How to Kick Start a Diet With Soup

Dieting can be a daunting, difficult task. Despite the time commitment needed for a diet and exercise regimen, extraneous influences such as family, friends and social obligations can inadvertently sabotage the best of diet intentions. But adding soup to your daily diet can help you shed pounds with minimal lifestyle changes. The body's natural sensors don't register how many calories a person has just eaten, according to a study by Barbara J. Rolls and Elizabeth A. Bell of Pennsylvania State University. Since soup is water-based, fill up on it to kick start your diet.

Things You'll Need

• Meal plan
• Bowl
• Spoon
• Soup

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  Take measurements and weigh yourself before you begin your diet. Recording this allows you to track progress and keep you motivated. In your "before" record, write your weight. Also include measurements of your bust, waist, hips and individual thighs, calves and arms.

• 2

  Design a soup-intense meal plan to suit your needs and lifestyle. In your meal plan, commit to four to six small meals a day, and keep it simple. Focus on short-term goals to avoid discouragement and abandonment in your diet's early stages. Include three servings of soup in your daily regimen: one at lunch, one for a mid- to late-afternoon snack and one at dinner according to mydietbuddy.com.

• 3

  Buy all the items you need for a week in one grocery trip, and stock up on soup. This will help prevent spur-of-the moment food purchases from numerous grocery stops throughout the week. Cabbage soup has long reined as the ruler of soup dieting, but with companies such as Progresso and Campbell's offering lower-calorie and lower-sodium soups, explore a variety of flavors. Purchase mainly bean-based soups containing 5 g of protein or more per serving. Skip the cream soups, and aim for soups that contain fewer than 600 mg of sodium per serving, says goodhousekeeping.com.

• 4

  Prepare food choices the evening before you begin your diet. Proper planning prevents poor food choice. Know what you're going to eat, and begin your diet the next morning with a healthful low-calorie breakfast. Eat a mid-morning snack. For lunch, first consume soup followed by a sandwich and fruit. Mid- to late afternoon, eat another bowl of soup as a snack. At dinner, first eat your soup before moving on to a light meal. Use a spoon instead of drinking or slurping your soup. This elongates the mealtime, allowing the body to register the food and start to feel full, says Livestrong.com.

  Women who begin their meals with soup eat approximately 100 fewer calories over the course of a meal than those who don't, according to Rolls' and Bell's study. If you eat out, look up the restaurant's menu and decide on a soup and main course ahead of time to avoid impulse decisions.

• 5

  Add exercise to your soup-start diet. If you don't have the time to go to the gym on a regular basis, make small changes in your everyday life to speed up progress. Take "jumping jack" breaks at work in lieu of smoke breaks, even if you don't smoke. Begin or end your day with short exercise. Park your car farther from your destinations so you have to walk farther.

• 6

  Review your starting measurements after one week of your soup-infused diet. Weigh yourself, and re-measure the same body parts you did seven days ago. Take measurements at the same place on the body to obtain accurate results. Without factoring in exercise, adding soup alone should result in a one- to two-pound weight decrease per week for a woman eating approximately 1,200 calories, mydietbuddy.com says. The amount and intensity of your workouts factors into the equation, resulting in greater weight loss.