Linda Lazarides
is Founder of the British Association for Nutritional therapy. She was an alternative nutritional therapist for 15 years, including three years spent working with a GP in the British National Health Service, when she regularly prescribed soup to her patients.It's a common complaint that some of the popular diets around at the moment don't really address two major obstacles: food cravings and water retention. If your cravings aren't reduced in intensity then you will simply start bingeing as soon as you come off your diet, and your weight will return to its previous level.
While cabbage soup on its own is a bit boring in the long term, I did want to investigate the potential benefits of a more varied soup diet. Soup is a fantastic convenience food: easy to make, filling and low in calories. It can be thick or thin, smooth or chunky, or a combination of the two. Healthy ingredients and power foods can be combined effortlessly to maximize weight loss or combat ailments such as water retention. In the course of my research I came across such fascinating information that I had to write a book about it. But without some really good soup recipes the book would not be very user-friendly, so I spent many months putting together some delicious soup ideas. There are 60 recipes in this book. I love them all, every single one of them. I have tested them all myself and have taken great care to help my readers produce perfect and delicious soups on each occasion, even if you are not the world's best cook.
I have found that soup made with power foods helps you get you to your target weight faster and more effortlessly than anything else, and helps to keep it there. Everybody wants maximum weight loss for minimum effort, and I think the Big Healthy Soup Diet comes very close to this ideal.
60 SOUPS WITH SPECIAL INGREDIENTS TO AID WEIGHT LOSS
Many of the soups in this book make satisfying one-pot meals. Best of all, you can return for second helpings as you won’t be piling on the calories. The warmth and liquid of soup fills you up quickly, and the recipes make extensive use of power foods which slow down carbohydrate absorption and help to prevent surges in the hormones which stimulate appetite.
If you are currently following a diet and don’t feel ready just yet to make a change, don’t worry - the Big Healthy Soup Diet has lots of recipes suitable for GI diets and conventional low-carb and detox diets. There are also several NEW cabbage soup recipes.
On the other hand if you’ve bought this book just to be healthy, and don’t need to lose pounds, then simply add the soup recipes to your normal diet. A large bowl of soup can provide the recommended three servings a day of fresh vegetables which help to prevent cancer and heart disease. And there are fruit soup recipes too. The recipes are full of power foods to help rejuvenate your body systems, balance your hormones and combat the effects of stress.
Linda Lazarides