The Lion Diet: What Is It and is It Safe?

The Lion Diet is one of the most effective diet plans designed to reduce body fat by systematically eliminating a wide variety of food sources and sticking to a uniform nutritional intake. The idea was originally conceived by a lifestyle blogger named Mikhaila Peterson, who designed the diet with the intention of improving her mental health and autoimmune system. The diet itself is very similar to the Atkins or Carnivore diet, where you are only allowed to consume meats, fish, and poultry products. However, it is also more difficult to follow since it doesn’t allow you to consume salt and at times, water too. 

By engaging in a strict consumption cycle where you consume the flesh of animals like sheep, cows, and deer, you are conditioning your body to sustain itself while getting rid of all the harmful toxins and chemicals from your body, effectively replenishing your health. 

While there is no official input or guidelines about the duration of the diet itself, a good rule of thumb would be to stick to the diet until you start seeing some effects. Several weeks after this point you slowly begin consuming regular food items again. 

The diet can also be consumed in sync with an intermittent fasting diet plan, where you put your body in a mode of starvation for most of the day and only eat within a prescribed time period. Doing so will jump-start your metabolism and also help you identify the kinds of food that your body does not react well to. 

Let us understand more about what it is that makes the Lion Diet one of the fastest weight loss diet plans and whether or not it is safe for you.

Foods to Eat When Following the Lion Diet

The list of foods that you have to consume is relatively small. These mostly consist of meat from ruminant animals such as cows. You will effectively be blacklisting every other type of food from your diet. Your nutritional intake will primarily consist of only three things:

• Meat from ruminant animals, including beef, lamb, goat, bison, and deer
• Salt
• Water

You must ask yourself “what do the lion eat” and only consume those specific types of meats and condiments.

Foods to Avoid during the Lion Diet

The foods that you will be avoiding are essentially anything that has not been named in the above list. This means that you need to stay away from junk as well as natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds. You will also need to avoid consuming the meat of certain non-ruminant animals such as pork, rabbit, ham, and bacon.

Seafood like salmon, trout, anchovies, and mackerel are off-limits as well. Additionally, you cannot consume poultry products such as chicken, turkey, or duck either. Make sure to stay away from fatty cooking ingredients such as olive oil, coconut oil. Avocado oil. Or even butter. 

While these foods can be added back to your food intake after a short while, they must be cut off from your daily consumption immediately. Any relapse or exceptions will not be effective for your body and will most probably cause more harm than good. 

How Safe is the Lion Diet?

While the Lion’s Diet is one of the most effective diet plans that you can opt for at this point, it does have certain negative connotations that one should be fully aware of before engaging in it. For instance:

1. Lacks Nutrients

One of the most incessant drawbacks of following the Lion Diet is that it is based on the idea of eliminating several essential food groups and nutrients from your nutritional intake. This effectively means that you are leaving your body to fend for itself, creating an imbalance in nutrition. 

Developing a nutritional deficiency can lead to several chronic health complications in the long run such as decreased auto-immune functioning, weakness, bruising, pain, loss of muscle, weakened bone density, possible anaemia, and in some cases, neurological problems. Following a keto diet plan is a far more effective alternative in such cases. 

2. High in Saturated Fat

Most of the flesh that you get from consuming animals is dangerously high in saturated fats. While these fats can be a good source of several nutrients, it is important that you consume them within the prescribed limits. Going over the top, and basing your entire food intake around the meat of animals can cause your bad cholesterol levels to skyrocket. 

This can potentially lead to several chronic illnesses such as heart disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes in the long run. A good rule of thumb would be to limit your meat intake to the point that it accounts for less than ten percent of your total caloric consumption. 

3. Unsustainable

Apart from being a possible carrier of several health complications and nutritional deficiencies, it is also a very unsustainable nutritional choice for one to follow. There is almost zero flexibility and way too many restrictions with the diet, which can make it a bit difficult for you to engage in social settings like dinner. You are also dangerously limiting your food intake in this diet, which can only cause a piling up of food cravings in the long run. If you are someone who has a history of eating disorders or even an unhealthy eating pattern, this diet will make it all the more difficult for you.  

Conclusion

The primary reason behind inventing the Lion diet was to identify the problem foods in your nutritional intake and then eliminate them based on your body’s response to them. Although the diet may eliminate a lot of junk food from your diet, it is also getting rid of a lot of the good stuff. This can lead to a myriad of complications over time. You can always follow simpler nutritional patterns such as the Indian weight loss diet plan or the gain weight diet plan, depending on your requirements.

Make sure to head over to www.healthkart.com to discover a wide range of health aids and nutritional supplements that you can incorporate into your daily intake to get the maximum health benefits.