What is the Military Diet?

The military diet is a very strict diet that allows you to eat only specific meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is very low calorie, and there is very little wiggle room in it, so if you snack or diverge from the instructions the diet will not work at all, and you'll find yourself not losing the weight you want while still not eating what you want on a daily basis. So follow the rules soldier!

The diet only lasts for three days total per week, which is great to hear, though it doesn't mean you can eat like garbage those other four days of the week. It means switching back to a normal, but healthy, diet. So there are three days of pain and four days of relative recovery in that time. It's also important to never follow the diet days for more than three days straight.

All the meals in the military diet have been chosen for you ahead of time and, again, you have to stick to these strict instructions or else it won't work. It's also not all the superfoods you would expect to find on an intense diet regimen, like salmon or quinoa. There are also some odd things on the menu.

Here's one example breakfast that you will be instructed to eat once a week on the military diet:

1/2 a grapefruit without anything on it

One slice of toast without anything on it

Two teaspoons of peanut butter

1 cup of tea or coffee, but with no sugar or milk added

Here's an example dinner menu for the military diet that you would have to eat once a week:

 

Two hot dogs without buns and no condiments added to them

1 cup of broccoli

1/2 a cup of carrots

1/2 a banana

1 cup of vanilla ice cream

 

Doesn't seem so bad, does it?

There are also many things you can and cannot drink throughout the day when you are on the military diet, as what you drink often has a surprising amount of calories in it. You can drink coffee and tea, without sugar and milk in it as well as much water that's not sparkling or flavored. You cannot drink milk, juice, soda or alcohol on the diet days, however.

For those people who have food allergies but want to do the military diet, some exceptions can be made, but this is perhaps the only place that exceptions can be made with this diet. For example, if you are allergic to peanuts you can switch out the peanut butter that is required in the breakfast for sunflower seed butter; or if you are a vegetarian, you can have a tofu dog instead of a hot dog. But no other exceptions!

The great thing about the military diet is that most if not all of the food items are easy to find in most grocery stores and require very little kitchen prep to prepare and eat. That also lends itself to the title military diet. You are also not required to exercise, though that is always recommended. However, keep in mind the limited calories you are eating at about 1,500 total for the day, so you might not have much energy in general.

Beyond the specific drinks that are outlined to avoid and the process of going outside the exact menu items on the three-day stretches per week when the diet is in effect, there is little to avoid. You can eat carbs, eggs, and other fats as you'd like in your four day "breaks" on the military diet. However, you might want to avoid eating out at restaurants for the most part, as there will be limited menu items that match your prescribed meals. Plus, restaurant food is usually not very healthy.

Beyond what you buy in the store for the meals you will be eating three days a week, there is no cost to doing the military diet whenever you want. All the resources for the meals and what you need to do can be found online. And there are a few books and online reading materials for the diet itself, also available online, but beyond that, no real dietary support groups are necessary. So hop to it, soldier!