The Lion Diet What Is It and Is It Safe

Healthline diet score: 0.25 out of 5
The Lion Diet is a diet that anecdotal sources claim can help transform your life and improve your health.

Followers of the Lion Diet have reported a long list of benefits associated with the diet, including decreased inflammation, improvements in mood, and relief from issues like headaches, insomnia, and allergies.

However, others have dismissed the plan as unsustainable, unhealthy, and ineffective, noting that it’s overly restrictive and extreme.

This article explores the Lion Diet, including what it is, how it works, and whether it’s safe.

What is it?
The Lion Diet is a meat-based eating pattern that focuses on eliminating most ingredients from the diet to identify potential food sensitivities.

It was originally created by Mikhaila Peterson, a lifestyle blogger and podcast host who claims she was able to improve her health by making these changes to her diet.

According to her website, those who follow the Lion Diet have reported improvements in energy levels, mental health, and symptoms of digestive and autoimmune conditions.

It’s similar to the Carnivore Diet, which is a diet plan that permits you to consume only animal products like meat, fish, and poultry.

However, the Lion Diet is even more restrictive, allowing only foods from certain types of animals along with water and salt.

How it works
On the Lion Diet, you can consume only salt, water, and meat from ruminant animals, including cows, sheep, and deer.

Limiting your diet to these specific foods is believed to help sustain your body while removing other variables in your diet that may be contributing to health issues.

Although there are no official guidelines on how long you should follow the diet, anecdotal sources recommended waiting until your symptoms subside and then reintroducing foods slowly.

According to Peterson, you may need to follow the diet for several weeks before starting to add foods back into your diet.

This is intended to help you identify which foods trigger your symptoms so you can eliminate them from your diet.

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Some variations of the diet also involve intermittent fasting practices such as abstaining from food for 16–20 hours at a time or eating just one large meal per day. However, this is optional.

Foods to eat and avoid
The Lion Diet sets very strict guidelines about which foods it permits.

Foods to eat
The Lion Diet allows only a few specific foods — primarily meat from ruminant animals. The plan requires followers to eliminate all other foods.

Here are the foods that are allowed:

meat from ruminant animals, including beef, lamb, goat, bison, and deer
salt
water
Foods to avoid
All other food groups apart from the ingredients listed above are banned on the Lion Diet.

This includes not only foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds but also meat from nonruminant animals, poultry, and seafood.

Here are some examples of foods to avoid on the Lion Diet:

Fruits: apples, peaches, plums, berries, melons, pears, bananas
Vegetables: potatoes, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, mushrooms
Grains: bread, pasta, quinoa, oats, buckwheat, rice
Legumes: beans, lentils, chickpeas
Nuts: almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios, cashews
Seeds: chia seeds, flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds
Dairy products: milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, butter
Meat from nonruminant animals: bacon, ham, pork chops, rabbit meat
Poultry: chicken, turkey, duck, goose
Seafood: salmon, trout, anchovies, mackerel, shrimp, oysters, lobster
Fats: olive oil, ghee, coconut oil, avocado oil, margarine
Beverages: coffee, tea, soda, juice, beer, wine
Note that the diet allows you to reintroduce these foods into your diet slowly over time.

However, you should completely eliminate these foods for several weeks after starting the diet, or until your symptoms completely subside.

Does it work for weight loss?
Although the Lion Diet is not specifically intended to promote weight loss, it will likely cause weight loss if you follow it for an extended period of time.

This is because it eliminates most food groups, including many items that are often high in calories, such as snacks, added sugar, and processed foods.

Most types of meat that the diet encourages are also relatively low in calories.

For example, a 3-ounce (85-gram) serving of cooked bison ribeye contains 150 calories, while 3 ounces (85 grams) of cooked beef flank provides 224 calories (1Trusted Source, 2Trusted Source).

However, keep in mind that the diet may not supply enough calories to meet your daily needs, which could actually make it harder to sustain weight loss in the long term.

In fact, decreasing your calorie intake too much can slow your metabolism and change levels of specific hormones that control your hunger and appetite, which could increase the risk of weight regain (3Trusted Source).

Does the Lion Diet have any benefits?
The Lion Diet is focused on eliminating foods from your diet and slowly reintroducing them. The intention is to determine which foods contribute to issues like inflammation, fatigue, and digestive problems.

Studies show that elimination diets could be effective for several conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, food allergies, and inflammatory bowel diseases (4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source, 6Trusted Source).

Studies have found that your diet may also affect other conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, eczema, acne, and depression (7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source, 9Trusted Source, 10Trusted Source).

Therefore, identifying specific foods that cause symptoms associated with these conditions could be beneficial.

However, keep in mind that the elimination diets typically recommended for these conditions are not as restrictive as the Lion Diet. Instead, they usually focus on eliminating specific foods or food groups that are known to cause symptoms.

There have not been any studies on the Lion Diet specifically, and it’s not recommended as a treatment for any health condition. In fact, consuming large amounts of red meat may lead to flare-ups in people with certain conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis (11Trusted Source).

It’s best to talk with a healthcare professional before trying an elimination diet to ensure you’re getting enough nutrients and avoid negative health effects.

Potential downsides of the Lion Diet
There are several drawbacks associated with the Lion Diet.

Lacks nutrients
One of the main issues of the Lion Diet is that it’s extremely restrictive, lacking many key vitamins and minerals.

In fact, it completely eliminates many healthy foods, including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. This makes it difficult for you to get the nutrients your body needs.

Untreated nutritional deficiencies can cause a wide variety of issues, including weakness, impaired immune function, bone loss, pain, bruising, anemia, and neurological problems (12Trusted Source).

The Lion Diet is also lacking in fiber, an important compound found in plant foods that can support regularity, blood sugar control, and heart health (13Trusted Source).

What’s more, the diet is also very low in calories. Decreasing your calorie intake too much can cause serious side effects, including fatigue, headaches, nausea, and dizziness (14Trusted Source).

High in saturated fat
Animal products, including meat, are very high in saturated fat.

Although saturated fat can be part of a healthy diet, you should consume it in moderation.

In some people, saturated fat can increase levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, which is a risk factor for heart disease (15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source).

While most research shows that saturated fat is not directly linked to a higher risk of heart disease, experts recommend limiting your intake to less than 10% of total daily calories (17Trusted Source, 18).

Because the Lion Diet consists entirely of meat, being on this diet will likely cause you to consume much more saturated fat than recommended.

Unsustainable
In addition to being potentially very unhealthy, the Lion Diet is difficult to follow and unsustainable in the long term.

Since the diet offers little to no flexibility, it can be nearly impossible to eat out at restaurants or enjoy food in other social settings while following the diet.

Eliminating certain foods from your diet can also increase food cravings, making this diet even more challenging to stick to (19Trusted Source).

It also promotes unhealthy eating habits and may not be suitable for those with a history of disordered eating.

Should you try the Lion Diet?
Although elimination diets can be effective for certain health conditions, the Lion Diet is difficult to follow and unsustainable, and it lacks important nutrients.

It can also be dangerous and may increase the risk of nutritional deficiencies and other health problems over time.

If you’re experiencing inflammatory or digestive symptoms and want to test out an elimination diet, consider experimenting with one food group at a time to determine whether that type of food has any effect on your symptoms.

Alternatively, elimination diets like the low-FODMAP diet can be effective for identifying triggers if you have digestive issues or irritable bowel syndrome.

If you suspect you may have a food allergy or sensitivity, you may also want to consult a healthcare professional to determine the best course of treatment for you and whether you may benefit from making changes to your diet.
The bottom line
The Lion Diet is a meat-based elimination diet that supposedly helps you identify which foods are negatively affecting your health.

Although elimination diets can be effective for certain conditions, the Lion Diet is unsustainable and high in saturated fat, and it lacks key nutrients.

If you believe certain foods in your diet may be causing symptoms or negatively affecting your health, it’s best to speak to a healthcare professional to determine the best course of treatment for you.