Try Adding Soup to Your Diet
Soup
Soup has been around for a long time and the quick packet soups are very popular. Mainly used as an addition to your meal, a nice starter to warm up your stomach juices ready to start digesting the main meal. However this watery feast can be used to help people lose weight. You can literally shed pounds by introducing soup to your daily diet.
How would it work
It works by following some basic nutritional rules. The first is when you start to feel hungry it is not always a signal that you need food, it is also the body’s signal to tell us that we need water. So when you think your body is telling you to eat, it could actually be telling you to rehydrate. As soup is primarily water it is a good way to suppress the hunger feelings as it will help to rehydrate you whilst also containing more nutritional value than water alone. Of course I am talking about good home made soup and not powder “just add water” soup. These soups nutritional benefits are less beneficial.
Secondly it can help you follow the rule of reducing the quantity of food you consume in the evening. If we follow the rule of eating for what you are about to do, then really the evening meal should be the smallest meal of the day as you will be eating to sleep which, although it does use energy, it is minimal. It can be hard to change the body’s habits and it will be used to the usual large amounts that most of us eat in the evenings. If you suddenly change your diet to eating less in the evening, you initially will feel left wanting more. This could result in you eating something sweet to fill the gap. This would seriously be damaging to the diet, so instead add soup to the start of the meal and follow it be the lighter main meal. This will reduce the actual calories your body takes in whilst still keeping it filling and wholesome.
Soup Issues
Whilst this helps to reduce the amount you consume ,soup by itself does not have enough nutritional value for your body’s needs. So if you are following this style of eating or something similar you need to balance it out by increasing the amount you eat earlier in the day (quality and quantity – Beeble).
Five-A-Day
We all know that our daily diet should contain five portions of fruit and veg. Soup is a quick and easy way of ensuring we keep to this. Take a few of your favorite vegetables, cooked lightly then liquidise with some stock made from hot water and a stock cube and you have a nutritious soup. Even better: make enough for several days so it saves you time preparing your meals.
Beeble’s Favourite Soup
3 Bean Soup
Serves 2
Ingredients:
- 500ml of chicken stock or vegetable stock; fresh or cube
- 2 handfuls of broad beans fresh or frozen
- 2 handful of green beans trimmed
- 400 gram tin of cannellini beans drained and rinsed
- Handful of basil leaves roughly chopped
- 2 table spoons of grated parmesan
Cooking Method
Heat the chicken stock in a saucepan until simmering, add the broad beans and green beans and cook for 2 minutes, add the cannellini beans and cook for a further 2 minutes. Season. Stir in the basil and parmesan
Nutritional Values per serving
227 kcalories, protein 18.7g, carbohydrate 28g, fat 5.2g, saturated fat 1.9g, fibre 10.8g, salt 2.31g
This is one of our favourite soups as we love our beans so much and so should you as they have fantastic nutritional value. To get more recipes for other great tasting soups please visit this fantastic website where we also got the 3 bean soup recipe. Click here to view more.
And Finally…
Whilst this is a good way to aid change to your diet it is not going to be the answer for everyone. We are all individuals and therefore need individual diets and help. However this could really help you if you know that your evening meal is the largest meal of the day and you need to reduce it whilst still managing to fill that gap in your tummy.
Try it and let us know how you get on, good luck!
