Pyrrh’s beginning measurements / ending measurements:

Weight: 170 lbs / 165.5 lbs
Stomach: 33.75″ / 33″
Hips: 41.5″ / 40″

This was with half-an-hour of aerobics and weight training every day but Sunday.   Looks like it all came off of my hips!

Mom lost a pound, with no increase in her activity.

Overall impression and review:

The way that the menus are published makes it hard to view conveniently; a printout results in strange columns with awkward page breaks, and each day’s soup recipe is on a completely different page.

The diet premise is sound. Whenever we did Weight Watchers we always made up a big batch of our favorite vegetable soup. We just added two more vegetables to our recipe to better match the Good Housekeeping version, and we like the improvement. Most of the soup variations would be better judged on individual tastes. We’ve got favorites, and will try new ideas.  After seven days of soup, it does leave us craving a steak or some spaghetti and meatballs!

I love strawberries, but there were so many of them; more fruit variety would have been great.

I personally prefer to have three snacks as well as three meals, and didn’t like when the menu didn’t allow for that. Admittedly, that wasn’t often; there was enough variety that I was able to save something from nearly every meal to eat a bit later on. The meals never left us hungry, either.

We liked the ideas well enough that we will try another week of it, with Good Housekeeping’s “Web Exclusives” variations. (After taking a couple days’ break for aforementioned steak and spaghetti!)

Pyrrh’s favorite meals:
Breakfast Day 4 – Honey-Cinnamon English Muffin
Breakfast Day 6 – Mexican Scramble
Lunch Day 5 – Waldorf Chicken Salad
Lunch Day 4 – California Turkey Pita
Dinner Day 1 – Minestrone Soup
Dinner Day 5 – Thai Shrimp Soup

Breakfast – Nutty Oatmeal
Both Mom and I had our peanut butter on the side. I just couldn’t bring myself to stir it into oatmeal.

Lunch – Ham Sandwich Supreme

I had to go on an extended errand today, and was able to take this sandwich with me. I ate with my husband, who said my lunch looked better than his! (I was drooling over his rib sandwich, though.) Mom substituted some avocado for the cheese, and I will definitely do the same if I am at home.

Dinner – Red Beans & Rice Stew

Who doesn’t like polish sausage? I admit I am not a red beans and rice fan, and except for the sausage, I didn’t like this soup very much. My mom and husband both liked it, though.

Breakfast – Mexican Scramble

Excellent breakfast; next time I will use a tortilla instead of a pita.

Lunch – Salmon & White Bean Salad

Mom thought this was great. I found it a little bland; I will add some vinegar or some fat-free Italian dressing next time.

Dinner – Goulash

This was very good and tasted like sausage soup.

Breakfast – Strawberry-Orange Smoothie

The smoothie was good. Instead of an English Muffin with butter, we had a mini bagel with 2 tbsp of fat-free cream cheese.

Lunch – Waldorf Chicken Salad

This salad was delicious. I had mine without the lettuce and it was plenty of food.

Dinner – Thai Shrimp Soup
I’ve never had coconut milk in soup before. This was a big hit with the entire family. I strained a cup of vegetables from the Basic Soup, heated them in the microwave, added some heated snow peas, used a cup of broth to boil the shrimp and soaked noodles for a few minutes, added it all to the vegetables, then put in the coconut milk, cayenne pepper, and lime juice. The hint of sweetness from the shrimp, peas, and coconut was fantastic.

Today I ate everything and was full for every meal, but ended up having to use my second 100-calorie snack tonight; I had some oatmeal.

Breakfast – Honey-Cinnamon English Muffin
We can’t seem to find English muffins without soy in them, and I’ve been too busy to make any, so we had mini bagels, instead. This was actually quite tasty.

Lunch – California Turkey Pita

I’ve yet to be able to open a whole pita bread without tearing it up, so I cut them in half, and stuffed each half. It was easiest to slice the avocado instead of trying to spread it inside (and risk further destruction of the pita), and I squeezed lime juice inside the finished sandwich. This was delicious and we hardly missed the mayonnaise. The baby loved her deconstructed version, and my husband has asked for this recipe again (with Miracle Whip on his).

Dinner – Southwest Chili
We used extra lean ground beef instead of the turkey, and I used taco seasoning for the spices. A small flour tortilla was used in place of the tortilla chips.
Again, this was a lot of food. I saved the cheese and tortilla for a quesadilla snack later in the evening.

We substituted All-Bran for shredded wheat. This was a lot of food, and I could not finish it. I think it would be great with half the yogurt, and some milk on the cereal.

Lunch – Black Bean Taco Salad

We had a small flour tortilla instead of the baked chips. I added a splash of lime juice to my salad, and melted the cheese onto the tortilla. Again, this was very filling. Next time I may just add the salsa and beans to my tortilla. I don’t need two salads a day, and there will be one for dinner.

Dinner – Greek Fish Stew

I boiled both the potato and fish at the same time in some broth, for about five minutes, then added it to the veggies from the basic soup (I just scooped out as little broth from the soup as possible). I put the cheese on my salad instead of the soup. The salad was fantastic, although I miss having some fruit to end the day with. I was so full I couldn’t finish all of my soup.

My husband declined the soup and ate some leftovers; the baby thought the Feta Cheese (pasteurized) was awesome.

I HATE Cheerios. But I ate them. I saved the walnuts and banana for after my workout. Mom mixed them into the cereal.

Lunch – Caprese Salad – 7 WW points

I used a small tortilla instead of pita bread, which we hadn’t found soy-free yet. Both dishes were very tasty. especially with the homemade hummus. Traditional Caprese (pronounced Capreasy) is made with fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil, no vinegar, and isn’t marinated ahead of time. This was an interesting variation, however. We used a little more than a sprinkle of balsamic, and had to use dried basil; it is definitely better with fresh. I made this after breakfast and let it marinate in the vinegar a couple of hours.
By the way, 8 (3/4-in.) chunks part-skim mozzarella actually means 2 ounces. Have you ever tried to measure while cutting cubes of mozzarella? I just cut small cubes and weigh them.

Dinner – Mexican Chicken Soup – 8 WW points

I made a few adjustments to dinner, using canned corn, and chili powder instead of cumin. A fresh flour tortilla replaced the chips. The salad was a combination that we wouldn’t eat normally, but it turned out okay, even with just a vinegar dressing. I used canned mandarin orange segments, because peeling and segmenting an orange for a salad takes a lot of patience.

Again, my baby and husband both liked it, too.

Breakfast: Fruity Cottage Cheese – 6 WW points

(That white bowl is the cottage cheese.) Now I am the type of person that usually doesn’t even like her food to touch each other on the plate. But I did experiment and take a bite of everything at the same time, and it was surprisingly good. I ate the rest of it separately, though. And it was more food than I am used to eating for breakfast. I saved most of the strawberries for an after-workout snack.

Lunch: Tangy Roast Beef Sandwich – 8 WW points

I put mine on a small tortilla instead of bread. It was very tasty, but I will add a little bit of dill and mustard powder to the sour cream and horseradish next time.

Mom and I both had half a cup of the soup for an afternoon snack.

Dinner: Minestrone Soup – 6 WW points

I’m not a fan of minestrone (or any soup really, can you believe I’m on a soup diet?) but this was delicious. And it was very filling. I was happy to save the yogurt and raspberries for an evening snack. Mom wasn’t into the plain yogurt but said it got better when she mashed the raspberries into it. My 1-year-old enjoyed it all with some cranberry juice. My husband loved it, too, with some homemade bread to go with it.

My mother will be trying the diet, too. I’ll also be feeding a 1-year-old, as well as my husband. The whole staff is involved!

Preparation

Today I spent some time preparing the shopping list for The Amazing Soup Diet. Some things have me going, eeww, but I plan on sticking to the diet as closely as possible. Nothing repeats, so I can handle a meal that may not be my favorite, and keep in the spirit of the test. It will only be a week, after all. I can already see some problems with the bread, since we have to make it all homemade due to soy allergies. Well, not really a problem, just a lot of prep work. That just keeps us busy so there is less time to snack, right?

I’m cleaning out our main fridge and freezer so I can have everything for the week in the kitchen ready to go. The “working pantry” will need a bit of work, too – some things need to go into the basement with the rest of the food storage items. I’m happy to see that many items on the list are things we already have in our freezer, which means they were bought on sale. Most of what is left to buy is the fresh fruit and veggies, which happens every week, regardless.

I did throw together a Cajun Seasoning Mix, and will make some homemade hummus tomorrow.

Shopping List

These are variations on the original The Amazing Soup Diet shopping list, providing some adjustments for allergies. You’ll have to click on the link above to view the full list, since it is copyrighted, after all. I have noted my changes below, according to their categories.

Staples:

•Cajun seasoning (I made my own mix since I am allergic to black pepper)
•Ground cumin (I personally do not like cumin and use oregano to substitute)
•Ground red pepper (this is cayenne pepper)
•Hot sauce (this is for eggs, so I am going to use taco sauce rather than Tobasco)

Fruits and Veggies
•Green beans, 3/4 lb. (2 cans of green beans are much easier, or a quart of home-canned)
•Lemon, 1 (If you have lemon juice in the fridge, you won’t need to get a lemon)
•Snow peas, 1/4 lb. (I’ll be using frozen, which I keep on hand, fresh are almost as much trouble as green beans)
•Tangerines, 3 (Substitute one of these for a can of mandarin oranges, unless you like peeling and sectioning an orange. For the second, just buy your favorite type of orange, we like navels. I can’t find where the third orange is used.)

Fresh Herbs
•Garlic, 1 lg. head (I keep fresh minced garlic on hand in the refrigerator, which is much easier)

Grains
•Bread, whole-grain (we have to make our own because of soy ingredients)
•Brown rice (I didn’t know you could buy pre-cooked, we will cook our own)
•English muffins, whole-grain (Another bread product we can’t eat due to soy ingredients, will substitute bagels)
•Pitas, whole wheat (Again, making our own, seeing a trend here)
•Tortilla chips, baked (hard to find without soy, we will substitute flour tortillas)

Dairy
•Eggs, 1/2 dozen (we use egg substitute, due to egg yolk allergy)
•Yogurt, plain, nonfat (we got Greek style, it is very yummy)

Meat and Fish
•Bacon, 1 pkg. (we use a beef bacon due to pork allergy and turkey bacon is just nasty)
•Turkey, smoked, deli-sliced (got chicken due to turkey allergy)
•Turkey breast, ground (using 93% lean ground beef)
•Turkey kielbasa (Mom gets the turkey version, I will use a beef/pork version, yes allergies again)

Grocery Items
•Chicken broth (we got two big cartons for the soup, I like it better than just water)
•Egg noodles (No Yolks version, due to egg yolk allergy)
•Hummus (made our own to avoid soy and nuts)
•Tomatoes, whole, in juice, 2 28-oz cans (we use diced tomatoes, no smashing needed, and seeds can add a bitter taste)
•Walnuts, 3 oz.

Frozen Items
•Corn kernels (we’re using canned)

The Soup

The Good Housekeeping Recipe can be found here. I actually doubled my own vegetable soup recipe and added the zucchini and spinach. Here are the differences: I used 2 onions (about 3c chopped) and 2 large leeks. I also used 12c chicken stock and no water. Due to a black pepper allergy, I left that out, but added a teaspoon of thyme. The nutritional content remains the same as the original.
Here is the Better Homemaking Network’s version of the Basic Soup for The Amazing Soup Diet, complete with precise instructions and pictures.

Before

Okay, I’m not posting pictures, but at least my weights and measurements will be here. I don’t expect a huge change, since we will only be testing this diet for a week, but you never know. When you first start a diet and exercise program, weight loss could go fast or slow, depending on how much water weight you lose, how much you increase your exercise, and how much muscle you gain. (See Weigh Your Way to Losing Weight.) We should definitely see an improvement in body measurements, no matter what.

Pyrrh’s beginning measurements:

Weight: 170 lbs
Arm: 13.5″
Stomach: 33.75″
Waist: 33.5″
Hips: 41.5″
Thigh: 23.5″
Calf: 15.5″

This was right after a workout, but I can’t blame my hips on that! Ugh!

So, here we are, your Guinea Pigs for a week. We will start the diet on Monday!