Cabbage is a surprisingly good food to have if you’re losing weight due to its high nutritional content and low calorie count. Cabbage is also a very versatile food, making your diet easy to stay on top of.
In the rest of the article, I’m going to break down why cabbage is good for weight loss and how weight loss in general works.
Why is Cabbage Good for Weight Loss?
Cabbage’s weight loss properties lies in the nutritional value of the vegetable. Cabbage is high in vitamin C and fiber while being very low in calories. Cabbage also rots a lot slower when kept in the fridge, meaning you’re going to be wasting a lot less of it.
Cabbage is High in Vitamin C
We all know about the many health benefits of vitamin C and why you should always keep your fruit bowls stocked up, but few people realize that it’s also very good for weight loss. It’s not a magic solution, but having good levels of vitamin C does help your body to burn fat a whole lot faster when you’re active, so it’s a huge bonus.
To put into perspective just how rich in vitamin C cabbage is, you only need to eat 6 ounces of cabbage to meet your body’s daily target for the vitamin. This is not that far off from oranges and other citrus fruits, which are the common examples of foods rich in vitamin C.
Cabbage is High in Fiber
Cabbage is also rich in dietary fiber, which the human body is unable to break down. Contrary to intuition, this gives it a lot of health benefits. It also allows you to feel full faster as your stomach and intestines aren’t able to absorb it, so it continues to take up space until excreted from your system.
Cabbage is Low in Calories
Like many vegetables, cabbage only has a negligible number of calories. Lowering your calorie intake is the most surefire way to lose weight, and if you subsisted entirely off of cabbage, you would need to eat about 18 pounds of the vegetable to meet your daily calorie requirement! While this would not make for a very balanced diet, it’s a good way to top up your meals.
Cabbage Lasts Longer in the Fridge Than Other Vegetables
Cabbage is hardier than a lot of other vegetables and will last in your fridge for up to two whole months if stored under the right conditions. Things to keep in mind when storing cabbage in your refrigerator are to keep it in a bag or vegetable tray, don’t cut it until you’re ready to eat it, and don’t wash it until then either.
How to Use Cabbage for Weight Loss?
Cabbage has been a part of human diets for over 3000 years, and during this time, civilizations have come up with a variety of ways to eat it. You can, of course, think outside of the box and come up with all sorts of creative ways to serve it, such as using it to wrap grains and meat, but there are more common recipes for cabbage as well.
Cabbage in Salad
Most people associate lettuce with salads more than its similar-looking cousin, but cabbage is a great ingredient to have in your salads as well. The most common cabbage salad you may encounter in the West is coleslaw, but there are plenty of other recipes that use it as an ingredient, including the dressing-free Asian slaw and many Mediterranean salads.
Cabbage in Soup
If you would prefer a hot, cooked meal instead, cabbage is a great ingredient to include in your soups. Furthermore, these soups can fit any niche your diet requires. Cabbage makes a naturally good ingredient for vegetable soups, such as those with mushroom stock, but it works equally well with fish and meat soups, such as the many European pork soups that sauerkraut is included in.
What Are the Essentials of Weight Loss?
Cabbage is a very valuable food to have as part of your weight loss diet, but it’s not the only way to lose weight. The most fundamental way to lose weight is to simply use up more calories each day than you’ve taken in from food and drink. Both of these factors can be controlled to great degrees, making your weight loss a fully achievable goal.
Use Up More Calories
A living human’s calorie output in any given day will never be zero. For most people, the majority of the calories they burn throughout the day are spent on keeping the body alive by supplying energy to the organs and muscles.
You can increase this calorie output by a little or by multiple times its daily sum by exercising. If you’re looking to lose a lot of weight faster, intense aerobic exercises like swimming or running will burn through lots of calories. If you’re happy with a gentler approach or just want to maintain your current weight, a simple walk here and there will do the trick.
Take In Fewer Calories
You can balance out this exercise by decreasing your calorie input. Having meals and snacks less frequently or eating less food in each sitting is the most straightforward way to reduce your calorie intake. Another way to do this is to look at the nutritional values of what you’re eating and focus on foods with lower calories by mass, like cabbage.
Conclusion
We’ve learned both the value of cabbage in weight loss as well as how weight loss in general works as a product of maintaining a calorie deficit, hopefully leaving you prepared to face your next diet with confidence.
