Neal Barnard MD’s Must-Try Weight Loss Soup: The Secret Ingredient That Burns Fat 12x Faster
Top plant-based nutrition expert on how his easy bean soup recipe can turbocharge weight loss and health
A comforting bowl of broth-based soup is already one of the best foods for weight loss—and now there’s a tasty way to take it to the next level. The secret: Add beans, peas or lentils, and you end up with perhaps the most powerful weight loss soup ever. Why? Beans aren’t just a classic soup ingredient, they’re also packed with compounds recently proven to speed off pounds up to 12 times faster. “Instead of trying to cut calories day after day, just make a pot of black bean or lentil soup and it’ll do a lot of the work for you,” promises George Washington University’s Neal Barnard, MD, author of The Power Foods Diet. Lydia Lynn, 59, backs him up. She says unlimited servings of bean soup helped her shed 104 pounds and keep it off for years. Read on to learn how bean soup can help you.
Weight loss soup 101
Famous Penn State studies show that even canned soup instantly shrinks appetite by hundreds of calories. Why? Dr. Barnard explains it’s because our body craves the same volume of food each day—and soup has a lot of volume for far fewer calories than most foods.
Another bonus: Ingredients in soup are cooked until they’re soft and nutrients steep in broth, making things like antioxidants and metabolism–revving amino acids more readily absorbed. As for bean soup, it also happens to be loaded with a very special and slimming starch.
Woman's World Answers
Secret ingredient in beans: How resistant starch boosts fat burn
Of all the plants in the world, legumes (aka the bean family) have the most resistant starch. “It’s a type of starch that literally resists digestion. Our stomach acid and enzymes don’t break it down, so it travels to the end of our intestines,” explains Dr. Barnard. There, gut bacteria ferment it, releasing a magical fatty acid called butyrate.
Have tummy trouble or arthritis? Butyrate can help. It also works wonders on blood sugar and belly-fattening insulin, bringing levels down by as much as 73 percent. On top of that, University of Colorado findings in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism demonstrated that a single resistant starch-rich meal produces enough butyrate to rev fat burn for a full 24 hours. And a 2024 study in the journal Nature Metabolism showed dieters lose 12 times more weight during periods when they get resistant starch daily. Nice!
In case you’re wondering, yes, you can also get the compound from potatoes, rice and pasta. And there are resistant starch supplements. But options like white beans and lentils have double or even triple the resistant starch found in other common foods. Beans also have a lot of things going for them that you won’t get in a supplement.
Another weight loss soup benefit: It ‘traps’ calories
In addition to resistant starch, beans and bean soup “are very high in fiber,” says Dr. Barnard. You’ve likely heard that fiber helps fill us up for zero calories. The slimming surprise: “Plant fiber traps calories in the digestive tract and pulls them out of the body before they can be absorbed,” says Dr. Barnard, backed by a 2017 Tufts University study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. So a daily bowl of bean soup means hundreds of calories we eat each week don’t count!
This weight loss soup has a plant-protein advantage
Over 50? A Harvard University study (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2024) has linked the protein in beans (and any plant) to greater longevity. And an Italian study (journal Nutrients, 2020) showed that emphasizing plant protein helped postmenopausal dieters restore a flagging metabolism and lose more weight than much younger dieters. Basically, plant protein “can help you lose the weight you haven’t been able to get rid of for decades and help you live longer too,” says Dr. Barnard.
Neal Barnard MD’s soup-off-the-weight advice
Any way you add healthy bean soup to your diet can help you naturally lose a little weight and improve wellbeing. Hoping for more dramatic results? Then follow Lydia’s lead. Opt for a bean soup as a meal most days; at other meals, choose mostly whole plant foods (especially produce, whole grains and beans). Eat until you feel pleasantly full. Dr. Barnard says this basically floods your body with resistant starch, fiber, plant protein and other nutrients that fight health problems and stimulate a lot of fat loss.
Proof he’s right about the last part: In a 2021 NIH study (published in the journal Nature Medicine), fat burning quadrupled when people switched from a keto diet featuring chicken-cheese soup to a plant-based diet featuring lentil soup. Wow!
Weight loss soup success story: Lydia, 59, lost 104 lbs.
After years of yo-yo dieting, Lydia ended up at 300 pounds with health problems galore. The California mom even went plant-based at one point, but relied on mostly processed food and few veggies; the scale didn’t budge. Finally, she’d had enough. “I said, ‘I’m going to eat for my health and forget the scale.’ My focus was asking, ‘What natural food can I eat to nourish my body?’ If I gained weight, so be it.”
Drawn to plant foods but not much of a cook at the time, Lydia opted for things like oats with apples and veggie stir-fries. She also tried making split pea soup. “It was delicious, and heating it up was faster than fast food,” she says. So she tried soups with lentils, white beans and kale, a black bean chili, a chickpea stew.
Over time, Lydia learned about the scientific properties of soup that make it so great for weight control. “It’s low in calories but high in nutrients. And it has a lot of volume, so it stretches your stomach and signals your body that you’ve had enough,” she says. Soup also has benefits that science can’t measure. “For me, there’s the warmth of it and memories of making it in my grandmother’s kitchen,” she says. “It doesn’t just fill me up, it also makes me feel really satisfied.”
Lydia paid little attention to her weight, but she shed about 40 pounds in six months. Her fatigue lifted. Her joint pain, ulcerative colitis and migraines began to disappear. “One day, I tried on jeans I thought I’d never fit into again. They slipped right on,” she says. “I was floored because I wasn’t limiting my portions at all.” Ultimately down 104 pounds, Lydia became a plant-based food coach to pay it forward. Now, if she indulges in cookies or vacation fare, “I immediately go back to soups. My freezer is full of them.” Says the former size 22: “Soup has helped keep me in size 12s for many years now!” Soup and other high-volume, low-calorie plant foods helped Lydia lose 104 pounds. She’s maintained with ease—even through menopause. For more inspiration, follow @PlantBasedFoodCoach on TikTok or Instagram.
A sample weight loss menu to inspire you—plus Dr. Barnard’s easy soup recipe
To get lean up to 12 times faster than normal, try having bean soup for lunch or dinner most days. What else should you eat? Dr. Barnard recommends minimally processed produce, whole grains and beans as staples. Jazz ’em up with herbs, spices and small amounts of calorie-dense plant options like nuts and maple syrup. Eat until full. We’ve got ideas to inspire you. Find more recipes in The Power Foods Diet and at ForksOverKnives.com.
Sample breakfast: Slow cooker oats
In slow cooker on low, cook 1 cup steel-cut oats, 31⁄2 cups water, 1 cup raisins, 1 chopped apple and 1 Tbs. apple pie spice for 7 hours.
Sample lunch: Ready-made soup
Homemade is great, but if you need a fast and convenient option, just dish up anything from the PlantStrong brand, the Dr. McDougall brand or any Amy’s soup marked “light in sodium.”
Sample dinner: Weeknight-easy pasta
Toss cooked veggies and hot whole-grain pasta with marinara or an oil-free dressing, such as Bragg vinaigrette.
Bonus Recipe: Dr. Barnard’s Quick Lentil Soup
Dr. Barnard says this no-fuss recipe from The Power Foods Diet is a bonanza of slimming nutrients
Ingredients:
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 cups sliced carrot and celery
- 4 tsp. minced garlic
- 6 cups low-sodium veggie broth
- 2 russet potatoes, cubed
- 3 cups cooked brown lentils
- 1 can no-salt diced tomatoes
- 5 cups chopped kale and broccoli
- 1 tsp. oregano
Instructions:
- In pot over medium heat, sauté onion, carrot and celery in 2 Tbs. broth until soft.
- Add garlic; sauté 1 minute.
- Add remaining broth and potato; bring to a boil. Lower heat. Cover and simmer 6 minutes. Add remaining ingredients plus salt/pepper to taste. Simmer until all veggies are tender. Serves 8
Individual results vary. Dr. Barnard encourages us to focus on steady, sustainable progress. Always get your doctor’s okay to try a new dietary strategy.
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