The Big Healthy Soup Diet: Nourish Your Body and Lose up to 10lbs in a Week. Linda Lazarides
in your intestines and turned into useful fatty acids, which maintain an ideal acidity balance in your colon and support the health of your colon walls.
One of the best forms of soluble fibre is pectin. Found mostly in apples, cabbage and the white part of citrus fruit, pectin holds up to 100 times its weight in water. This excellent bulking action is very helpful for controlling appetite, especially if the pectin is in warm foods such as cooked fruit soups and cabbage soup.
PECTIN-RICH FOODS
Apples
Apricots
Cabbage
Carrots
Citrus fruit
Peaches
Plums
Prunes
Several research studies have also shown that consuming a lot of pectin can lower your cholesterol levels. Pectin binds to bile acids (released by your liver into your intestines when fats and oils are consumed) and prevents you from reabsorbing them and turning them into cholesterol. Pectin also helps to keep bile flowing, and this is beneficial as it means your gall bladder (which stores bile) is regularly flushed out.
The success of the Cabbage Soup Diet may be partly due to the pectin content of cabbage. In this book you will find several soup recipes containing cabbage. These recipes help to make cabbage more interesting, and some of them use spices which enhance the weightloss potential of this vegetable.
Psyllium husks (see Resources, page 277) can also be added to soup, and are a good thickener for soups such as Chinese Hot and Sour Soup (see page 224). These seed husks are an ancient Ayurvedic treatment for cleansing the intestines, and are extremely rich in a type of soluble fibre known as mucilage. Mucilage is also found in seaweed, and many commercial vegetarian gelling products such as agar-agar consist of mucilage extracted from seaweed. (Adding mucilage to liquids thickens and gels them.) Psyllium husks can do a similar job and are cheap and easy to use. Owing to their huge capacity for absorbing water in the intestines, and so helping to bulk out the stools, psyllium husks are used as the basis of many anti-constipation remedies. One tablespoon a day whisked into a large glass of water encourages regular bowel motions without causing discomfort or diarrhoea. Combined with soup, psyllium husks will absorb and gel much of the liquid, so to your stomach they will feel more like solid food and will help you to stay full for longer.
OTHER POWER FOODS TO AID WEIGHT-LOSS
In Ayurvedic and Oriental medicine, overweight is said to be caused by an excess of ‘dampness’ in the body. The dampness (fluid) quenches the body’s fire (metabolism) and so encourages the laying down of fat. The Oriental treatment for obesity consists of drying out the dampness, using special foods that ‘soak it up’ or alternatively drive it out by boosting Yang energy to heat up the metabolism (see panel below).
YIN AND YANG
These are important concepts in Oriental medicine. Yang represents male qualities (such as hard, dry, dense, hot, pungent) and Yin represents feminine qualities (such as soft, damp, loose, cool, sweet). For good health these should always be in balance. If they become out of balance, eating the right foods can help to correct any associated problems.
Excessive dampness leading to overweight suggests that there is too much Yin energy in the body and not enough Yang, so eating aduki beans (which are hard, dense and dry before cooking) or pepper and garlic (which are respectively hot and pungent) helps to correct the imbalance.
Always bear in mind that Oriental medicine is about balance. So don’t overdo the pepper and burn your insides thinking that this will help you lose weight faster. It won’t!
Aduki beans and broad beans are considered good for soaking up dampness. The best part of the broad bean is the pod, and soup can be made with water in which the pods have been boiled. Mung beans and bean sprouts are also recommended if your weight problem is accompanied by an excessively hot constitution—that is to say if you feel the heat easily and suffer from skin eruptions.
To increase the Yang energy on which metabolism depends, Oriental medicine recommends the regular consumption of kidneys, liver (preferably from organically-raised livestock), shrimps and mussels.
Oriental medicine includes a great deal about increasing ‘fire’ or ‘heat’ in the body. Ayurvedic medicine also emphasizes the importance of supporting the ‘digestive fire’ in order to improve digestion and reduce unhealthy sedimentary deposits in the body’s tissues. Is there a Western equivalent? Indeed there is. Many so-called warming herbs and spices create the sensation of warmth in the body (ginger and pepper in particular). They are well-known circulatory stimulants and can
FOODS AND SPICES THAT REDUCE DAMPNESS
Aduki beans
Basil
Black pepper
Broad beans
Caraway
Cayenne
Chives
Cinnamon
Coriander (cilantro)
Dried orange peel
Garlic
Ginger
Ginseng
Kidneys
Leeks
Liver
Marjoram
Mung beans
Mussels
Nutmeg
Peppermint
Radish
Rosemary
Shrimps
Soybean oil
Walnuts
induce sweating. When consumed, they warm the circulation in the digestive system and bring the blood to the surface of the intestinal wall where it can more easily absorb nutrients from the intestinal contents. This is highly beneficial for both good health and appetite control.
WATER RETENTION—AN IMPORTANT CAUSE OF OVERWEIGHT
The Oriental concept that overweight is caused by excessive dampness in the body is very interesting from a Western point of view. Not all excess body weight is fat. As pointed out in my book The Waterfall Diet, hidden water retention is extremely common and can add many pounds to the scales. From a Western viewpoint there are several causes of water retention, ranging from food intolerances (sometimes known as food ‘allergies’) to excessive salt consumption.
CAUSES OF UNEXPLAINED WATER RETENTION
Food intolerances (allergies)
Protein deficiency (usually in people on very low-calorie diets)
Deficiencies of vitamin B6 and/or magnesium
Lack of fruit and vegetables
Lack of exercise
Excessive salt consumption
Anaemia
Some medications
Inflammation due to high toxin levels
Unexplained water retention can account for