A three-day diet can’t be that hard, can it? That is definitely what I thought going into it. The military diet is a fad diet that has been around for a couple years. You eat a limited variety of foods over a course of three days, lowering your calorie intake each day. It lures you in because it claims to make you lose up to 10 pounds. I did a lot of research beforehand and watch a million and one videos on Youtube of people blogging about their turn with the diet. I saw one person lose eight pounds and another only lose three. When I heard you could possibly drop 10 pounds in less than half a week, I went to the grocery store to pick up the not so common ingredients that I’d need to keep to the strict guidelines. Here’s how my attempted military diet went. Important: I did this over spring break so my class schedule was not in effect.
Day One
Breakfast: I woke up late this day so I ate at 1:30 p.m. The first meal of the day calls for:
- ½ a grapefruit
- 1 slice of toast (wheat is best)
- 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
- 1 cup of plain coffee or caffeinated tea
(Photo courtesy of the author)
I don’t usually eat wheat toast or toast as breakfast for the matter, but it wasn’t bad. Peanut butter toast is basically a staple food. The grapefruit was good. I remember eating it when I was younger and pouring sugar on it because it was extremely tart. However, when I cut it into slices and added no sugar, it was delicious! Black coffee is not my go to, you wouldn’t catch me ordering it at Starbucks but it really wasn’t bad. I heard to add cinnamon to it to flavor so I’ll keep that in mind. The breakfast was surprisingly filling.
Lunch: Since I got off to a late start on the day, my lunch fell late. I ate at around 4 p.m. and the meal was:
- ½ cup of tuna (one can)
- 1 slice of toast
- 1 cup of plain coffee or caffeinated tea
(Photo courtesy of the author)
I was really skeptical of the tuna because it looked like cat food, but I drained it and moved on. I knew it was going to lack flavor so I added hot sauce to it considering this condiment, in particular, contains little to no calories. I had toast which helped a lot and the bread I bought at the store was very, very good. I made tea this time around to switch up the drinks. I was reading an article while eating so I wasn’t necessarily focused on the taste or the fact that I was eating tuna. Bonus: tuna is jam packed with protein!
Dinner: I went to the mall this night, got home around 10 p.m. and started to prepare the following:
- 3 ounces of any type of meat
- 1 cup of green beans
- ½ banana
- 1 small apple
- 1 cup of vanilla ice cream
(Photo courtesy of the author)
I cooked some chicken in a skillet with olive oil. I added Lawry’s seasoning salt and would 10/10 recommend. SO GOOD. The apple and green beans filled up most of the plate and the banana half was the highlight of my day, to be honest. With everything on my, plate it looked like more food than some of the pictures I’ve seen other people do so I was a bit nervous but I measured everything out exactly as told. I drank lemon water throughout the day and did the same for dinner. As a whole, dinner was really filling and a good portion of food so I put off the ice cream until about 11:30 p.m. It was totally worth it – who doesn’t want to eat ice cream on a diet?(Photo courtesy of the author)
Day one went well and I thought the next two days were going to be a piece of cake. That was until I woke up the next morning and then completely, utterly failed the diet. My diet plan for day two consisted of this.
Breakfast
- 1 egg
- 1 slice of toast
- ½ banana
Lunch
- 1 hard boiled egg
- 1 cup of cottage cheese
- 5 saltine crackers
Dinner
- 2 hot dogs without the bun
- 1 cup of broccoli
- ½ cup of carrots
- ½ banana
- ½ cup of vanilla ice cream
I went into this diet with full confidence, but when I went to start day two, I realized I had an incredibly busy day. I had a doctor’s appointment at 8 a.m. that morning so I only had time to grab the banana on my way out the door. By the time I left the appointment, it was around 11 a.m. and my mom pointed out that I looked pale in the face. I definitely felt a little light headed so my mom encouraged food and when I went to turn it down due to strict dietary guidelines, I realized a couple of things.
First, I realized that if I wasn’t able to do this diet on spring break, how would I be able to do it with my schedule during a normal school week? I know, I know you can do anything you set your mind to. I tend to get pretty healthy things on a daily basis and didn’t like feeling restricted to eating only certain foods. Also, I had to go out and buy the majority of the items needed for the three-day diet. I knew I would never have certain foods readily available in my mini fridge back at school. Try to name one college student you know who currently has cottage cheese, tuna, saltine crackers and hard boiled eggs in their rooms right now. It’s not convenient for a college student. Another difficulty I faced with this challenge was seriously just counting the calories. I know some people count the calories of everything they eat and that’s great. It just didn’t work for me. I have somewhat of an addictive personality and I knew that me being concerned and trying to count the number of calories in something I was eating was not healthy for my mindset whatsoever. Everyone’s body is different and will lose/gain weight at different rates, which is another downfall of the military diet. It’s definitely something interesting to try, but don’t expect to drop 10 pounds automatically! Odds are you don’t even need to lose any weight, so if you try it and succeed (or fail as I did) keep the vanilla ice cream handy and just go for it. You deserve it.