The Egg Diet - Does It Really Work, And Should You Try It?
- What Is the Egg Diet?
- Is the Egg Diet Healthy?
- Side Effects
- Does the Egg Diet Work?
- Egg Diet Meal Plan
- Additional tips that help lose weight
- Conclusion
What Is the egg diet?
The egg diet is a high protein, low-carb, low-calorie crash diet intended to be used for short-term weight loss. In theory, it’s a great diet for those who want to lose fat without losing muscle, due to the extremely high levels of animal protein in this diet plan, but it’s not your average diet of course.
Eggs are a valuable source of healthy protein, and on the boiled egg diet, you’ll need to like them – you’ll be eating them every day for 2 weeks alongside only plain water and a diet which is very limited in every other way.
There will be a few other foods available to you while on the egg diet, but they’re also very high in protein. To top up your food intake, you’ll be able to eat the following:
- Lean white meat such as chicken and turkey
- Fish
You’ll also be able to include the following fruits and vegetables:
- Broccoli
- Grapefruit
- Asparagus
- Spinach
- Zucchini
- Mushrooms
There are two main versions of the egg diet; the traditional version, and the extreme version.
The traditional egg diet
In the traditional egg diet, you’ll eat either egg or one of the other sources of lean protein as the main part each and every meal. The only other things you’ll be able to add to your diet are the fruits and vegetables mentioned above, which are all very low carb and low fat.
The extreme egg diet
When following the extreme egg diet plan, you basically restrict yourself to eating nothing but boiled or poached eggs for 14 days in a row. As you can imagine, this is very restrictive, extremely boring and an excellent way to give yourself malnutrition very quickly – so we would never recommend it to anyone!
Is the egg diet healthy?
In a word, no. The egg diet is rife with unpleasant side effects (as listed below), and they’re caused not only by the fact that too much egg can give you an upset stomach, but also because the diet is just so restrictive and unvaried.
Not only this, on the egg diet, it’s unlikely you’ll manage to consume over 1000 calories per day. The average woman should never eat fewer than 1200 calories each day, otherwise not only does she risk malnutrition, but she can also expect her body to go into ‘starvation mode’ where it will begin to hold on to every gram of fat eaten and severely slow down its metabolic rate. Of course, this is very counterproductive if you want to lose weight, but it’s also bad for your health and wellbeing, not to mention your mood!
Eating a diet which mainly consists of eggs, lean meats and very few fruits and veggies will also lead to constipation caused by the lack of fiber in your diet. This will lead to bloating and may even trigger food allergies.
A good doctor would never recommend you go on a restrictive crash diet like this, and would always encourage you to make healthy, sustainable food swaps which you can follow for the long term instead.
Side Effects
The egg diet will without a doubt lead to you suffering from a variety of side effects. Here are just a few:
- Constipation due to a lack of fiber
- Indigestion
- Bloatedness and excess wind
- Low energy levels due to a lack of calories
- Malnutrition
- The triggering of ‘starvation mode’ – and a slowing of your metabolic rate
- Instant weight regain, with a strong likelihood that you will also gain additional weight you never had originally, thanks to the ‘crash diet effect’
Does the egg diet work?
Lots of people are finding that the egg diet is a great way to lose a lot of weight in a short space of time. Some people have claimed to have to lost up to 20 pounds in as little as 2 weeks. So if you’re wondering does the boiled egg diet work, the truth is that yes, it will work in the short term, but that doesn’t mean you will retain your weight loss once you begin eating normally again.
Because the egg diet is a crash diet, it’s not at all sustainable and cannot be followed for more than 2 weeks at a time without risking serious side effects. This means you will have to stop and go back to eating a normal diet at some point. Only by the time you do, your metabolism will be as slow as a snail and your appetite will be raging like a bull – a perfect combination for instant weight regain.
Egg diet meal plan
We don’t recommend the egg diet at all, and always encourage people to make healthy, sustainable dietary and exercise changes instead. But in the interests of completeness, here is what a typical day looks like on the traditional egg diet plan:
Breakfast:
2 boiled eggs with grapefruit or a mushroom omelet or 2 poached eggs on a bed of spinach
Lunch:
Plain chicken with broccoli, asparagus or zucchini
Dinner:
Salmon with poached egg, alongside asparagus or broccoli
Snacks:
½ a grapefruit
Additional tips that help lose weight
The best tip we can give you is to avoid putting yourself on to such a restrictive crash diet, and instead begin a food diary – then see where you can begin to make healthy swaps to lower calories alternatives of what you’re currently eating each day.
For instance, swap a snack of crisps and chocolate for a banana and apple, a plate of fries could easily be swapped for mashed potato with a little pepper and milk added for taste. Rather than a deep pan pizza, use a tortilla bread and add your own toppings with just a small amount of cheese and lots of veggies, and if hard boiled sweets are your thing, why not freeze some peeled grapes (chop them in half first for safety reasons), and snack on those instead?
Healthy swaps like this all add up to big changes in the long term, and you’ll be surprised to see what effect it has on your weight in just a few short weeks. The best part? Carry on eating like this, and your weight will stay lower forever.
Check also: What is a CICO diet >>
Conclusion
Food should be enjoyed, and eating healthily shouldn’t be a punishment. But the boiled egg diet plan certainly seems to make eating fewer calories seem like punishment to me.
If you truly want to lose weight for good, stick with the healthy swaps method, increase your exercise each day, and begin suppressing your appetite through the use of a natural supplement such as PhenQ – you may just be pleasantly surprised at what you can achieve in a relatively short space of time without resorting to fad diets like the egg diet!
