Review of the Military Diet

 A few years ago, I was kind of obsessed with the Military Diet and wrote a few articles about it. I tried it again the last few days and want to share my impressions. I think I lost about 3 pounds, but final weigh in is tomorrow morning.

So I think the best way of losing weight is the keto/atkins diet but it has 3 major problems: you have to be very very strict about it, you have to eat a lot of fat (more than seems healthy), and the biggest is that it is very expensive with the steak, shrimp, bacon, hamburger, butter, mayonnaise (preferably with avocado oil), avocados, cheese, keto bread, keto protein bars, keto ice cream, organic peanut butter, etc.  I did it for over a year and had great results.  But I want to try something different that is cheaper and maybe healthier.

Enter the military diet. It seems to be a throwback to the 1970s when everyone roller skated and was a lot skinnier. I think there is more than 1 way to lose weight. And the military diet gives us a glimpse. I think there is some brilliant ideas here but also some problems.

First, note that there is no salad. This is one of the few diets in existence that forbids you from eating lettuce. Why? No one knows, because nobody knows where it came from and there is no theory behind it. But think about it. Lettuce won't automatically make you lose weight. Yea you could have your keto salad drenched in olive oil with bacon, but this is not keto.  This is also not the volumetrics diet, you aren't trying to fill your stomach. And how would you eat it, with French dressing (lots of sugar) and croutans? So forget the salad.

What about veggies then, maybe you are eating tomato slices, cauliflower, celery sticks, carrots, sliced cucumbers, sugar snap peas etc. I can already envision the ranch dressing.  Nope. On this 3 day diet, out of 9 meals, the only veggies you eat are 1 cup of green beans, one cup of broccoli and 1/2 cup of carrots. 

There is a lot of fruit. Grapefruit (1/2), bananas (1/2 at a time), apples, one version has melon. I am not used to eating fruit so this is different.

And the ice cream. Every night you are required to eat ice cream. This is the only diet in the world that has ice cream on it. And not keto ice cream, the real stuff with sugar. But it has to be vanilla. How this works is portion control. I bought a 12 pack of Bluebell ice cream in 3 ounce cups, each cup is 160 calories.  And I ate it 2 nights in a row with 1/2 a banana. I feel enlightened. But I will skip it tonight because it is the last night. I think I get the Zen of the diet a little.

To be continued. I will explain how to improve it.