What To Know About The Military Diet Before You Try It

Diets of any kind can be an asset, provided you're mindful of the way you eat and use them to your advantage. For example, if you're an advocate of the ketogenic diet that encourages its enthusiasts to stick to low-carbohydrate diets, you should know that you need to make sure that all you fulfill your share of macronutrients every day in order to keep your health in check.

The military diet, for its part, encourages its followers to switch between a rigid eating pattern and a maintenance regime that allows them to shed excess weight. According to the Daily Burn, this diet has started gaining traction among online users who vouch for its effectiveness. A Redditor offered a pretty solid explanation for the diet. They wrote, "So, if you follow the military diet, you're supposed to do the diet for 3 days and then eat normally the other 4 days of the week. It's basically a simplistic version of CICO, which means calories in should be less than your calories out."

However, what should you know about the military diet before getting on the bandwagon? Here are the details.

As illustrated by the Daily Burn, the problem with the military diet is that it's not exactly what you expect it to be. It's not as novel or life-changing as you'd imagine. "This [diet concept] has been dressed up differently and brought out to dance before," Kimberly Gomer, director of nutrition at Pritikin Longevity Center, said in a statement. What does this mean? Well, it's not all that different from other diets out there and doesn't provide you with anything new. Furthermore, as Healthline explains, it isn't actually associated with the US military. 

A Redditor explained that you're better off following a more traditional plan for the best results. They wrote, "You might as well eat whatever you want at 1,200 calories a day." Simple but sensible. Another commentator pointed out that it's not a wholesome or sustainable diet for adults. They wrote that it's full of unhealthy options like hot dogs, crackers, ice cream, and more before adding, "...It sounds like something a three-year-old would eat if given free rein."