Curious about the keto egg fast? Find out what it is, and how it works.
This is an account of how I first heard about and experimented with Egg Fasting years ago. Since then I have done it many times, and have created this free 5 Day Egg Fast Meal Plan that has helped thousands of people break through plateaus and lose stubborn fat.
Ever since I had to take steroids this past Spring for my allergies, my system has completely rebelled. My hormones are out of whack, and my body has become completely resistant to losing weight. No matter how strict I am with keto – even counting calories and cutting out dairy, alcohol, etc. I have not been able to drop pounds.
Even worse, every time I go off plan for the weekend or some event, additional stubborn pounds creep on. I know that a lot of you are struggling with this same problem, so I thought I’d do some research on ways to break through a weight loss plateau.
Recently I started hearing about the Egg Fast and was intrigued. I’m planning to try it and track my results. I thought you guys might be interested in trying it too, so I’m posting some basics about it here for those of you who have never heard of it.
What is the egg fast?
The Egg Fast is a (short term) diet that consists of primarily eggs, cheese, and butter. For each egg you eat, you should eat a corresponding tablespoon of pure fat in the form of butter, olive oil, or coconut oil.
You can also eat a corresponding tablespoon of full fat cheese per egg. Doing this will result in an extremely low carb, high fat, moderate protein intake that will kickstart your body into fat burning mode.
In my research on the egg fast diet I couldn’t find any scientific reasons as to why it works, but there are a lot of anecdotal cases of people who have had success with it.
The biggest issue people seem to have is gaining the weight back when you go back to regular LCHF or keto. Across the board it seems that at least 90% of the people doing it will gain at least a portion of the weight lost back – though there are some who have kept almost all of it off with a careful reintroduction to their normal keto diet.
The key to success with the egg fast seems to be cycling on and off for 4-5 days a week.
While on your off days, you should stick to LCHF (keto) and even then, don’t go nuts. It seems possible to lose 8-10 lbs (or more) a month this way and keep it off.
To be clear, while I’d love to do that, I’m not (at this time) planning to do the egg fast long term. I’m hoping that this one week egg fast will kickstart my metabolism, and get my body back in weight loss mode so that I can go back to my normal keto routine and start losing consistently again like I have in the past.
I had no trouble losing almost 60lb on keto the first year I started – and kept most of it off until I started having severe seasonal allergies in 2012 that wreaked havoc on my entire system. Stalls can be the result of medications, hormones, age, and other factors.
If you’re having issues losing on low carb now, even though you’ve had success in the past, you might need a reset like I do. Hopefully this egg fast will be the thing that works to get my body back on track, (and maybe yours too!)
I’ve customized the egg fast to my own preferences, and here are the basic guidelines of the egg fast that I plan to follow for the next 5 days:
- Bullet Proof Coffee within 30 minutes of waking (coffee with 1 tablespoon MCT oil, 1 Tbsp Kerrygold unsalted butter)
- Eat 3-5 meals of at least 2 eggs each, starting no later than 10am.
- Have 1 tablespoon of butter or sugar free mayo per egg consumed
- 6 ounces of full fat cheese (cream cheese, cheddar, brie, etc.) allowed per day (eaten with eggs or separately as a snack)
- No eggs after 7pm (1 string cheese allowed after 7pm if starving, counts as part of the 6oz daily limit)
- Don’t go more than 4 hours between meals or snacks between 10am and 7pm.
- Drink 100 oz of water per day (minimum)
- Supplement with magnesium and potassium (lite salt) daily.
- Small amounts of fresh herbs, hot sauce, no carb sweeteners, and spices will be allowed – as long as they are less than 1g net carbs per serving, not to exceed 5g net carbs per day.
This may sound unduly restrictive, but you’d be surprised how many delicious recipes/combos that you can come up with using eggs, cheese, and butter (cream cheese pancakes anyone?) For those of you that are interested in trying it and want some structure, I’m working on a one week egg fast meal plan that I will post next week. I will strictly adhere to that same meal plan and will update you with my results at the end of my first week.
Update: I lost 7.4 lbs in five days, then gained back .5 lbs over the next two days for a net loss of 6.9 lbs. in one week.
Click here for my 5 Day Egg Fast Menu Plan!
Egg Fast Recipes
Buffalo Omelette
Salted Caramel Custard
Easy Deviled Eggs
Snickerdoodle Crepes
Fettuccini Alfredo
A word of caution: If you are not already fat adapted and are eating hundreds of grams of carbs per day in your diet, you may not want to embark on an egg fast until you’ve been in ketosis for awhile. Jumping right in can make you feel really lousy, and may even be dangerous if you have other health conditions. Consider trying my 3 Day Keto Kickstart first and see how you do before trying something as low carb and high fat as this egg fast.
Stuck in a plateau? Is an egg fast something you’re interested in trying? Have you already tried it? I’d love to hear your results/thoughts in the comments!
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Michelle says
I’m on day one and so far I’m over my calories fat and protein by quite a bit. Is this normal? I followed your day one to a T. I usually do IF and about one meal a day maybe two. I’m worried being over my macros so much will make me gain not lose. OR is that how this works?
Rachel says
I am curious about this as well! Anybody have an answer?
grace2u says
How did you figure your macros out?
Shelly says
I am wanting to try the egg fast, but the problem is, I am up at 5:30am daily to start getting my daughter ready for school which she leaves at 7:45a.m. I rarely have time to even fix a cup of coffee during this time and I am never hungry until after 8a.m. Do I need to eat an egg that early in the morning since it states to eat 1/2 hour from waking? I don’t go to bed until 10:45p.m. every night either, but the nothing after 7p.m. is easy. One other question – I have not found any info on how to go back on plan after the fast. Or did I just miss that somehow? Thank you so much. What a great blog..
Mellissa Sevigny says
Shelly it’s fine to eat when it’s easiest for you! The egg fast plan has a two day transition built into the end of it and then go to regular keto afterwards!
grace2u says
Please, where do I find the transition after a 5
Casieopea says
been keto for more than a year… 70 pounds gone… now I am stalled…I am seriously considering an egg fast – more so as a morale booster to kick start my next leg of the journey. I was wondering if counting calories is done on an egg fast? I did a prelim run with it for a couple days and was plugging it into myfitnesspal and Im over the daily allotment for fat and calories… and I am just wondering if this is a concern or if the purpose is to stoke the fires with more fat and calories? any thoughts are appreciated… since no one seems to have a body of juried research on the mechanism of how this works – I thought I would solicit responses from people who has been successful with it. THANKS!
Jessica W says
What about intermittent fasting…. think I could do the egg fast with only eating twice a day?
May says
Hi Melissa, I am doing the keto diet, but weight loss is really slow. I am thinking, if I just want to do a 3 or 5 day fast, can I pick any day’s recipe out of the 7 to follow? Like I like some foods better than others, so, say can I do days 1,2, 3, 3 and 5 for a 5 day diet? Can I substitute string cheese for other cheese as it is not easily available where I live? Tks very much?
Meghan says
I know this post is older but I’m hoping you still see my comment. Do I HAVE to eat cheese? Like if I’m full with the 1:1 ratio of eggs to fats, can I skip the cheese? I’m not a big fan of cheese, but I want to do this right. Thanks!
Mellissa Sevigny says
No you can skip the cheese!
Meghan says
Thanks!
Joanna says
10 eggs and 10 TBS butter and 6 oz of cheddar cheese comes out to 2400 calories! In the beginning of the post, you say that a fat fast is 1200 calories. Please explain the difference and why 2400 calories would ever be ok. Thanks.
Mellissa Sevigny says
Read the comments from all the people who lost weight on this plan. There is more to it than calories in calories out.
Elise Ann Wormuth says
I don’t know if this is “kosher,” but I have some roasted garlic aeoli and chipotle mayo (1 carb each) and I mixed those to make the egg salad. Tasty and kind of spicy. Fighting off the egg overload by making something a little bit different.
Danielle says
So I’ve been doing this for the last 4 days (following the menu) and I’ve consistently lost weight every day, but I’ve only lost 400g. Over 4 days. It’s nice to see the scale moving after ages, but really disheartening seeing other people losing 5lbs overnight while I’ve only lost 0.8lbs over 4 days.
hayley says
It’s probably only water weight and muscle – at the end of the day you really want to be losing fat, which takes a longer time and therefore you won’t get dramatic numbers on the scale. Fast weight loss, while exciting for the scale doesn’t really mean it’s actually fat loss. Keep at it and you will see results, try intermittent fasting and experimenting with your deficit.
Danielle says
I ended up losing 1kg from it – it wasn’t water weight, since I’d been really ill the night before I started this and had dropped my stored water already. I’ve never even seen the number on the scale that I am now and I’ve stayed that number since finishing the fast. I still need some time to see if it’s kicked my body back into fat burning mode (since I’d stalled for about 4 months) but so far I’m pretty happy, even if I didn’t lose a dramatic amount of weight like others did.
hayley says
Hi there, is the weight loss with this actual fat loss (or mainly water weight and/or muscle loss)? Also, is it effective for people who have less than 15 pounds to lose? Many thanks :)
Brian says
I guess if you have to eat something this is probably a good thing to do. But if you can get away with it I highly recommend intermittent fasting. Don’t eat anything from when you get out of bed until dinner, you would end up fasting for about 16 hours depending on how much you sleep, and when you eat dinner. Dinner should be strict keto, and if you have a snack it should be strict keto; but if you’re doing good on maintaining weight and are well below your calorie count, you don’t have to be tooo strict.
Ann says
If you read what she says… you eat from 10AM – 7PM — that’s a 15 hour fast. What you are talking about is a 23 hour fast. It might be a little hard eating 6 eggs and all that cheese in one sitting. I’ll be doing it with 2 meals, spaced out by about 4 hours apart, so basically 20 hour fast, 4 hour eating window.
Claire says
Hi! I have followed this plan to a T. From an LCHF diet I started the egg fast and ate the recommended egg/fat/cheese ratio (sometimes leaving out the cheese). I lost about 5 lbs and then gained back 2 lbs. I’m not sure what else I can do, and I’ve just stayed on it for more than a week now because I’m scared of going off and gaining. I have about 25 lbs to lose, and I’m stuck (and feeling desperate!!) … have you or any of your readers had this kind of result?? That is, very little weight loss and another plateau?