The Military Diet is a popular weight loss plan that alternates between strict eating and more flexible days. After following the regimented 3-day low-calorie meal plan, the “4 days off” phase allows more freedom, with many people opting for a 1200-calorie intake to maintain their progress. This approach, known as the Military Diet 4 days off 1200 calories, helps balance structure and flexibility, making it easier to stick to the diet while still seeing results. In this article, we’ll break down how this method works, its benefits, and tips for success during the 4 days off.
What is the Military Diet and How Does It Work?
The military diet focuses on low-calorie intake. Edibles that are limited in calories and carbohydrates sate your hunger and keep you active throughout the day. The Military diet focuses on limiting your calorie intake from 900 to 1100 per day. This diet according to the plan requires you to give in four days of your week.
So for the rest of the week that is three days you can keep on working with your usual food consumption and your schedule. But do not engage in an excessive amount of calorie intake since that is what you are trying to beat. On the 3 three days of the week when you are not following the diet, it is still advisable to only extend your calorie intake by 200 or 300 calories.
It is to be noted that drinking water is of extreme importance. Although one will gain liquid weight that weight is not to be treated with frustration because it is mostly temporary and you shed most of it with the emptying of your bladder.
If you are hoping to meet your goal in just four days, then that is not possible. You need to keep working on a diet and stay loyal to its prescriptions for it to give you the desired results.
Exercise and the military diet
As mentioned above exercise is a necessity for any weight loss or fat-burning diet. You need to find a cardiac exercise that agrees with your routines.
Furthermore, it is to be noted that if you are not taking the basic calories as demanded by the plan you are likely to meet with some physical deficiencies for example hair loss weakness, and tiredness.
These feelings lead to a decline of willpower and a clear mark of reluctance in a person and they soon drop the plan. One has to have the mindset and a proper schedule to meet their desires.
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What Is the Military Diet and How Does It Work?
The 3-day military diet is divided into two parts spread out over seven days.
For the first three days, you must stick to a strict low-calorie diet for breakfast, lunch, and supper. There are no snacks available in between meals.
During this phase, you should consume around 1,100–1,400 calories per day.
This is far less than the typical adult’s intake, however, you may use this calculator to determine your personal calorie needs. Nutritionists recommend eating properly and continuing to limit your calorie consumption for the next four days of the week. Diet supporters believe that you may repeat the diet multiple times till you achieve your desired weight.
Why 1200 Calories During the 4 Days Off?
The 1200-calorie guideline during the 4 days off in the Military Diet helps individuals maintain their weight loss progress without drastically reducing their intake. This calorie level is low enough to continue supporting a calorie deficit, which is essential for weight loss, but high enough to provide more flexibility compared to the strict 3-day meal plan.
By sticking to 1200 calories during the off days, dieters can enjoy a wider variety of foods while still controlling portions and avoiding overeating, making it easier to sustain the results achieved during the on-cycle of the diet.
Foods to eat on Military Diet
To comply perfectly with the Military diet, you would have to get low-calorie, high-fiber foods.
Most fruits and vegetables are rich in fiber and more than enough energy for one to keep energetic the whole day. A healthy intake of all the recommended food can help to maintain a suitable weight.
What to eat on a Military diet
- Fruits like apples, bananas, grapefruit, oranges.
- Dairy like milk and cheese.
- High protein sources like fish, meat, and eggs.
- Vegetables like broccoli, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumber.
What to drink on a Military diet
All teas are allowed on the Military diet, for example, ginger tea or normal green tea. Juices like vegetable mixtures without sugar. Caffeine and vinegar ciders, peanut butter.
You would then need to eat foods depending on the four-day plan.
For instance, in the mornings of each day start your day with coffee, for solid food you can have cereals or wheat bread with peanut butter. And if you want more to balance the calorie intake, a fruit would satisfy that need with calorie intake replaced with fiber.
Lunch
For afternoon lunch you will need more protein and for exercise, it is right to go inactive. Again some coffee or tea although it is better to drink tea 30 minutes earlier than your lunch or 30 minutes after you have finished your lunch.
If that cannot be done then coffee is recommended as a dietary plan. So for the afternoon, you can have fish, it does not have to be fried in oil. You can buy canned fish or tuna fish from any nearby market.
Dinner
And at the last meal for evening dinner, one can have protein-rich chicken or other types of meat with green vegetables like lettuce or tomatoes with beans.
As in all diets, it is always advised not to consume excessive amounts of salts and sugar but, one can find prescribed foods in those diets that are enriched in salts and carbohydrates like bread. But you still need to keep a check on the amount you are consuming. With a Military diet, professionals recommend you limit salt intake from 1.5 to 2g per day.
Once a day at dinner you can also have sugar-enriched foods like ice cream or perhaps a milkshake. But it is still unadvisable and you can perfectly replace the need for deserts with plums or other sweet fruits.
Limiting calories on the Military diet
The calorie-limited factor is to be kept in mind all the time because it happens to be the fundamental constitution in any diet plan and even more so in a military diet plan.
When you limit your calorie intake to 1200 calories daily, you have begun to deprive your body of its essential needs.
But it is necessary if you have to lose fat and prevent several obesity-related diseases. Hence, a calorie-limited diet and schedule for daily exercise often lead a person to extreme weariness.
People who are more susceptible to these factors should consider talking to their doctor and should only engage in a diet like this if a health professional concedes it.
Conclusion
It is necessary to keep yourself healthy and shedding weight is one of the major steps in doing so. But an extreme sense of will may prove fatal as physical needs deprived of essential nutrients can lead to other problems. So always keep your calorie intake in check and keep your body hydrated.