Last Updated on February 28, 2023 by Michael Brockbank
Considering the Progresso soup diet to lose some weight? In reality, soups of any kind work exceptionally well to drop some pounds. However, it does depend on the type of soup you’re eating. Not all soups are created equal when it comes to losing weight and slimming down.
Yet, I’ve found a great deal of success using the Progresso diet. In fact, I was eating Progresso when I dropped more than 20 pounds in a relatively short amount of time.
What is the Progresso Soup Diet?
Essentially, the Progresso soup diet is where you replace your lunch and dinners with a can of soup. Or, if you want to cut calories even further, you can use half of a can.
The idea is that the water content of the soup will improve the digestion of food to help it move through your system more efficiently.
This is actually one of the many reasons why it’s important to drink more water during the day. Due to the water content of the soup, you’re improving more than just digestion within the body.
Another point of the Progresso diet plan is the fact that there are many flavors to choose from. You could have a different soup with every meal for two weeks straight.
Though, I do tend to gravitate toward five specific types of soup when doing this particular diet. Some might call me boring, but I’d just say that I know what I enjoy.
Is the Progresso Diet Harmful?
In reality, the Progresso soup diet offers quite a bit of nutritional value. This is especially true when you compare it to other products such as Chef Boyardee’s canned pasta.
Most types of Progresso are low in calories as well as carbs while offering higher values in protein, vitamins, and minerals. However, like most other soups, Progresso does have a lot of sodium.
To offset the sodium, you can always use the Lite and Low-Sodium alternatives Progresso offers. The best part is that some of these alternatives don’t have all that bad of a taste to them.
Perhaps the most prominent point of using Progresso soups is the lower calorie and carbohydrate count of most flavors. Between the lower counts of these two elements and the water content, Progresso soup has great potential as a weight-loss meal.
What Else Can You Eat On This Diet?
The Progresso soup diet isn’t as restrictive as many others. For the most part, you can still eat what you’d like as long as you’re replacing lunch and dinners with soup and keeping your carb count low.
When I lost the majority of the weight on this diet, I was having Cream of Wheat for breakfast in the mornings while having soup for lunch and dinner.
Now, this doesn’t mean you’ll lose weight if you have soup for lunch and dinner while pounding down a box of chocolate Walmart cupcakes. You still need to keep your snacks within reason.
Isn’t Progresso Soup Expensive?
Before inflation hit the US, cans of Progresso soup were roughly $1.29 at Walmart. Thanks to corporate greed in many degrees, each can is pushing the $2.50 mark today in many locations.
One of the crazy parts of the pricing is how much more expensive Progresso soup is on Amazon. Usually, Amazon beats Walmart’s prices for various products. In this case, it’s nearly a dollar more per can than if you just go to Walmart.
In any case, I usually try to keep my meals between $2.00 and $2.50. That means the Progresso soup diet is still within my grocery budget. That is until the price goes up again…knock on wood.
How to Make the Progresso Soup Diet Work
It’s relatively easy to follow a soup diet of any kind. The hardest part is curbing your cravings for other things throughout the day. I was able to follow along well simply because I don’t have the same oral fixation many people have with eating.
Still, here are steps that can help you along.
Addressing the Sodium Intake
While I do love Progresso Soup, it does contain a large amount of sodium. Luckily, you can buy the “low sodium” version of the brand. Unfortunately, it’s mostly water compared to its original counterpart and may turn you off if you want something with more bulk.
To offset the sodium intake, I would drink more water while eating things with less sodium content throughout the day.
In reality, I don’t have much of a problem with sodium. In fact, I have a problem with low blood pressure regardless of eating a lot of salty foods. It’ll probably catch up with me sooner or later, but for now, I don’t really have problems adapting to the sodium content in soup.
Keep in mind that Heart.org suggests between 1500 and 2300 mg of sodium per day. Some of the soups can hit pretty high if you’re not paying attention.
Replacing Lunch and Dinners
For the Progresso soup diet, you want to replace your lunch and dinner with a can of your favorite. This is essentially the main course of the meal, but more can be added if it’s simply not enough food.
In the past, my daily meals looked kind of like this:
- Breakfast: Instant Cream of Wheat with mixed berries
- Lunch: Progresso Soup – flavor varied from day-to-day
- Dinner: More soup
I found the best range for meals is between 200 and 350 calories worth of food. In most cases, I didn’t have to add anything and just ate an entire can in one sitting.
The only time I didn’t feel like I ate enough was when I tried the low-sodium and Light versions of Progresso. At this point, I would simply add something small into the mix, such as a serving of veggie or apple cinnamon straws.
Adding Progresso Soup to Other Meals
What if you don’t want to eat soup for every lunch and dinner? There’s nothing wrong with having half of a can and then supplementing the other half of your meal with something else.
For instance, you could have half a can of the Zesty Santa Fe Style Chicken flavor soup with a few keto street taco tortillas. It’s actually quite good, and you can use the tortillas as a dipper for the soup.
For the best results from the Progresso soup diet, try to keep the calories below 350 and the carbs under 40g of your combined meal. Unless you’re on a low-carb diet, then you’ll want to pick the Light versions of Progresso.
Use MyFitnessPal to Track Intake
It’s a pain to keep track of all your food macros. This is why you should think about using MyFitnessPal to track your food intake. It’ll show you the number of calories, carbs, proteins, and fats you consume in a day for free.
You can see other macros if you pay for the premium version of the app. Personally, I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for free since 2014. It’s all I’ve ever needed and have lost more than 80 pounds using the tracker.
MyFitnessPal has a lot of useful features, such as setting a calorie goal for the day. In fact, I use this with my Fitbit to follow my Net 600 Calorie diet.
In any case, it’s a decent app if you’re looking for something to hold yourself accountable while eating or snacking.
Using Light Progresso Low-Calorie Soups
The “Light” versions of Progress soup are quite a bit lower than their normal counterparts. The trade-off is a bit more water content with less bulk. This can be a great addition or a difficult adjustment.
First, you can’t go wrong with having more water while consuming fewer calories. The gist of weight loss centers around being in a caloric deficit. The Light soups will do just that.
However, the lower solid food amount may leave you a bit peckish shortly after having the soup. That’s because the water is going to help move the contents quicker through your digestive tract.
In other words, you might get a bit snacky more often with the Light soups than you will with the traditional recipe.
A few ways you can offset this is to include low-carb snacks, drink more water, or otherwise occupy your mind enough to where you’re not thinking about eating.
In my case, I like to include keto-friendly snacks as they are low-carb. Not to mention there are a few low-carb snacks that I really like, such as Ranch Parm Crisps.
Snack Portions and Physical Activity
Perhaps one of the more difficult parts of dieting of any kind is monitoring your snacking. If you’re not active enough, it’ll be easy to turn those extra carbs into fat. This can affect how long it takes you to lose weight.
This is one of the biggest reasons why I like using the Fitbit Charge 5. It monitors my estimated calorie burn by tracking my heart rate, which is a good indicator of physical activity.
As long as I burn away the extra calories and carbs, I can essentially snack on whatever I want within reason.
For example, it’s easier to burn off a serving of Parm Crisps than it is to accommodate a cupcake. So, choose your snacks wisely throughout the day and get in as many steps as possible while walking.
What Are the Best Progresso Soups to Lose Weight?
When choosing which soups you want to lose weight, Progresso has a long list of flavors. What you’ll want is something that doesn’t primarily focus on pasta or creams. These usually increase the carb count of your meal.
It’s OK to have things like Chickarina or Chicken Noodle Soup, as they have around 26g of carbs. But something like the Loaded Potato with Bacon or New England Clam Chowder is reaching the 40g mark, which makes them pretty dense for losing weight.
If you really want to drop the pounds, focus more on the Light alternatives while having lighter snacks throughout the day. Or, you can use a can of Light Progresso soup with a three-ounce serving of chicken breast. This would be around 220 calories or so with very few carbs and a lot of protein.
I know it sounds weird, but one time I had the Light Savory Vegetable Barley with a serving of beef jerky.
The bottom line is that you want to pay close attention to portion sizes and the carb count, especially if you’re not very physically active.
The Progresso Soup Diet Has Potential
In the beginning, I didn’t even know that the Progresso soup diet was a real thing. I just liked the brand and ate quite a bit of it for lunch and dinner. The end result was losing a great deal of weight in a short amount of time.
I’m sure that virtually any soup diet will work in a similar fashion.
At the end of the day, I can’t deny how much of an impact Progresso made in my weight loss journey. It just goes to show that the best diet plan is the one that works best for you.
What kind of diet plans do you like most?
Comments are closed.