Liquid diet: what happens to the body if you eat only soups

Soup is a dish familiar to us since childhood. Hundreds of recipes can be found all over the world: cold, hot, spicy, creamy, revitalizing and even medicinal. Today, they are included in detox and weight loss diets. Together with professional nutritionist and nutritionist Anna Berseneva, we understand whether it is really useful to eat soups when losing weight and how to prepare them properly.

Quickly satiate, contain a lot of vitamins and few calories

You can eat even a small portion of soup, while the calorie content is relatively low. The energy value of soup depends largely on the broth. The least fatty – mushroom, it has only 4.28 kcal per 100 g. Vegetable, chicken, fish or beef broth is also suitable for thinners. And the most fatty soup will be made of pork, in such a broth is about 40 kcal per 100 g.

Vegetables, legumes and cereals in soups are a source of vitamins. If the ingredients are not pre-fried, then both in the broth and in the components themselves will be able to preserve a significant part of the nutrients. And some vegetables are better to eat after heat treatment, such as carrots, tomatoes and broccoli. Cooked cabbage contains 30% more carotenoids than fresh cabbage – these pigments protect cells from malignant degeneration.

Hot soups perfectly warm and give energy in the cold season, and in summer you can try one of the “cold” recipes. The components in them are not exposed to high temperatures, which means they retain even more vitamins.

Nevertheless, if you do not have problems with the gastrointestinal tract, it is not necessary to eat soups regularly. You can get all the nutrients you need from regular solid food.

Anna: Soup, like any other dish, can be different. If it has a lot of “frying” – vegetables fried in sunflower oil, it is cooked on a fat broth or with flavor enhancers, it is impossible to call such a dish useful. And the fact that soups should be eaten regularly is actually a big myth.

Although there are really useful recipes – for example, cream soup from broccoli or spinach, we often prepare soups with a large number of ingredients, including fatty ones. And to pick up the enzyme for each of them and digest the food, the body has to make an extra effort, explains the nutritionist.

Can replace breakfast, lunch and dinner, but not for long

First meals are often included in the diet to lose weight. Broth fills the stomach and quickly satisfies hunger. But if the soup is low-fat and with a small number of components, it is also quickly digested, and very soon you will want to eat again. And this provokes overeating. In this case, it is better to immediately eat something more hearty, but low-calorie, such as fish and vegetable salad.

However, some diets consist exclusively of soups. Such a diet program implies that for 7-10 days you will eat only liquid dishes. After that, fruits and steamed meat are gradually returned to the diet.

A diet with celery soup is particularly popular. Although this vegetable is rich in silicon and fiber, it is not easy to eat exclusively: monotonous food soon gets boring, in addition, does not give enough energy. Moreover, with such a regime, the body lacks protein and fiber, so it can go into starvation mode and keep weight. And the effect of such a menu is just the opposite.

In addition, celery is a strong allergen and is not suitable for everyone. If a person with pollinosis (seasonal allergy to pollen) will sit on such a diet for a week, it will give a strong load on the immune system, warns nutriciologist.

When we switch to “liquid” diets of juices, broths, soups, the body is rebuilt and does not get the right amount of dietary fiber. And in terms of weight loss this is also not a plus, notes the nutritionist. Fibers, such as in green leaves and vegetables, are coarse dietary fibers that help cleanse the body and trigger intestinal peristalsis (the progression of food through the GI tract). All of this contributes to normalization of weight.

Anna: I would recommend including soup in the diet for certain health conditions, such as pancreatitis. When the body is difficult to process coarse dietary fiber, it is better to choose heat-treated vegetables, including those ground into puree soup.

If you follow the technology of preparation – do not use fatty broths, food additives and do not fry vegetables in refined oil – soups can be very useful, including for the figure. They are easy to digest and allow you to satisfy hunger quickly. However, not all of them are nutritious, and, most likely, after lunch you will want to snack on something else. The main thing is that this treat should be healthy.