Are eggs good for weight loss? What the research shows

Are eggs good for weight loss? The short answer

Yes, eggs can help you lose weight, but they are not a fat-burning food. They help because they bring protein and many nutrients for a modest number of calories, and because they are cheap, quick and easy to like.

Their benefit depends on what they replace. A boiled egg instead of a pastry is a good swap. Three eggs fried in butter next to bacon and white toast is a large, heavy meal.

On this page we look at what one egg contains, how cooking changes the numbers, what trials found, whether the boiled egg diet works, and how many eggs a day are sensible for your heart.

Egg nutrition: calories and protein in one egg

One large egg (about 50 grams without the shell) contains roughly 72 kcal, 6.3 grams of protein and 4.8 grams of fat, with almost no carbohydrate. Obesity Foundation calculated these figures from the USDA FoodData Central database (SR Legacy).

Egg sizes differ between countries and brands, so treat the numbers as approximate. A medium egg in the USDA data weighs about 44 grams and an extra-large one about 56 grams.

Most of the protein is in the white, while the yolk holds the fat, the cholesterol and most of the vitamins. One large egg gives about 1 microgram of vitamin D, 0.45 micrograms of vitamin B12, around 145 milligrams of choline and 15 micrograms of selenium.

The yolk also contains lutein and zeaxanthin, pigments that give it its yellow colour. Eggs contain no fibre, which is one reason they fill you up best alongside vegetables, beans or wholegrain bread.

Egg whites or whole eggs?

Egg whites give you protein for very few calories: three whites have about 50 kcal and 11 grams of protein. They are useful if you want a bigger omelette without many extra calories.

But for most people there is no need to throw the yolks away. They bring vitamin D, B12 and choline, and a whole egg is still a modest 72 kcal. A practical middle way is one whole egg plus one or two whites.

If your doctor has asked you to watch your cholesterol, using more whites and fewer yolks is an easy adjustment. We explain the cholesterol evidence further down.

Boiled, poached, fried or scrambled: calories by cooking method

Boiled and poached eggs have the fewest calories, because no fat is added. Frying and scrambling can add a little or a lot, depending on how much oil, butter, milk or cream goes into the pan.

The table shows two large eggs cooked seven ways. We assumed all added fat ends up on your plate, which is close to the truth for scrambled eggs and a slight overestimate for fried eggs.

Boiled and poached eggs differ by about 10 kcal in the USDA data, which is normal variation between samples rather than a real effect of the cooking method. The big jumps come from fat.

The restaurant-style scramble has more than twice the calories of the poached eggs, with the same amount of protein. Saturated fat rises more than fivefold, mostly from the butter and cream rather than the eggs.

Simple ways to keep egg dishes light

• Boil a batch. Hard-boil six eggs at once and keep them in the fridge for quick lunches and snacks, within the storage time your local food agency gives.
• Use a non-stick pan and measure oil with a teaspoon instead of pouring from the bottle. A spray or a brush of oil is enough for one fried egg.
• Scramble with milk, not cream. Stir gently over a low heat; the eggs stay soft without extra butter.
• Bulk up with vegetables. Spinach, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and onions make an omelette bigger and more filling for very few calories.
• Watch the sides. Bacon, sausages, hash browns and buttered white toast usually add more calories than the eggs themselves.

For general tips on judging amounts by eye, our guide to portion control uses your hand as a measure.

What research shows about eggs and weight loss

The research on eggs and weight loss is mixed: eggs seem to help some people feel fuller after a meal, but trials lasting months show little or no extra weight loss compared with other sensible breakfasts. Here is what the main studies found, and who paid for them.

Fullness: eggs versus cereal or bagels

Several short studies compared an egg breakfast with a cereal or bagel breakfast with the same calories. In adults living with overweight or obesity, the egg breakfast often led to more fullness and less eating at lunch; our page on breakfast for weight loss describes two of these studies.

A US trial in 48 young adults of healthy weight found something similar. An egg breakfast with 30 grams of protein reduced lunch intake by about 135 kcal compared with a cereal breakfast holding 10 grams of protein.

That last comparison shows the catch. The egg meals also contained much more protein than the cereal, so the effect may come from protein in general rather than from eggs. Yogurt, beans, tofu or fish could plausibly do the same job.

Weight-loss trials over weeks and months

In an eight-week US trial, 152 adults with overweight or obesity ate either two eggs or a bagel breakfast with equal calories at least five days a week. Those who also followed a reduced-calorie diet lost about 2.6 kg with eggs and 1.6 kg with bagels.

Without the calorie-reduced diet, the egg breakfast made no difference to weight. So eggs helped only as part of eating less overall, not on their own.

A longer Australian trial tested two eggs for breakfast five days a week against breakfast cereal for six months. The 110 participants had an average BMI of 34 and all followed a calorie-reduced diet.

Both groups lost a meaningful amount of weight: about 8.1 kg with eggs and 7.3 kg with cereal among those who finished. The difference was not statistically significant, and only 76 of the 110 people completed the study.

What a review of 32 trials found

A recent systematic review pooled 32 controlled trials of whole eggs and body weight in adults. Overall, eating eggs had no significant effect on body weight, BMI, waist size or lean mass.

In trials lasting longer than 12 weeks, and in people with existing health conditions, eating more eggs was linked with a small rise in weight and BMI. During weight-loss diets, by contrast, eggs had a favourable effect on BMI.

The reviewers judged most of the trials to be at high risk of bias, mostly because it was unclear whether the people measuring the results knew which group each participant was in. The evidence is therefore weak in both directions.

Who paid for the research?

Many egg studies are funded by the egg industry, and that is worth knowing when you read headlines. The eight-week US trial was funded by the American Egg Board, the 48-person breakfast study by the Egg Nutrition Center, and the six-month Australian trial by Australian Eggs.

Industry funding does not make a study wrong, but it can shape which questions are asked and how results are described. A review of research on eggs and blood cholesterol found that the share of industry-funded studies rose to about 60 % in the most recent decade it examined.

In that review, about half of the industry-funded trials described rises in cholesterol in more favourable terms than their own data supported, compared with about one in eight independent trials. Its authors work for a group that promotes plant-based eating, so they bring their own viewpoint too.

What this means for you

Taken together, eggs are a useful, filling protein food, not a weight-loss tool in themselves. They help when they replace something less filling, such as pastries, sweet cereal or white bread with jam.

Adding eggs on top of what you already eat is unlikely to help, and the long trials hint it may add weight. For other foods that keep you full for few calories, see our list of foods for weight loss.

The boiled egg diet: a myth-check

The boiled egg diet is a short, restrictive plan built around hard-boiled eggs, and there is no good evidence that it works better than any other way of eating less. Some websites promise very large losses, such as 9 kg (20 pounds) in two weeks.

The plan comes in several versions. The best-known one combines eggs with lean meat or fish, non-starchy vegetables and a little fruit, and cuts out bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. Other versions add half a grapefruit to every meal, or allow only eggs and water.

Why people lose weight on it, and why it comes back

People do lose weight on an egg diet, simply because the menu is so limited that they eat far fewer calories. There is nothing special about eggs or grapefruit that burns fat.

Part of the quick early drop on any plan that cuts most starchy food is water rather than fat, as our page on safe weight loss explains. When normal eating returns, so does much of that weight.

We found no published trial of the boiled egg diet itself. All its claims rest on before-and-after stories, not on studies with a comparison group.

Problems with the egg diet

• Too little fibre. With no whole grains, beans or lentils, fibre drops well below what the gut needs, and constipation is common.
• Too narrow. Cutting whole food groups makes it hard to get enough of every nutrient, and most people get bored within days.
• A lot of cholesterol. Six eggs a day bring more than 1,100 mg of dietary cholesterol, far above what people usually eat, and feeding trials show that high intakes tend to raise LDL cholesterol.
• Not safe for everyone. People using insulin or certain diabetes tablets risk low blood sugar on a sudden low-carbohydrate diet, and people with kidney disease or a history of disordered eating need personal advice.
• No skills for later. It does not teach you how to build ordinary meals you can keep eating for years.

Our verdict: keep the eggs, drop the rules. For more popular shortcuts checked against the evidence, read our article on weight loss myths, and for eating patterns that do hold up over time, see the best diet for weight loss.

How many eggs a day is healthy?

For most healthy adults, up to one egg a day fits well within a healthy diet. That is the guidance of the American Heart Association, and most large long-term studies found no higher heart risk at that level, although one major US study did, as explained below.

In a science advisory on dietary cholesterol, the American Heart Association gave a few more details, as summarised by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

• Healthy adults: up to one whole egg a day, as part of a healthy overall diet.
• Vegetarians: may eat more, in moderation, because they get no cholesterol from meat, poultry or seafood.
• Older adults with normal cholesterol: up to two eggs a day, if their overall diet is healthy.
• People with high LDL cholesterol: should be cautious with eggs, especially if they also have diabetes or are at risk of heart failure.

Advice differs between countries and between people. If your doctor or dietitian has given you a personal limit, follow theirs.

For weight loss, the number of eggs matters less than the calories around them. Two eggs most days are fine for many people, but six eggs fried in butter every morning are not.

Eggs and cholesterol: what the latest evidence says

For most people, eating eggs in moderation has only a small effect on blood cholesterol and is not linked with more heart disease. The picture is less reassuring for people who eat a lot of eggs, and for people with type 2 diabetes.

What you eat with your eggs matters as well. One large egg has about 1.6 grams of saturated fat, while a tablespoon of butter for frying adds more than 7 grams, and bacon and sausages add more again.

What large studies found

One of the largest analyses, published in The BMJ, followed more than 215,000 US nurses and health professionals for up to 32 years. Eating at least one egg a day was not linked with a higher risk of heart attack or stroke compared with eating hardly any.

The same paper combined 33 sets of results covering 1.7 million people worldwide. An extra egg a day was not linked with heart disease overall, and in Asian studies it was linked with slightly lower risk.

One limit is that most participants ate between one and five eggs a week. Relatively few ate an egg every day, so the evidence for higher intakes is thinner.

A study in JAMA reached a less comforting conclusion. Pooling six US cohorts with nearly 30,000 adults followed for a median of 17.5 years, it found that each extra half egg a day was linked with a 6 % higher risk of cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke) and an 8 % higher risk of death.

In that study, the link disappeared once the researchers accounted for total dietary cholesterol. That suggests the cholesterol in eggs, together with that in other foods, was what mattered.

Both are observational studies. They show links, not cause and effect, and both depend on people remembering what they ate.

The American Heart Association’s view

The American Heart Association’s science advisory weighed these findings. It noted that observational studies in several countries generally show no clear link between dietary cholesterol and heart disease.

However, most feeding trials show that eating more cholesterol than people currently average raises total and LDL cholesterol. The advisory therefore advises focusing on healthy eating patterns, such as Mediterranean-style or DASH-style eating, which are naturally fairly low in cholesterol.

Eggs and diabetes: a caveat

People with type 2 diabetes are the group where caution makes most sense. In the BMJ meta-analysis, studies of people with type 2 diabetes suggested that eating more eggs might be linked with a higher risk of heart disease.

In those studies, people who ate the most eggs had about 40 % higher risk than those who ate the fewest, and each extra egg a day was linked with about 25 % higher risk. The results varied widely between studies and the uncertainty was large, so they are a warning sign rather than proof.

Trials paint a calmer picture. In an Australian study, 128 adults with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes followed a weight-loss diet with either a high-egg plan (12 or more eggs a week) or a low-egg plan. The study ran for a year in total.

Both groups lost similar amounts of weight. Blood sugar, blood fats and markers of inflammation did not differ between the groups. The first phase of this trial was funded by the Australian egg industry.

If you live with diabetes, high LDL cholesterol, familial hypercholesterolaemia or heart disease, talk to your doctor or dietitian about how many eggs suit you. Do not stop or change a cholesterol or diabetes medicine because of what you read here.

If you have prediabetes or insulin resistance, the overall eating pattern matters far more than eggs alone. Our page on insulin resistance explains which foods and habits help most.

Egg safety: cooking, storing and pregnancy

Eggs can carry Salmonella bacteria, which cause food poisoning, so the safest choice is to cook them until both the white and the yolk are firm. Advice on runny eggs differs by country, so follow your own national food agency.

• In the United States, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service advises cooking eggs until the yolk and white are firm (scrambled eggs should not be runny), cooking egg dishes such as quiche to 160 °F (71 °C), and keeping hard-cooked eggs in the fridge for up to one week.
• In the United Kingdom, the food agencies changed their advice after an expert review. Hen eggs produced under the British Lion Code are now considered safe raw or lightly cooked, even for pregnant women, young children and older people.
• The UK advice has limits. It does not cover duck, goose or quail eggs, which should still be cooked thoroughly, or people who are severely immunocompromised and on a medically supervised diet.

If you are pregnant, cooking eggs through is the safe default wherever you live, unless your local guidance says otherwise. Our page on obesity and pregnancy covers healthy eating while you are expecting.

Simple kitchen habits help everywhere: buy eggs with clean, uncracked shells, keep them cool, wash your hands after handling raw eggs, and eat egg dishes soon after cooking or chill them quickly.

Easy egg ideas for weight loss

The best egg meals for weight loss pair one or two eggs with vegetables and a high-fibre carbohydrate. The table gives five ideas, two of them egg-free, with approximate numbers calculated from USDA data.

Eggs work at any meal, not just breakfast. A few more ideas, without exact numbers:

• Egg on stir-fried vegetables: top a large pan of mixed vegetables and a small portion of brown rice with a fried or poached egg.
• Egg and lentil curry: halved boiled eggs in a tomato and lentil sauce, a cheap dinner that is rich in fibre.
• Egg drop soup: stir a beaten egg into hot vegetable broth with spinach and spring onions for a light, warming lunch.
• Make-ahead egg muffins: our healthy recipes for weight loss include vegetable egg muffins and egg fried rice with peas, with full steps.
• A boiled egg as a snack: with cherry tomatoes or cucumber, it bridges the gap to the next meal; our list of healthy snacks has more.

Talk to your doctor first before you make bigger changes to how you eat, especially if you have diabetes, kidney disease or heart disease. If you would like eggs to be part of a whole week of meals, our free 7-day eating plan shows how they fit with lunches, dinners and snacks.

Egg allergy and egg-free alternatives

Egg allergy is one of the most common food allergies in young children, affecting around 2 in 100 children in the UK according to Allergy UK. Most children grow out of it; the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology estimates about 70 % do so by the age of 16.

Some people stay allergic as adults, and egg allergy can occasionally start in adulthood. People allergic to hen’s eggs often react to duck, quail and other bird eggs too.

If you have an egg allergy, read labels carefully, because egg hides in pasta, baked goods, sauces and mayonnaise. Ask your doctor or an allergy specialist if you are unsure what is safe; never test a suspected allergy on your own.

Vegan and plant-based options

If you do not eat eggs, for health, ethical or religious reasons, you can easily get the same benefits from other foods. The key is a protein food with every meal, plus vegetables and fibre.

• Tofu scramble: crumbled firm tofu with spinach and tomatoes gives more protein than two eggs, as the table shows.
• Chickpea flour omelette: a batter of besan and water, common in Indian cooking, brings protein and plenty of fibre.
• Beans and lentils: baked beans, hummus or a lentil soup all bring protein and fibre at the same time.
• Soya yogurt or soya drink: choose unsweetened, fortified versions for protein and calcium.

Eggs, walking and moving more

Good food does its best work alongside regular movement. A filling egg meal followed by a 10-minute walk is a simple routine that adds up over the weeks.

Our guide to walking for weight loss shows how to build up gently, and our free workout videos start with seated sessions if walking is hard for you right now.

How Obesity Foundation helps you lose weight with good food

We help people lose weight and get healthier with good food, suitable exercise and walking. All our help is free, and you can use as much or as little of it as you like.

• Your own eating plan: we put together meals that suit your taste, budget and culture, with or without eggs. Ask for your free eating plan.
• 150 workout videos: three levels, from gentle seated sessions to stronger workouts. Get the free videos.
• A free video meeting (in English): talk about food, cholesterol worries or your goals with someone who listens without judging. Book a video meeting.
• The Obesity Foundation Club: a free personal account to follow your progress and ask questions. Join the Club.

A good first step is small: tomorrow, swap one less filling food for an egg with vegetables, and notice how long it keeps you going.