Advantages And Disadvantages Of Military Diet
While Being Able To Lose Weight Rapidly Within A Week, This Diet Has Various Harmful Impact On The Overall Health Of The Body
The military diet is a type of crash diet that requires individuals to follow through with low-calorie food intake for three consecutive days and then return back to normal eating for another four days. The initial three days require the restriction of calorie intake to 1400, 1200, 1100 calories respectively per day.
Advantages of Military Diet
The military diet is high in protein content and low in other macronutrients, including carbohydrates, fats along with the total number of calories. This diet also includes specified combinations of food products which helps in boosting metabolism along with burning off excess body fat. Despite the name, the military diet is not the diet plan followed by people enlisted in the military. It is suggested that by following the military diet, people can lose up to 10 pounds within the first week, which could be increased to 30 pounds if they continuously follow the diet.
Though the military diet helps in weight loss which is visible on a weight scale, most of the decrease in the body weight is due to reduction in water weight, not actual fat loss. According to some of the experts, an individual is capable of reducing five pounds of water weight on a daily basis. Daily moderate to high-intensity physical activity is the only proven method by which people can lose weight by overall body fat loss and in a healthy way.
Effectiveness of military diet
According to a review article, a close examination of the military diet and classifying this under very-low-calorie diets (VLCDs) suggests that people could possibly lose weight in a short period of time. A typical VLCD allows an individual to consume a maximum amount of 800 calories per day. For people with a BMI of more than 30 should adapt VLCD to gain rapid weight loss prior to bariatric surgery. Low-calorie intake diets allow only fewer than 1000 calories per day to achieve weight loss.
The amount of weight loss in a single weight cannot be predicted the same for every individual as the process of losing weight varies in every single person due to their metabolic requirements and physical activities. Generally, people achieve weight loss from following meal plans like a military diet, but after stopping and not maintaining the diet, the weight of the individual could rapidly increase.
List for food shopping
There is only a limited amount of food products that could be consumed during the initial three-day time period of following the military diet. The foods which could be taken in moderating during this time includes one grapefruit, two apples, two bananas, bran bread, peanut butter, three cans of tuna fish, poultry eggs, sausages, small-sized piece of cooked meat, green beans, carrots, small head of broccoli, saltine crackers, one slice of cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, vanilla ice cream.
Caffeinated coffee and tea can be taken without sugar two times per day, along with plenty amount of water to avoid dehydration.
Disadvantages of Military Diet
There are multiple possible problems that could arise after following the three-day restrictive military diet plan.
Limited intake of nutrients: Due to the poor variety of food in the military diet, people would face a struggle in eating the daily nutritional amount required by the body of fiber, minerals, and vitamins as they are an essential requirement for having optimum health, proper energy production, efficient metabolism function, and detoxification.
Increased intake of sugar, salt, and saturated fat: the military diet is high in processed food like cheese, hot dogs, peanut butter, saltine crackers, and bread, and they all contain a high amount of sodium content. Due to this, people might eat more than the recommended daily intake amount of 2300 mg. if it is possible, people following a military diet should check food nutritional value labels and get products that either have low sodium or no added salt at all.
The hot dogs recommended in the military diet have a very high content of sodium and saturated fat, which is unhealthy for the body. Vanilla flavored ice cream is also included in the military diet for daily consumption, which could have a high quantity of sugar. People following the military diet can easily substitute the ice cream with fresh fruits and vegetables comprising 300 calories. The dense food with high calories might not provide satisfaction due to the small portion size.
Unable to exercise: Due to the minimum amount of calories intake daily, it would slow down the metabolism, and high-intensity exercise would become a very hard challenge. People who have incorporated exercise along with a military diet should eat sufficient calories with the recommended amount of around 1500 calories to allow exercises to be done easily.
According to a small study conducted on weight loss factors, it has been observed that VLCD might prevent individuals from doing physical activity, the diet plans for alternate day calorie restrictions (ADCR), which is commonly known as intermittent fasting, allows people to exercise that has led to rapid weight loss in a healthy way.