World Egg Day: What Is Egg Diet And Is It Effective?

Have you been on an egg diet lately? It is the latest weight-loss diet that has been much spoken about. If breakfast is your favourite meal of the day, then the egg diet may seem appealing to you. The egg diet weight loss program requires that you build at least one meal each day around the traditional breakfast staple.

However, there are various versions of egg diet, including egg-only diet, and not all of them are necessarily healthy. They may or may not work too. On the occasion of World Egg Day, we guide you on how you could go about the egg-diet, and we shall check out if it is really worth the hype.

• What Exactly Is Egg Diet?
• Does Egg Diet Help In Weight Loss?
• The Egg Diet Meal Plan
• 14-Day Egg Diet
• The Egg And Grapefruit Diet
• Boiled Egg Diet
• Egg-only Diet
• Keto Egg Diet
• What Are The Possible Side Effects?
• The Bottom Line

What Exactly Is Egg Diet?

The egg diet is a low-carbohydrate, low-calorie, but high-protein diet, designed to aid weight loss, without sacrificing on the protein aspect that is necessary to build muscles. Just as the name suggests, the diet emphasizes the consumption of egg as the main source of protein.

There are multiple versions of the egg diet, but in each of these versions, you can drink water or zero-calorie beverages. Foods high in carbohydrates and natural sugars are excluded from this diet, and the diet typically lasts for 14 days. The diet involves only breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are no snacks, apart from water or other zero-calorie drinks.

Does Egg Diet Help In Weight Loss?

All versions of the egg diet may result in the intake of lesser calories overall, and hence, may be effective for weight loss. The diet is high in protein and has proven to be beneficial for weight loss.

A study report mentioned in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition indicates that a high-protein diet helped the participants in inducing a feeling of fullness and helped in losing weight.

Eggs are a good source of protein and contain vital minerals, vitamin B12, iron and vitamin D. They contain essential nutrients that help with weight loss.

The Egg Diet Meal Plan

Here are various versions of the egg diet meal plans that you could choose from:

14-Day Egg Diet

This version of the diet program includes three meals daily, with no-calorie drinks and no snacks in between. Every day one meal will include eggs, but other meals may be built around sources of lean protein including fish or chicken. To supplement the protein in your diet, you can add low-carbohydrate veggies such as spinach or broccoli. Sometimes, citrus fruits are allowed.

The Egg And Grapefruit Diet

This is a variation of the 14-day egg diet, which lasts the same amount of time. In this version of the diet, you can eat half a grapefruit during every meal, with egg or lean protein. No other fruit is permitted.

Boiled Egg Diet

This requires that your eggs be hard-boiled, rather than eating them poached, fried or scrambled.

Egg-only Diet

This weight loss program is called a mono-diet and involves eating only hard-boiled eggs and water for two weeks. However, this is an extreme and unhealthy weight loss program, as you eat only a single food item for an extended duration of two weeks. This programme does not include exercise too, as you may experience fatigue during a mono-diet.

Keto Egg Diet

This involves Ketogenic diets, known as 'keto diets' that require you to increase your intake of fat to put your body in a state of ketosis. In this version of the egg diet, you eat eggs with butter and cheese to get your body to produce ketones. One popular ratio is one tablespoon of cheese or butter for one egg.

There are several such versions of the egg diet, but their end target is the same. You will begin each day with eggs and continue eating lean protein in small portions throughout the day.

The lean protein that you may include is chicken, eggs, fish and turkey.

Fruits and vegetables you may include are broccoli, grapefruit, zucchini, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus and grapefruit.

Here's a sample egg diet meal plan that you can try:

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs + 1 grapefruit, or an omelette with 2 egg with spinach and mushrooms.

Lunch: Half a roasted chicken breast + broccoli

Dinner: 1 serving of fish + a green salad

What Are The Possible Side Effects?

• The most common side effect of the egg diet is the lack of energy that several people feel due to the depletion of carbs, which makes it difficult to exercise.

• Another drawback is the sudden shift to high protein and low-carb diet, which can get difficult for the digestive system to adapt to. Therefore, nausea, flatulence and bad breath may be the possible side effects.

• Eggs are high in cholesterol (186 gm), which constitute 63% of the recommended value. However, recent researches have shown that more than cholesterol in foods, it is saturated fats and trans-fats that we should be concerned about.

• Eggs have zero fibre, so you may have to include other foods in ample amounts so that you don't end up starving your healthy gut bacteria.

The Bottom Line

Medical communities are of the opinion that the egg diet is not the safest way to lose weight. Irrespective of the version of the egg diet that you follow, your calorie intake would be below 1000 calories per day, which is considered unsafe for men or women to consume, unless supervised by a medical professional. Any type of extreme crash diet meant to help with sudden weight loss may not work even if you adhere to it, as you are unlikely to maintain such a diet in the long run.

Majority of people feel sluggish and fatigued when on a carbohydrate-restricted diet. As this diet is not possible in the long run, several people revert to old habits once the diet period is over, and this may result in weight gain once again.

Therefore, if you are focusing on weight loss, opting for a well-balanced meal plan that limits calories, high-sugar foods and processed foods and increasing exercise would be the best way to go with.