Hi guys. It's Petrina here, your go to girl for how to make fit work in a crazy busy world.
Today, I'm going to be talking about something really crazy. It's what's called the 3 day
military diet and why am I going to talk about it? Because I keep seeing it pop up again
and again in my Facebook news feed from time to time and I just want to set the record
straight on my thoughts on whether or not the 3 day military diet works.
Before I go into whether or not it works, let me tell you a little bit about the plan
in case you haven't already heard about it, which consider yourself lucky. It's basically
where you'll be feeding yourself these really bizarre random items for three days and then
for four days you eat normally, although ideally they say to keep it 1,500 calories or less
in those final four days of the cycle. It claims that you can lose up to ten pounds
in that week, which is a pretty spectacularly lofty claim.
So what kinds of foods are you going to be eating on the military diet for those first
three days where you're following this strict meal plan? It's basically going to be things
like black coffee, grapefruit, tuna fish, hot dogs, without the bun of course and vanilla
ice cream. Don't ask me to make sense of it because I can't. I don't understand.
I did the math on the day one meal plan and that came in at under 1,100 calories, which
is appallingly low. Further setting off my alarm bells is when you go to the military
calorie count tab on the website that offers this ridiculous meal plan. The calorie counts
they have are way off. For example, in the dinner for that day one you're going to be
eating three ounces of whatever meat you choose and they claim that that would clock in at
300 calories. Even with a really fatty cut of meat like a ribeye steak let's say, that
isn't going to come anywhere near 300 calories.
Let me put on my rant pants here people. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably
is. Your grandma was right. Is it possible that you can lose ten pounds in a week doing
the military diet? Yes, but I think you have to have a lot of weight to lose. If you're
someone who is trying to bust their plateau and you're already at or near your goal weight,
there's just no way you're going to lose ten pounds in that short of a period of time,
nor should you even be aiming to.
Here's the kicker for me. Yes you could lose a little bit of weight in a week's time following
a really weird, strict program like this, but my question is "is it really worth it
if you're going to put the weight all back on when you go back to eating normally". My
humble opinion is it's not. You're safer to stick to a program that's established. Diets
like these make me sad because they're not sustainable in the long term and they involve
eating foods that just, I mean, please. With the exception of the vanilla ice cream, it's
just not the most appetizing of plans and even though I'm not a registered dietitian
or nutritionist, I would be fairly confident in saying it really doesn't provide you your
basic nutritional needs in those three days.
It's really easy to be pulled into the lure of losing weight fast and supposedly easy.
Don't be one of the people that do because those people are the ones who are constantly
disappointed. There is no quick and easy fix in weight loss. Now it's one thing to be aiming
for when you're just looking to fit back into your skinny jeans and you've put on a little
bit of weight, but if your goals involve more than fitting into a pair of jeans for a particular
special weekend, go elsewhere.
If you want to lose the weight and keep it off, run as far as you can away from anything
that looks or feels like a fad diet, because again if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is.
I'm glad I got that off my chest. While I have your attention and before you go, I wanted
to share with you that I've created this healthy meal planning made easy webinar that will
be running through the end of June, so if you're watching this video while it's fresh
on the YouTube press, you can click on the clickable card that's in this video and sign
up and get your learn on and learn how to properly meal plan foods that aren't going
to make you go "I have to eat a hot dog without a bun? Please. That's just wrong" and that's
it for this week folks.
As always, if you have any questions you can shoot me an email at CoachPetrina@yahoo.com.
You can always check out my crazy sexy cool website over at PetrinaHammFitness.com or
if you're game, you can sign up for absolutely free fitness coaching with me at MakeFitWork.com.
That's it. Take care and have a great weekend. Bye.