3 day military diet.

As others have said, 10 lbs in 3 weeks is a bit much. Why not scrap the diet idea and focus on losing weight and being healthy with a more manageable option. That way, the weight you lose will be sustainable, and if you start now, by time your next birthday rolls around in a year (or even before that) you'll meet your goal

You do this diet and you might lose the 10lb you want to lose for your birthday but one birthday meal and it will be back on and doing silly diets like this by your next birthday you will be looking to lose 20lb. Only telling you this because I don't want you making the same mistakes I did. Took me a long time to learn that eating a healthy balanced diet and doing some exercise is the only way to get it off and more importantly keep it off. Start now and you could have the body of your dreams by your next birthday (probably before).

There have been actual, arguably unethical, studies done on what the maximum weight loss per week is that you expect to see in total starvation. I seem to recall it's something like 2.5 pounds per week, and don't think for a minute that means 2.5 pounds of fat. The Minnesota Starvation Experiment is one such study. I think you should genuinely look into it, but in case you don't, the gist is that starvation-level calorie intake causes your metabolism to plummet through the floor and start cannibalizing your own body for food, and so much of the weight you lose is water and muscle. If you were to then up your calories to even 1200, the minimum recommended for women, your metabolism would be so trounced that you would actually see an initial weight gain until your body stopped freaking out.

Maybe the question you really want to ask is, "Ignoring factors that put me at risk for relapse later on, what is the fastest I can lose weight?" I will actually answer this question for you, but I don't recommend you do it. You can probably maintain a rate of 2 pounds per week lost if doing a 1,000 calorie deficit doesn't bring you below 1000 calories (MFP says 1200, but you can probably get away with this for 3 weeks). That means you are looking at 6 pounds. Any faster than that, and you will hit the ceiling of what you can lose per week, and it won't really matter (to the scale) whether you are eating 1000 calories or zero because your metabolism will just slow down to compensate. You will probably lose more on the scale, though, if you've just started dieting -- water weight and food-in-digestive-tract-weight.

I did this 1000-calorie-per-day thing once, because back in the early days LoseIt didn't have the kind of safety in place that MFP does to inform you that going below 1200 is dangerous, and I just picked the highest weight loss level and didn't do my health and fitness research. When I switched to maintenance, and tried to eat normally, I was so uncontrollably hungry that I could eat and eat until I your stomach is painfully bloated and you still feel ravenously hungry. It's a side effect of long-term starvation, I think the Minnesota study covers it as well. Anyway, I don't recommend it.

Bad idea for a diet.

Stick to recommended fat loss from MFP or Free Diet Calculator (most accurate for most people)

With a military diet you WILL LOSE lean muscle mass. Every one of my friends who joined into a military branch came back smaller then when they went in, muscle and fat wise.

Why is it called the Military Diet? Because you have to be militant about starving yourself? People in the armed forces have to eat a lot because they do so much physical activity.

I've noticed people here get stuck on numbers..."I must lose 5/10/20 pounds by X date." How about just doing the best you can (meaning eat healthy, log your food, exercise etc.) in that allotted time?

1) 10 Lbs in three weeks is a ridiculous goal

2) there is nothing "military" about this diet. I was in a combat ready unit and we trained for a living...I easily ate 5,000 calories plus.

3) if you really only need to lose 10 Lbs and you crash your diet like this, you will lose a great deal of muscle...probably mostly muscle because you don't have the fat stores necessary for that kind of loss. I'm sure you will look so awesome losing muscle...you'll look really toned and stuff...(note that you actually need muscle to look "toned")

4) even if you did drop the 10 Lbs in 3 weeks, you'd put it right back on. Not to mention, your metabolism would now be slower because you lost so much muscle in this very inappropriate method of losing weight. You do understand that lean mass is a calorie burning machine, even at rest right? No...you probably don't understand that....

5) You probably don't even need to lose 10 Lbs...you probably have body composition issues and like so many people you think you just need to keep crashing your diet and crashing your diet and crashing your diet...when in reality you need to be working on your muscle and changing your body composition...hard to do when you're just burning your muscle mass up with crash dieting for occasion here or there in a couple weeks or a few weeks there.

I would suggest the 17 day diet! You can easily lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks and you are not starving yourself, it's all based on what you are eating. It's lots of lean protein and veggies (as much as you can eat really), couple low sugar fruits a day, couple servings of healthy fats and couple servings of probiotics. I'm currently doing it right now to lose my Christmas weight and I am down 4 pounds and 2 inches off my waist since Monday.

My typical routine (I switch it up on the weekends when I have a little more time to prep and be creative):

Drinks:
1 tbsp coconut oil blended in with my coffee to make a latte with some vanilla, stevia and cinnamon
Green tea throughout the day
Lots of water

Breakfast:
1 cup frozen berries and 3/4 low fat greek yogurt in my magic bullet.

Morning Snack:
1 Apple

Lunch:
Large salad with romaine lettuce, onions, mushrooms, red peppers and a chicken breast. Plain balsamic vinegar as a dressing.

Afternoon Snack:
1/2 cucumber sliced with pepper & vinegar
2 Hard boiled egg whites
1 Hard boiled whole egg

Dinner:
1/2 cup sauerkraut, mushrooms, red peppers and a chicken breast fried in 1 tbsp olive oil. I put in cayenne pepper, fennel and cumin. It's so good the better half tasted it the one day and wanted to trade me for his spaghetti.

I do insanity 6 times a week, but even a quick walk or some light exercise everyday will help.

Ypu should hav planned this two months ago. Not three weeks. Its insane and won't last. Good luck starving yourself. But trust me it isn't worth it.

What's the point of making yourself miserable to lose 10lbs of mostly water weight for the scale to read lighter on your birthday? Hope you don't plan on eating or having any drinks on your birthday!! There is no such thing as "jump starting" a diet. You just start eating less and moving more....there you go, diet "jump started".