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domingo, 12 de junho de 2016

Does the Military Diet Work?

NickaPaulo

Some weeks ago I went to a friend of mine wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and the food was good.

I had gain some kilos the early months of this year so I wanted to lose some fast for the wedding (their invitation got to us two months before the wedding). I went on line and found the Military Diet which I initially thought this is a joke because you can have ice-cream 3 days a week (on the diet) but, like always, I had to try it to really know what I'm talking about. I do eat a good amount of food (more than I should, to lose weight and some days I even eat more and that is one of the reasons my weight has been increasing) and this was decreasing drastically what I was eating but the food choices were food that I like and usually eat so I started it being careful and taking it slow.


On the first day at breakfast, you can have a coffee a toast with two tablespoons of peanut butter and a half a grapefruit. I did not have the coffee because I don't drink coffee so I had a barley instead (which is similar to coffee but without caffeine) and didn't have peanut butter or grapefruit so I just ate the toast without the peanut butter and instead of the grapefruit I ate a half of an orange (as you can see on the substitutes page).
I felt ok all morning but I did eat lunch at 11:40 because I was getting hungry and I like to eat lunch at 12 o'clock so it was a good time to get it in.
For lunch, I could drink another coffee and toast with a half a cup of tuna.
Again, I didn't have the coffee but the barley and the rest as they demanded.
At 15:00 hours I was hungry and I had already drunk one litre of water so I eat an apple because they allow that for dinner so I preferred to divide the food during the day and eat it when I was hungry. about an hour passed that I was feeling light-headed and this day was the worst to get pass of all the days that I did the diet. Keep in mind that I usually eat 2000 or more calories and I was eating less than 1500 so that was really low for me. then at about 16:40 I ate half a banana and at 18:50 I was famished so I ate dinner which consists of 85g of any meat and one cup of green beans. I had some stir-fried turkey breast with the green beans.
I did not go to the gym because I was feeling really blurry and slow but I did have my cup of walnut ice-cream which was a low calorie one.


On the second day for breakfast, I could have half of a banana, a toast and an egg. I just had the toast and a boiled egg on top and reserved the half of a banana for the evening. I felt ok all morning.
For lunch, I had the boiled egg and half of the cup of cottage cheese I was allowed with five crackers. I could not eat all of the cheese because I was full. I did eat it when I was hungry at 16:30 and on this day I went to the gym because I felt quite energetic all day, very different from the first day. I would say that was from not be use to so little kcals and this day my organism was ok with that amount of food. I did do a heavy workout and I did take 12 minutes more than usual but I was happy that I did not feel bad during all of it.
At dinner, I had two sausages a cup of green beans because I did not have broccoli at the moment.
As always I was so happy to eat the ice-cream that today was half a cup at about 22:30.
I did not have the banana because I did not need it.


On the third day, I could have an apple a slice of cheese and five crackers, for breakfast. I had the apple in the middle of the morning because I was a bit hungry and I did need it.
At lunch, I had a boiled egg and a toast like they said and I ate half a banana at 15:30. It was really hard this day, I did feel some hunger that I corrected with drinking three litres of water. This was the first time in a long time a drank this much water. I did not have stomach pain but I felt a little empty.
At dinner, I had a cup of tune and waited half an hour to eat the cup of ice-cream so I didn't go to bed with an empty belly.
Overall this day was good but I did not go to the gym and the good thing is that these days I was not with a lot of work or I could not do it as fast as normally because though I felt most of the time well it was a little blurry and I can't say it would be easy if I didn't love ice-cream as I do. When I was hungry I would think about the ice-cream I could have at the end of the day and the hunger would almost vanish (be tolerable).


Kilos I lost: They said you can lose from 2-10 pounds each time you do this three-day diet and I just lost 1.7 kilos (3.7 pounds). I think this is because I do have a lot of muscle (exercise regularly) and I already eat healthy so it is much harder to lose weight when you already have a good "diet" plan.

Then the next four days I ate more or less the same as I do but less portion-wise because I felt I did not need as much food to feel full as before.

I did do this diet two times more (three times in a month) and I did get into the dress I wanted. In total, I lost 3.8kg (8.3 pounds) but a week after coming back from the wedding and eating more or less normal. I did get 2kg back. I don't think that was bad because after attending a wedding and stretching my stomach out again I always increase my weight a little.
That was not the major problem but the lack of my period is a big problem.
I've been three weeks without it coming. I'm not pregnant and I had never been so much time without it coming since I got it for the first time. I'm a little worried and I do think that this diet was the biggest problem for that occurring as it was the only change in my life the last 2 months. I will be waiting for it to return but this leaves me thinking that this diet is really bad for your hormones and not just for diabetes (all that ice-cream tastes great but does not do your good things).

Pros:
It makes you drink more water.
Decreases the size of your stomach.
You will be recompensated for the lack of food all day with ice-cream (not really a good thing though - I have mixed ideas still)
You lose weight (it can be water weight but still it's a loss and if you need that small push to get on the healthy road then maybe it's ok)

Cons:
You feel blurry (good just for when you're on vacation or doing nothing).
You feel a lot of hunger the first day of the first time.
The last day is always hard.
You eat too much sugar - ice-cream, so you will crave it on the other four days you aren't on the diet.
Your body thinks it's in hibernation mode or starvation mode if you do this more than one time, that is why the second and third time it wasn't so hard.
It sends you mixed signals about food because you're not eating unhealthy but then you eat ice-cream which is empty calories...
I did not get my period (it just came 3 weeks after - finally).

Rating: 2/5 mostly because of the lack of period.

Do I recommend? No, this has more cons than pros and you can't live and function whether you're a student or a worker this is not enough calories for a person to function normally. Every "diet" should become a lifestyle for your to have success on it and you should love everything about it. Also, it should be 80% healthy 20% not so healthy and it's more than 25% unhealthy with all that ice-cream.

Tell me in the comments what is/was the best diet you tried??

Created By Veronica Costa, Coprights @ 2016