soup diet.

The diet works like this: Eat all the soup you want every day, whenever you are hungry. In addition to the soup, the only thing you can eat on Day 1 is Fruit, except bananas, Day 2 is vegetables, except for dry beans, peas and corn, also forbidden on low to no carb diets. However, on Day 2 for dinner, you can have a baked potato, which is carbs, but they use it to fool the metabolism into thinking you are eating carbs again.

On Day 3, you guessed it, soup, fruits and vegetables and Day 4 is soup, bananas and skim milk. On Day 5, it is low fat meat and tomatoes, with soup, of course, and Day 6 is soup, meat and green leafy vegetables. The final day, Day 7, is soup and brown rice. This diet is not a plan you can stick with very long, because if you don't lose interest due to lack of variety, you would eventually suffer mal-nutrition.

Just like all of the other low to no carb diets, the cabbage soup diet severely curtails carbohydrate intake. The diet doesn't restrict how many times or how much you can eat, as long as you eat the soup or other allowable item for the day.

The best diets for helping you to lose weight over the long term are those which add fat burning foods while letting you have variety and meeting all of your nutritional needs. One such diet is Fat Loss 4 Idiots that you should check out quickly at the link below, which has helped thousands to lose weight without getting burned out on their diet.