There will always be a list of reasons why we claim we need to drop five pounds. That list of reasons will be forever endless. You either want a flat stomach in your formal dress, are attending some sort of event that requires a bathing suit, feel bloated from the excessive amount of late night snacking/drinking over the weekend, or you want to be as toned as possible for your skimpy Halloween costume.
Throughout last year, I heard many people talking about some fad diet, known as The Military Diet, which supposedly makes you drop as much as 10 pounds in a week. As a desperate freshman who tried to take a short-cut into losing all the weight she has put on, I was intrigued. I decided to learn more about it and attempted to give it a shot. However, I shortly quit after the hunger and sugar craving became too much to handle.
Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t work; It automatically sets you up for a disaster and here is why:
1. You need Carbs
Carbs are not your enemy. They’re actually very important in maintaining a well-balanced diet and a healthy weight. Obviously, going overboard will lead to weight gain, but going overboard on any food group will lead to weight gain.
Significantly decreasing the amount of carbs you intake, like the Military diet has you do, will cause you to lose muscles. Muscles are essential for maintaining weight. The more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism is. Therefore, when you go back to eating a normal amount of food, your weakened metabolism will result in you gaining weight.
2. It is not possible to lose so much weight in such little time
I hate to break it to you, but if you really want to lose weight you’re going to have to do it the right way. It is important to realize that there is a difference between actual weight and water weight. Eating a super strict, calorie-deficient diet for a week may cause it to appear, on the scale, that weight has been lost, but that is only water weight (aka temporary de-bloat). You should only aim to lose up to two pounds per week.
3. Cravings are physiological
As you severely deprive yourself, you’ll notice that your sugar cravings get stronger. That is a natural response of the brain, so don’t blame it on personal lack of will-power. We are biologically wired to crave high-calorie, fatty food.
4. There is no special formula to weight loss
One of the biggest misconceptions about weight loss, which the Military Diet claims to have found, is that there is some kind of special combination of food that will make you lose weight. Believers of the diet think that it is this special mixture of food which makes this mass weight loss possible. As I just mentioned, such weight loss isn’t possible. On top of that, weight loss in general does not require some “special combination.” It all comes down to calorie intake and calories burned.