The onion diet will not only help you get in shape, but also strengthen your immune system. Minus 8 kg of unnecessary fat in a week! Get the menu, learn onion soup recipes and secrets for achieving maximum results!
Author: Kristina Lobanovskaya, doctor, practicing nutritionist Article updated: 11/10/2020
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Despite the “tasteless” name, this type of diet is not difficult for gourmets to tolerate. First of all, it will appeal to vegetable lovers, of whom there are more and more people lately. In addition, the list of dishes is not limited to this indispensable vegetable in cooking, since this method does not apply to mono-diets based on the type of nutrition.
The main vegetable crop of this diet - onions - is rich in vitamins and minerals (magnesium, calcium, potassium, phosphorus). Its juice contains flavonoids, glycosides (sources of bitter taste), citric and malic acid. The properties of bitter root phytoncides in the fight against viral diseases are used not only for prevention, but also for the treatment of seasonal diseases. It is advisable to eat not only the onion during the diet, but use green feathers in salads and for sprinkling soup, since their vitamin composition and the presence of chlorophyll have a positive effect on the balance of nutrients.
The base dish is a modified recipe from French cuisine - fat-burning onion soup, and it is supplemented with protein foods, vegetable fats and “fast” carbohydrates. The nice thing is that products for it are on sale all year round and are captivating with their affordable prices.
The results of this diet are impressive, but it is difficult to call it natural. The calorie content of one serving is within 35 kcal. It is excellent in cases of urgent need for sudden weight loss; it is often used before surgical interventions in obese people.
From a nutritional point of view, the onion diet for weight loss is quite acceptable and safe for the body if a person does not have health problems.
In order to understand the principle of operation of this type of power supply, you need to know several nuances.
Pros and cons of fat burning soup
Much is known about the antioxidant properties of onions, but the list of its capabilities is not limited to this characteristic. It gives health, increases the body's defenses, gives the body a tonic effect and promotes weight loss. Due to the high content of chromium in onion rings, it is able to suppress cravings for sweets and regulate insulin production, improve liver function and lower blood cholesterol levels. It is used as a support product for people with heart disease and reduces the manifestations of osteoporosis.
Every recipe for such a fat-burning soup necessarily contains not only onions, but also celery. Both of these components contribute to the phenomenon of “negative calories” - when more calories are expended to digest these ingredients than they contain. This explains the fact that the consumption of onion soup during the diet does not have strict restrictions and can be eaten whenever the appetite develops. However, you need to remember that huge portion sizes can significantly stretch the walls of the stomach, and this can cause a sharp weight gain at the end of the weight loss course. Therefore, it would be reasonable to use the technique of 5-6 meals a day in smaller volumes.
The presence of cabbage, carrots and tomatoes in the main dish provides the diet with pectins and fiber, and this guarantees a mild laxative effect and cleanses the intestines of toxins.
The use of onion soup is welcomed by cardiologists as a means of preventing heart attacks and strokes, as well as reducing the risk of blockage of blood vessels and arteries, and reducing the size of cholesterol plaques.
Benefits of eating onion soup
- Destroys fat deposits in the areas most in need of correction: the abdomen, thighs, buttocks.
- Naturally accelerates metabolism, activates lipid-fat metabolism and has a laxative effect.
- Improves kidney function and fights the manifestations of urolithiasis.
- It is a prophylactic agent for the occurrence of malignant tumors and is used in the treatment of benign ones.
- Activates recovery processes during the post-operative period.
- Prescribed by doctors for diabetes.
- You can track significant weight loss daily, starting from day one.
Disadvantages of the method
- After stopping a weight loss course, the lost weight can quickly return, so there is a certain procedure for gradually exiting the diet.
- Do not use for more than a month to avoid health problems.
- Many people do not like the natural taste of the soup, but this problem is easily eliminated by adding seasonings and spices during cooking, in accordance with taste preferences: curry, bay leaf, cumin, cilantro, ginger, coriander or garlic.
- Frequent consumption of the main dish makes the menu monotonous, making the onion diet difficult to maintain for a long time.
Does it really help you lose weight?
This dish is really effective in the fight against extra pounds. It helps speed up metabolism, removes harmful substances from the body, and promotes the breakdown of fat. Gradually the person's weight decreases. It must be remembered that this does not cause stress to the body. Onion soup reduces appetite and is filling. A person does not feel hungry and easily tolerates the diet.
In a month of such a diet you can lose from 2 to 8 kilograms . If you actively engage in sports in parallel with your diet, your weight will drop even faster. Onion soup is truly a faithful assistant in the fight against extra pounds.
How to make your diet more effective
Despite the low caloric content of the diet, the weight loss effect can be enhanced if you follow a number of rules:
- Minimize the consumption of baked goods and pasta, sweets, smoked foods, pickled vegetables and fried foods.
- Grapes, persimmons, and apricots should be deleted from the list of fruits.
- As for vegetables, you should not eat potatoes, beans, corn and beets.
- Alcohol is strictly prohibited. It will not only slow down the removal of fluid from the body, but will also be harmful to health, since this type of diet reduces the body’s resistance to alcohol. Drinking a small amount of alcohol is allowed only one day after finishing the onion diet.
- Sweet carbonated drinks are taboo.
- You should not reduce your diet solely to the consumption of onion soup: this will reduce the effectiveness.
- Dinner should be served at least 2 hours before bedtime.
- Weight loss with this type of diet occurs due to getting rid of excess fluid in fat depots and loss of muscle mass. If muscle sagging was not part of your weight loss plans, then at least 3 times a week you need to do physical exercises aimed at improving muscle tissue, and carry out peeling and wrapping procedures.
Eating this soup is especially effective if eaten warm. Therefore, you can take it to work or on the road in a thermos in order to maintain the required temperature. There is no need to worry about a possible characteristic odor that is difficult to remove, since after preparation it is completely absent, which allows you to use this diet during working hours and when necessary to visit public places.
During the course, it is advisable to adjust your eating habits, because if this does not happen, then the result of losing weight will quickly be reduced to zero, and such sudden changes in weight will cause significant harm to your health.
Onion soup is successfully used as a mono-dish during fasting days. In just 1 day of this diet you can get rid of 2 kg of excess weight. This can serve as a test for those who doubt their ability to withstand the onion diet. The duration of fasting days should be no longer than 2 days a week.
Useful tips
The diet has a number of contraindications. The first is, of course, an allergy to onions. Also, you should not use the onion soup recipe for weight loss if you have diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, problems with hematopoiesis, or anemia. And, of course, pregnant and lactating women and minors should not lose weight in this way.
Onion soup for weight loss, the recipe for which you know from time to time, is not to everyone’s taste. In fact, it is not tasteless, we are just not used to bland food. The following recommendations will help improve the taste characteristics of the dish:
- Before adding the onion to the soup, you can bake it in the oven for a little while and drizzle with olive oil. This will give you a spicy flavor.
- You can change the taste of the soup every day by using different seasonings. You can use anything: bay leaf, dry garlic, herbs, turmeric, curry, soy sauce, chili and so on.
- By replacing the onion with red onions, you can significantly change its taste.
- Many people prefer soup that, after cooking, has been put through a blender. As a result, you will get a puree soup with an original taste and appearance, which will also help you get wonderful results.
Thus, onion soup is a good way to lose weight without harm to your health. Therefore, you can use it outside of the diet, as a healthy first course.
Menu
The main advantage of this type of diet is the consumption of large amounts of green vegetables, which, in parallel with detoxification of the body, supply the body with chlorophyll, carotenoids, lutein and folic acid.
With the minimum possible kcal consumption, a large amount of food enters the stomach, which allows you to feel full and not be subject to hunger attacks.
Drinking regimen: at least 2 liters of water per day. Carbonated water is not suitable, but mineral purified water without gas with low salt concentrations would be the best option. Herbal and green tea, rosehip infusion or fruit juices are also appropriate, but it is better not to add sugar to them.
Recommendation for vegetarians: the use of meat can be replaced with soy-based products.
For 7 days
In a week you can become 4-8 kg lighter.
- Monday: fat-burning soup and fruit (except banana).
- Tuesday: main course and vegetables, raw or baked. Particular preference is given to green leafy vegetables.
- Wednesday: soup and fruits and vegetables.
- Thursday: from this day on, the body gradually prepares to leave the strict diet. Skimmed milk is included in the menu.
- Friday: in the first half of the day the main course is supplemented with lean meat (200 g), tomatoes and cottage cheese. The volume of liquid must be increased as much as possible to cleanse the gastrointestinal tract of acids.
- Saturday: Lean meat or boiled fish, main course. Eating any vegetables is prohibited.
- Sunday: on the last day, chicken fillet (150 g), brown rice (3 tbsp), fruits or fruit juices are added to the soup.
For 10 days
Weight loss during a 10-day weight loss course is about 7 kg. It is quite difficult to maintain such a diet, since daily calorie intake is low. The feeling of hunger is neutralized by a sufficient amount of the main dish, which is present on the table at every meal.
- Day 1: soup and fruit. You can eat baked apples with cinnamon in the morning, and a piece of watermelon for an afternoon snack.
- Day 2: complement the main dish with a vegetable salad of tomatoes, bell peppers, herbs and olive oil.
- Day 3: for lunch you can indulge in a vegetable salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and herbs with butter, and for an afternoon snack - a cup of fresh berries.
- Day 4: The feeling of hunger usually worsens on this day. In addition to fat-burning soup, you can drink low-fat fermented baked milk, kefir or natural yogurt and eat a medium banana. Banana and dairy product make a wonderful pureed dessert.
- Day 5: 6–8 tomatoes and 200 g game meat. If after the previous day there is a problem of flatulence or diarrhea, as a reaction to dairy products, then half an hour before eating protein food you need to drink 2 tbsp. l. linseed oil.
- Day 6: for lunch, eat a serving of Greek salad with feta cheese and Chinese cabbage.
- Day 7: supplement the main component with freshly squeezed juice and skim milk. In case of dizziness, eat a spoonful of natural honey.
- Day 8: Weigh yourself in the morning on an empty stomach to assess your weight loss. If it is more than 6 kg, then you can drink green tea with milk twice a day. Before lunch, you are allowed to eat 2 tangerines, Adyghe cheese, 150 g of chicken or beef.
- Day 9: you need to prepare chicken broth with cheese and onions, you can eat 1 piece of black bread with it. For an afternoon snack, you need to drink 2 chicken eggs and black coffee, and before going to bed, eat 1 green apple.
- Day 10: the menu is supplemented with low-fat cheeses, chicken and plenty of vegetables.
For a month
The longest regime lasts 30 days. However, in this case, the restrictions should not be too strict. You just need to lose weight by adhering to the principles of a healthy diet, eat onion soup every day for lunch and dinner, and make portions of other dishes as small as possible. The ban on adding salt to dishes during such a long course is lifted; you just have to observe moderation in salt consumption, because prolonged deprivation of sodium chloride can lead to disruption of water-salt metabolism. With this approach, the body does not experience a lack of any substances necessary for healthy functioning. And although weight loss occurs more slowly than in other versions of onion soup diets, the habit of following the norm and not overeating is reinforced within a month, which is a condition for subsequent slimness and maintaining optimal weight.
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Recipes for fat-burning onion soups
It is important to remember that you need to prepare this dish every day, because the content of its nutrients decreases sharply during the day, and this, in turn, can have a bad effect on the water-salt balance of the body. The recipes are extremely simple, so it’s not difficult to set aside time for cooking every day.
The best option is to use a multicooker: in this case, the cooking time is significantly reduced and most of the vitamins and minerals are preserved. It is recommended to alternate between different fat-burning soup recipes in order to diversify the list of substances entering the body as much as possible.
It is prohibited to add salt to onion soup; as an alternative, at the end of cooking, squeeze a little lemon juice into the pan (only if sour cream or cheese is not used).
The Bonn onion variety is recognized as the most suitable variety for making soups. If you cannot find it on sale, you can replace it with any other. And for salads, the use of leeks is indispensable as a source of chromium, iron and sulfur.
Option 1
Ingredients:
- 6–7 large onions;
- 2 knobby green bell peppers;
- 6 large tomatoes;
- celery root;
- medium head of cabbage;
- turmeric;
- caraway;
- Italian herbs.
Wash the vegetables, cut into small pieces and place in a saucepan with 1.5 liters of cold water. Bring to a boil, turn on and cook until tender over low heat. You can add turmeric, Italian herbs and cumin. Serve warm, sprinkle with dill, parsley and basil before serving.
Option 2 – cheese onion soup
Ingredients:
- ½ fork white cabbage;
- celery root;
- large onion;
- 2 carrots;
- 2 bell green peppers;
- half a head of garlic;
- oregano;
- 1 liter of chicken broth;
- a few red basil leaves;
- 2 tbsp. l. processed cheese;
- 2 tbsp. l. olive oil;
- ½ tsp. red pepper or paprika.
Add finely chopped cabbage, celery, carrots and peppers to the heated olive oil. Squeeze the garlic through the garlic press and mix thoroughly. Then pour in the broth and chopped tomatoes. After boiling, turn the heat to low and add the cheese, previously grated on a coarse grater. When the cabbage is completely ready, add spices and remove from heat. Sprinkle with herbs before serving.
Option 3
Ingredients:
- 6–8 onions;
- zucchini;
- 2 tbsp. l. olive oil;
- sour cream;
- seasoning "French herbs" or "Alpine herbs".
Chop the onions and zucchini and place in a container with 2 liters of water. Pour olive oil in there. Bring to a boil and cook over low heat. 10 minutes before turning off, add seasonings to taste.
Since this recipe is the lowest in calories, it is allowed to dissolve a spoonful of low-fat sour cream in it to improve the taste before serving.
Option 4
Ideal for consumption by vegetarians, since the champignons in the composition partially compensate for the protein deficiency.
Ingredients:
- 6 large onions;
- 100 g stalk celery;
- 200 g champignons;
- 2 tbsp. l. olive oil;
- greens (parsley and dill).
Chopped champignons are fried in oil, then stewed with half an onion and celery. After cooling, beat with a blender until smooth, add a liter of water and boil with the rest of the onions until tender.
Before serving, the dish is decorated with herbs.
In all of the above recipes, it is allowed to add ground black pepper and a piece of ginger, but it should be remembered that spicy dishes tend to irritate the walls of the stomach and inflame the feeling of hunger, but they activate the body’s fat-burning processes and will help you lose weight.
conclusions
You can eat soups on a diet, as long as they are not fatty or heavy. Vegetable options, in particular onion soup, are best suited for this. Classic French onion soup is prepared with the addition of butter and baguette, but the recipe can also be adapted for those who want to lose weight: use olive oil instead of butter, and grain bread instead of baguette.
There are a wide variety of recipes for soups with this vegetable, all of them have great benefits and low calorie content. They are very easy to prepare and the ingredients are low cost. Onion soup is suitable for any budget, will help you lose weight and saturate your body with useful substances.
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Contraindications
- Increased stomach acidity.
- Stomach or duodenal ulcer.
- Recent serious illness and recovery period.
- Pregnancy, lactation and puberty.
- High blood pressure.
- Dystonic syndrome.
- Hypovitaminosis of calcium and magnesium.
- Anemia.
- Malignant and benign tumors.
- Thyroid diseases.
- Daily intense physical activity.
Quitting the diet
It is often silent about how important the correct gradual exit from the onion diet is. Failure to do so may undo all the efforts of the fasting period. In the first days after stopping the diet, it is necessary to add approximately 200 kcal to the diet used, after 5–7 days - another 200, and so on until a reasonable balance is achieved between the calorie content of food and energy expenditure. If you neglect this measure, then it is almost guaranteed that during the first weeks all the lost weight will return to its place.