Aside from the basic military diet meal plan and eating schedule (which we’ll go over in a moment), there’s no official military diet and the recommendations and rules vary based on who you ask.
Furthermore, there’s no fitness guru claiming credit for the military diet.
There’s no diet book promoting its eating principles.
There’s no official website on the diet and the main argument thrown around in its favor is the rumor that Khloe Kardashian used it to lose weight . . . at some point . . . maybe.
Despite this dubious track record, it’s still wildly popular, as evidenced by the 150,000 people who search for it every month online.
Some of the appeal is understandable, too.
Like many weight loss diets it has an attractive schtick:
You only have to follow the military diet meal plan 3 days per week.
You can still enjoy some normal foods while following the diet.
You don’t have to follow the diet forever to lose weight.
You can lose “up to 10 pounds per week.”
You don’t have to exercise.
What are the downsides, then?
For starters, the meal plan you’re supposed to follow looks like the diet of a famished racoon rooting through a restaurant dumpster.
There’s no rhyme or reason to any of the food choices, and it’s almost as if someone threw them together purely to troll people who don’t know any better.
For example, dinner on the third day of the diet is 1 cup of tuna, ½ a banana, and 1 cup of vanilla ice cream.
The meals are also designed to provide no more than 1,000calories per day for the first 3 days of the diet, and the other 4 days of the week you’re allowed no more than 1,500 calories.
If you aren’t familiar with what 1,500 calories looks like, that’s very little food—about half as much as most people eat.
That being what it is, there’s a groundswell of dieters eager to learn more about the military diet and plenty of vloggers, influencers, and other bush-league diet gurus happy to spread the gospel.
You probably know enough about dieting, though, to be skeptical. In fact, I’ll wager a hotdog and half cup of vanilla ice cream that you have a lot of questions about the military diet, such as . . .
Why is it called the military diet?
What are you supposed to eat on the military diet?
Will the military diet actually help me lose 10 pounds of fat in a week?
And more.
You’ll learn the answers to all of these questions and more in this podcast.
Let’s get started.
What did you think of this episode? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!
Mike Matthews is the founder of Legion as well as the author of several award-winning fitness books, including Bigger Leaner Stronger, Muscle for Life, and The Shredded Chef.
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Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you live in the UK or Canada, your order ships free when it’s over $99.
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We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
Free Worldwide Shipping & Returns
Many companies use shipping and handling fees to increase their profit margins, but here at Legion, we hate profits, so our shipping is free!
Okay, so we do dig on profits, but we also go in for happy customers, and free shipping works like gangbusters. So, if you’re outside the USA, your order ships free when it’s over $199.
Why the restriction on international orders? Unfortunately, shipping abroad is very expensive, and if we didn’t require a minimum order size, we’d lose a lot of money. But! We're also hustling to improve our international logistics and will be passing our savings along to our international customers.
Also, if you don’t absolutely love our stuff for whatever reason, we don’t request you deliver it to a PO box in the Gobi Desert by carrier pigeon.
We just . . . wait for it . . . give you your money back. No returns. No forms. No nonsense. Holy moo cows.
That means you can say “yes” now and decide later. You really have nothing to lose.
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