3-Day Egg Diet: The Unfortunate Truth About This Eating Plan

When you think you’ve heard about all the diets, the world comes up with yet another. There are almost all kinds of diets nowadays, but it’s not as if we’re complaining. More diets mean that it’s easier for everyone to find something. 

The problem with many of these diets is that some haven’t been proven safe and healthy. All of these diets claim to promote weight loss. The 3-day egg diet is one such diet that is quickly gaining popularity.

Is the 3-day egg food plan safe? What is the 3-day egg diet? What are the benefits associated with this diet? These and more questions about this diet that is spreading like wildfire will be answered in this informative read. 

What Is the 3-Day Egg Diet? 

Also known as an egg fast, the 3-day egg diet plan is a highly restrictive ketogenic eating plan that requires you to consume primarily eggs for 3 to 5 days. You’re also allowed to use butter or oil when cooking the eggs and can also eat cheese.

Proponents of this diet and other high-fat diets such as the steak and eggs diet claim that eating like this will help push your body into ketosis. 

Ketosis is a metabolic state where your body starts to burn fat, turning it into ketones, and then using this as its main source of energy. This metabolic state usually happens once your body runs out (or is deprived) of carbohydrates, which it turns into glucose and normally uses as its main source of energy (1, 2).

What Are the Rules of the Egg Fast Diet?

The requirements of the 3-day egg diet are as simple as they are strict. If you want to take part in this diet, it’s suggested that you:

1. Eat a whole egg – yolks and whites – within 30 minutes of waking up. 
2. Consume at least 6 eggs every single day.
3. Eat 1 tbsp of butter, extra virgin olive oil, or any other healthy oil for every egg eaten. 
4. Consume up to 1 ounce of full-fat cheese for each egg eaten- ie. if you eat 6 eggs a day, then at the end of the day, you should have consumed 6 oz of cheese.
5. Eat an egg-based meal every 3 to 5 hours, regardless of whether you’re hungry or not. 
6. Drink lots of water. You may also have unsweetened drinks such as coffee and tea.

From these rules, it can be seen that the 3-day egg plan menu is very high in fat (which is a goal for keto) but also severely limiting, which isn’t a good sign.

Please note that the above-listed rules are a guideline for the most basic 3-day egg diet plan menu. More often than not, people alter these guidelines to suit their personal tastes/needs. For example, some variations of this meal plan include:

1. Small intakes of low-carb foods, especially vegetables
2. Consumption of soft drinks such as diet soda, allowing for up to 3 cans of this drink a day

Generally, regardless of any modifications made, this diet plan is still rather restrictive and lacks in many ways, particularly in terms of nutrients.

Foods to Eat While You’re on the 3-Day Egg Diet

As seen in the section above, the 3-day egg diet menu restricts the consumption of all other foods apart from eggs, butter, full-fat cheese, and cooking oil. Whether you’ll be following this plan for 3 days or pushing it to 5 days, these 4 things are all that you’re allowed to consume – in addition to plain water and unsweetened tea or coffee.

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Foods to Avoid While on a 3-Day Egg Diet

The good thing about this diet is that it forces you to avoid many unhealthy foods such as added sugars, refined carbs, and deep-fried foods, which are known culprits that increase your risk of overweight and obesity when eaten in excess (3, 4, 5).

Unfortunately, this is where the positives of this eating plan end. Because you’re living on only eggs, butter, oil, cheese, and water, you’re forced to cut out whole food groups, which is bad for your health.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the five main groups are fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, and dairy (6). When you follow the 3-day egg diet, you’re only consuming two of the five food groups, protein and dairy, and excluding the three other groups.

When you cut out entire food groups from your diet, you end up not consuming a healthy or balanced diet, which according to the World Health Organization can (over time) lead to malnutrition, in addition to an increased risk in noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer (7).

Check out the 14-day boiled egg diet for another variation of this eating plan.

Read more: Easy Peel Hard Boiled Eggs – The Healthiest Food For Your Body

How Much Weight Can You Lose on the 3-Day Egg Diet?

The 3-day egg diet weight loss effects are one of the biggest draws of this eating plan. But how much weight can you truly lose while on this diet?

The hard truth is that you’ll very likely not lose much if any fat while on this eating plan for the following reasons:

• 3 (or Even 5) Days Is Too Little Time to Accurately Predict Weight Loss

According to the CDC, it takes approximately 7 days of a healthy calorie-deficit diet, enough sleep, and increased physical activity to lose 1 to 2 pounds (8). Now if we take a look at this eating plan, we immediately see 2 problems:

• The eating plan lasts up to 5 days, which is less than the number given by the CDC, so we can’t accurately measure weight loss.
• While the diet is low in calories, it’s too low in calories. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020 – 2025, adult women and men should consume 1,600 to 2,400 calories and 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day respectively (9). 

For weight loss, researchers recommend a calorie deficit of 500 to 750 calories (10). If we look at the rules of this eating plan, it can be seen that you’ll be eating too few calories. Contrary to what you may think, cutting your calories too much doesn’t lead to sustainable weight loss.

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Any Weight Loss Is Very Likely Water Weight and Not From Fat Loss

This eating plan removes all carbs from your diet, which can cause some temporary water weight loss. Your body stores carbohydrates in your muscles and liver in the form of glycogen. Glycogen is stored with water attached to it. When you aren’t getting carbs from your diet, you’ll use that stored glycogen and release the associated water, which you eliminate in your urine. By cutting out carbs, you may lose some water weight, which can help the number on the scale go down. This is what most people often mistake for weight loss. This weight will come back when you start to eat carbs again and rebuild your glycogen stores.

Eggs are great for your diet and health:

1. They’re rich in protein and nutrients such as vitamin D, vitamin B12, selenium, and choline.
2. They promote satiety, improve the quality of your diet, and help with weight management.

However, consuming eggs alone or with butter, cheese, and oils won’t lead to any sustainable weight loss (13). You’d be better off including eggs in your healthy, balanced, reduced calorie diet.  

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Who Should Try the 3-Day Egg Diet? 

No one should try the 3-day egg diet. As demonstrated above, this diet is incredibly restrictive and the proposed weight loss results aren’t quite as advertised. 

If you want to try a diet for weight loss, do it the right way and avoid taking such drastic shortcuts. Not only will they not lead to fat loss, they’re also bad for your health and unsustainable.

If you choose to go ahead with this eating plan regardless, you should be aware of some of the egg diet side effects. In addition to potential nutrient deficiencies, you may also experience keto flu symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, headache, fatigue, dizziness, insomnia, reduced exercise tolerance, and constipation (2).

Please note that the keto diet isn’t generally recommended for people who suffer from certain medical conditions, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or children and adolescents, unless advised to do so by your physician (2).

Check out this article to learn more about the potential benefits and risks of the carnivore diet meal plan.

Read more: Easy 7-Day High Protein Low Carb Diet Meal Plan

Frequently Asked Questions

• Will I lose weight if I only eat eggs for 3 days?

You may lose some water weight, but you won’t lose much if any fat. As previously mentioned, 3 days is too short for any significant weight loss to occur and the diet is too low in calories and lacking in too many food groups and options to be effective as a fat-loss eating plan.

• Can I eat 10 eggs a day?

There is currently no set standard or limit to how many eggs a person can eat in a day, but 10 may be a bit much. If you’re consuming eggs as a source of protein or healthy fats, many more food options can offer you this, such as nuts and seeds, fatty fish, dairy, and more. Talk to your healthcare provider to get more individualized recommendations. 

• Does the egg diet really work?

As evidenced above, this diet doesn’t work, especially for weight loss. If you want to lose weight, we suggest eating at a healthy calorie deficit, working out more, reducing your stress levels, and sleeping for at least 7 hours a night.

• Will a 3-day diet fast put me in ketosis?

Yes, it can, but you don’t need to do this diet to get into ketosis. Research has suggested that your body may go into mild ketosis after just 12 to 14 hours of fasting (14) – something that can easily be achieved between dinner and breakfast time the next day. You can also follow a ketogenic diet that’s not quite as restrictive as the egg diet.

If you want to go fully into ketosis, we suggest simply reducing your carb intake to less than 50 g a day (2). This should put your body fully into ketosis in about 2 to 4 days without needing to starve yourself. 

The Bottom Line

While proponents of the 3-day egg diet may claim that this diet will help with weight loss, evidence clearly shows that such an eating plan isn’t the best way to achieve this goal. 

Not only will you not lose fat, but starving yourself to shed those unwanted pounds is never recommended by health professionals.

There are too many good weight loss diets for you to fall for an unhealthy and potentially dangerous crash diet plan. Weight loss takes time and dedication, so you should avoid such bad eating plans and opt for something sustainable and long-lasting.