Petra @newmiboAre you even “keto” if you haven’t tried the famous egg fast? It has been around for over 10 years now and it is still going strong. I dare to say, it is one of the most popular anecdotal weight loss plateau breakers in the keto community.
How did it start? What are the rules? What to expect? What if you’re not on a keto diet?
Let’s have a look.
HOW DID IT START
The egg fast craze was started almost accidentally by Jimmy Moore. The name may sound familiar to you, he’s the co writer of the fasting “bible” The complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung MD with Jimmy Moore. Jimmy has struggled with weight publicly which earned him a lot of criticism. He has been following the low carb diet for over a decade and has created this fast as a personal challenge for himself back in 2010. Jimmy ate only eggs, butter and cheese for a month and had claimed to have lost an impressive 27 lb. He published his rules and results on his blog Livin’ La Vida Low Carb (the original blog seems to have been deleted) and Egg fast went viral. This is a video of him breaking his month long egg fast. People have been doing it ever since, usually for 3-5 days. The weight loss results seem pretty impressive. Generally between 4 – 10 lbs depending of course on your starting weight and the duration of the fast.
Jimmy’s primary reason as to why he limited himself to 3 foods only, was to help him differentiate between hunger and gluttony. As I mentioned in this post, it is always much more difficult to overeat on one food than if we eat a variety of food. Variety for a dieter, someone who needs to lose weight, is the devil’s playground.
The egg fast doesn’t have a scientific background, however the principles resemble very closely a fat fast.
EXPECTATIONS
break weight loss stall
weight loss of up to 10 pounds in 5 days
getting into nutritional ketosis
minimise sugar cravings
gain new perspective over your eating amount and habits
kickstart ketosis
THE RULES
1. EAT WHOLE EGGS
eggs will be your primary source of fat and protein
If you’re interested in in-depth egg nutritional values, you can read this 2019 article published in NUTRITION :
Most experimental, clinical, and epidemiologic studies concluded that there was no evidence of a correlation between dietary cholesterol brought by eggs and an increase in plasma total-cholesterol
2. CONSUME 6-8 EGGS DAILY
the recommended minimum is 6 eggs per day
3. PAIR EACH EGG WITH 1 TABLESPOON (15g) OF HEALTHY PURE FAT
this can be butter, olive oil, mayonnaise, coconut oil, mct oil
This rule is important to follow, it completely changes the macro content, which makes all the difference between ketosis and just a high protein calorie reduction fast. See photo below. Egg on its own is around 65% fat whereas if you pair it with a tabelspoon of pure fat the macros jump up to around 86% of fat, the perfect ratio in order to maintain nutritional ketosis. It is also the minimal ratio required for a fat fast.
4. YOU CAN CONSUME CHEESE 1oz (30g) PER EGG
choose high fat cheeses: cheddar, parmesan, swiss, feta, brie, Monterrey jack, full fat cream cheese, mascarpone,
this rule seems to vary the most and I do think this is a personal preference and can be adjusted. I would say limit yourself to 4 oz of cheese per day. If you have less that won’t be a problem. Fat is a must, cheese is a may.
Furthermore, consider the protein content in cheese as this will off set the perfect fat/protein ratio of egg and butter for example. Some people can get away with higher protein amounts but for others higher protein amounts may raise blood sugar and even take them out of ketosis.
Cheese is also addictive and once you start you may not be able to stop. Best option would be to only use cheese in recipes but not eaten on its own. This is a personal preference though, so you do what works best for you.
5. YOU CAN HAVE SPICES AND LOW CARB CONDIMENTS such as mustard, hot sauce
6. CHOOSE LOCAL PASTURE RAISED, HIGH IN OMEGA 3 AND VITAMIN D EGGS
7. DIET SODA IS ALLOWED
Jimmy’s goal was 1 can, this was his personal preference, of course you can avoid soda if you don’t drink it. Jimmy actually reported to have managed to give up his diet soda addiction during this “egg fest.”
TIMING RULES
8. eat your first egg within 30 minutes from waking
most people choose to have bulletproof coffee instead
9. eat every 3 – 5 hours even if not hungry
You could have 3 meals, each containing 2 eggs paired with the suggested fat amount.
I would personally still follow intermittent fasting of at least 16:8. OMAD is not recommended for this fast, as high amount of food in one sitting will raise your insulin even if you don’t consume carbohydrates. Try TMAD instead.
10. last meal at least 3 hours before going to sleep
You may also drink tea, coffee, bulletproof coffee and of course water. You might also want to consider electrolytes. Some recipes require sweeteners, that’s entirely up to you if you choose to use them. There are some amazing meals created specifically for this fast, search keto egg fast recipes and you will find plenty online. I found these two websites/blogs below the most helpful:
I will post my personal experience and my menu in the following post.
THE RISK
This is an extreme way of eating and it may come with risks. I’m not a nutritionist or a doctor and this is not a prescription of what you should do. Neither is this a scientifically backed experiment. Egg fast was a personal challenge Jimmy Moore has created for himself. If you decide to do it, you do that at your own risk, therefore please be sensible and if you feel unwell, stop. You should always consult a professional before making changes to your diet.
WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT ON A KETO DIET?
The egg fast is a type of ketogenic diet. Your main bulk of energy is coming from pure fat, moderate protein and close to zero carbohydrates. If you’re not fat adapted or in ketosis, you will very likely experience symptoms of a keto flu as a result of the sudden drastic carbohydrate withdrawal.
You may also just end up being put off by eggs forever after this challenge.
EXIT STRATEGY
Please don’t do this without having an exit plan in place. If you don’t have an exit strategy, this fast may actually do you more harm then good with the guarantee of regaining all the weight back on top of a newly developed aversion to eggs.
All the rules and evidence for this challenge is anecdotal, there is no study to support the results or transition, please bear that in mind.
TRANSITIONAL PERIOD
Once you finish your egg fast and start eating normally, you will regain the weight lost. People who have successfully maintained their egg fast weight loss, seemed to all have included a 2 days of transitional period at the end of their egg fast. The 2 transitional days should still consist of 2 main egg fast meals and 1 meal can be other than eggs. If you are going to do the egg fast for 3 days, follow it up with 2 days of transition into “normal” eating in order to avoid weight regain.
FOLLOW UP
Ideally, you would continue with a low carb diet or the ketogenic diet after your egg fast. You could use this egg fast as a stepping stone into cutting out carbohydrates. If you’re going back to eating a high carb diet I see no point in doing this fast, you may simply do a regular fast or modified fast, not a ketogenic fast.
You can find countless testimonials online about the effectiveness of this method just as you can find accounts of people who absolutely hated it and were put off by eggs for life.
I’ve created an INSTAGRAM HIGHLIGHT under my Bio called EGG FAST where I filmed what I was eating and how much, you can check it out meanwhile.
Hope this was helpful to you xox
