It’s the 6th most searched diet on Google so far this year. (Keto still holds the number one spot.) Every hear of it? Yes, it’s official: the Military Diet is another fad diet. How do I know? It promises 10 lbs of weight loss in one week. Wow. Here’s the deal:

For three consecutive days, you follow the Military Diet which consists of small portions of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Caloric intake over these three days is low (1,400, 1,200 and 1,100 on days 1, 2 and 3, respectively). No snacks are allowed, and caffeinated beverages (ideally coffee) are included with breakfast and lunch. Despite the small portion sizes and low calories, dinner every night includes a small amount of vanilla ice cream. The next four days are “off” days, but binge eating, overcompensating and overindulging are discouraged; a 1,500 calorie/day meal plan for each of the four “off days” is recommended to continue weight loss. (SIDE NOTE: the 4-day “off days” meal plan examples and the binge eating discouragement are actually sound advice from this diet plan. Too bad the primary 3-day component part of this diet doesn’t carry the same message.)

The secret to the Military Diet’s success is discipline, meaning being disciplined enough to maintain eating tiny quantities of food for as long as you can muster. Hence, the name. To follow the Military Diet, it takes a lot of discipline, like the members of our military. The Military Diet is not actually based on a diet by the real military. I have no data to back up what our military DOES recommend to or serve our honorable troops, but I can almost 100% guarantee that it looks nothing like the Military Diet.

If you haven’t figured out yet, I absolutely do not recommend this diet plan for anyone looking to lose weight. It’s the classic crash diet wrapped up in a new name. While it may “work” for one or even two weeks, soon thereafter, it will very likely result in failure, weight regain and a sense of low self worth because you “failed” yet another diet. Except, you didn’t. It’s the diet that failed you.

My take? Get to know yourself. Yes, of course I mean your genes so that you have a better shot at something actually working, but I also mean get to know what behaviors work for you and what motivates you. Use that as a starting point, not a crash diet that will inevitably, well, crash.