Are eggs good for weight loss?

Breakfast is often where a weight-loss plan gets tested first. You're rushed, you're hungry, and the easy options are a bagel, a pastry or nothing at all. Eggs keep coming up as the better choice, and so does the boiled egg diet, which promises fast results from a few days of little else. If you've wondered whether boiled eggs are good for weight loss, or whether the egg diet is worth a try, you're asking the right question before you buy three dozen.

Eggs do help, and how they help matters. They fill you up for few calories and help you keep muscle while you eat less. In the trials, that only turned into extra weight loss when people were also cutting calories, which tells you exactly how to use them.

This page covers the calories and protein in an egg by size, what the egg breakfast trials actually found, how boiled eggs compare with fried and scrambled ones, what the boiled egg diet really does, what eggs mean for LDL cholesterol, whole eggs versus whites, and how many eggs a day makes sense.

Calories and Protein in an Egg

A large egg, 50 grams without the shell, has about 72 calories and 6.3 grams of protein, according to USDA FoodData Central. Roughly a third of those calories come from protein and most of the rest from fat in the yolk. Here's how size changes the numbers:

Values from USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy entry 171287 (egg, whole, raw), scaled to USDA's portion weight for each size and rounded.

The white and the yolk do different jobs. The white is almost pure protein and water, and the yolk carries the fat, the cholesterol and most of the vitamins:

Values from USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy entries 171287, 172183 and 172184, rounded.

A large egg also supplies about 147 milligrams of choline, roughly a quarter of the 550-milligram Daily Value, plus about 28 percent of the Daily Value for selenium, 19 percent for vitamin B12 and 18 percent for riboflavin. It has 1.6 grams of saturated fat and 71 milligrams of sodium. That's a lot of nutrition for 72 calories, which is the first reason eggs suit a diet with fewer calories.

What the Egg Breakfast Trials Show

Researchers have tested eggs for weight loss in two ways: short studies that measure hunger and the next meal, and longer trials that track weight. The short studies look better than the long ones, and the difference tells you how eggs actually work.

Eggs keep people fuller than a bagel or cereal breakfast

In a crossover study by Keogh and Clifton (2020), 50 adults with overweight or obesity ate two breakfasts of about 430 calories a week apart: eggs on toast, or cereal with milk and orange juice. At a free-choice lunch four hours later, they ate about 180 fewer calories after the eggs, and they reported less hunger through the morning. Australia's egg industry funded the study.

Men responded the same way in a study by Ratliff and colleagues (2010). After an egg breakfast, 21 men aged 20 to 70 ate less at a buffet lunch and less over the next 24 hours than after a bagel breakfast with the same calories, and their blood sugar, insulin and ghrelin, a hormone that drives hunger, rose less. An earlier trial in 30 women by Vander Wal and colleagues (2005) found a similar drop at lunch, which our high protein breakfast guide covers along with 15 breakfasts and their grams of protein.

The extra fullness can fade within a week

A single test morning can overstate what happens when eggs become routine. Bayham and colleagues (2014) gave 20 adults with overweight or obesity an egg breakfast or a cereal breakfast every day for a week each, matched for calories per gram and the share of protein, carbs and fat. On day 1, the eggs left people fuller and with less ghrelin before lunch. By day 7, both effects were gone. Lunch intake was never significantly lower, and only one fullness hormone, PYY, kept its rise through the week.

Eggs added to weight loss only alongside a calorie deficit

The trial behind most egg-diet headlines is Vander Wal and colleagues (2008). For eight weeks, 152 adults with overweight or obesity ate either an egg breakfast (two scrambled eggs, two slices of toast and reduced-calorie jelly, 340 calories) or a bagel breakfast with cream cheese and yogurt with the same calories. Half of each group was also told to follow a diet about 1,000 calories below their needs.

With the deficit, the egg group lost about 1 kg more and cut their BMI 61 percent more than the bagel group. Without the deficit, eggs made no difference, and blood cholesterol didn't differ between the groups. Two caveats matter. The American Egg Board funded the trial, and nobody measured what people ate for the rest of the day. The egg breakfast also held only 4 more grams of protein than the bagel one, so the authors doubted protein alone explained the gap.

Longer trials and the pooled evidence show no effect from eggs alone

When eggs are simply added to a normal diet, the scale doesn't move. Rueda and Khosla (2013) had 73 university freshmen eat an egg breakfast or a non-egg breakfast five days a week for a 14-week semester, and weight change didn't differ between the groups.

In a crossover by Missimer and colleagues (2017), 48 young adults ate two eggs or a packet of oatmeal every morning for four weeks each. They felt more satisfied before dinner during the egg weeks and had lower fasting ghrelin, yet their daily calories and their weight came out the same. Oatmeal has strengths of its own, which our page on whether oatmeal is good for weight loss lays out.

The biggest summary so far is a 2023 meta-analysis by Emrani and colleagues, which covered 32 controlled trials. Whole eggs had no significant effect on body weight, BMI, waist size or lean mass. A subgroup of trials with calorie restriction hinted at a lower BMI with eggs, but that result rested on one study of 79 people, and most of the trials carried a high risk of bias.

Put together, the trials say eggs help most when they replace a lower-protein breakfast while you're eating less overall. They make a calorie deficit easier to live with, but the deficit itself still has to come from the rest of your day.

Why Protein Helps When You're Eating Less

Protein is the reason eggs help, and three of its effects are well measured. First, your body spends more energy digesting it. A review of diet-induced thermogenesis by Westerterp (2004) put the cost at 20 to 30 percent of protein's calories, against 5 to 10 percent for carbohydrate and 0 to 3 percent for fat. Second, protein meals raise fullness hormones, as the breakfast studies above showed. Third, protein helps you hold on to muscle while you lose weight.

That third effect shows up in the trials. A meta-analysis by Wycherley and colleagues (2012) pooled 24 trials with 1,063 adults on reduced-calorie diets lasting about 12 weeks. Compared with standard-protein diets of the same calories, higher-protein diets produced 0.79 kg more weight loss and 0.87 kg more fat loss, and people kept 0.43 kg more lean mass. Those are modest numbers, but they point the same way as the egg trials.

How much protein is enough? A review by Leidy and colleagues (2015) suggested 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight a day for weight loss, with at least 25 to 30 grams at each meal. Its funders included egg, beef, dairy and pork industry groups. At 6.3 grams an egg, that meal target takes four to five eggs, so most people get there by pairing eggs with another protein food. Our guide to how much protein you need per day does the daily math for your body weight.

Are Boiled Eggs Good for Weight Loss?

Yes. Boiled eggs are one of the best ways to eat eggs for weight loss, because they cook in water with no butter or oil. The egg itself barely changes with cooking. What changes is the fat and milk you add:

Values from USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy entries 173424, 172186, 173423 and 172187, scaled to USDA's large-egg portion and rounded.

USDA's averages put fried and scrambled eggs at about 90 calories each, against 72 to 78 for poached and boiled. Home cooking can push that much higher. A tablespoon of butter adds 102 calories and 7.3 grams of saturated fat on its own, which is more calories than either of the two eggs you might fry in it. A teaspoon of olive oil adds about 40.

Hard-boiled eggs have two more advantages. They're portioned, so you know exactly what you ate, and they keep in the fridge for a quick protein snack you don't have to think about. That's the kind of habit that holds up on a busy Tuesday.

Is it a good idea to eat two boiled eggs for breakfast to lose weight?

It's a good start, but it's a small breakfast. Two large hard-boiled eggs give about 155 calories and 12.6 grams of protein. In the 2008 weight-loss trial, the egg group's breakfast was two eggs plus two slices of toast and jelly, 340 calories in all, so the eggs weren't doing the job alone. Add a second protein food such as Greek yogurt or cottage cheese, plus fruit or whole-grain toast for the fiber eggs don't have, and you have a breakfast that holds you until lunch.

What Is the Boiled Egg Diet, and Does It Work?

The boiled egg diet is a short, low-calorie plan built around hard-boiled eggs, usually with lean meat or fish and non-starchy vegetables, and few grains, starches or added fats. Versions run for 3, 7 or 14 days. The strictest, the egg-only diet, allows nothing but eggs.

It works the way every crash diet works, by cutting calories hard. Eggs make that easier to tolerate than some plans, because they're filling for their calories. Even a dozen large hard-boiled eggs comes to only about 930 calories and 76 grams of protein, with no fiber at all. We found no trial that tested the boiled egg diet or the egg-only diet, so the before-and-after numbers you see online are anecdotes.

Most of the fast early drop is water. When you cut carbohydrates, your body draws down its stored glycogen, and glycogen is stored with three to four parts water, as Kreitzman and colleagues (1992) described. That water leaves in the first days and comes back just as fast when you eat carbohydrates again. The CDC suggests aiming for about 1 to 2 pounds a week, and notes that people who lose weight at that pace are more likely to keep it off.

The bigger problem is what happens when the plan ends. A plan built on one food doesn't teach you anything about the meals you'll eat for the rest of the year. A two-egg breakfast you can repeat for months will do more for you than a 14-day egg diet you can't wait to finish. If you're pregnant, take medication for diabetes, have kidney disease or have a history of disordered eating, skip crash diets and talk to your doctor first.

Eggs and Cholesterol: Can You Eat Eggs With High LDL?

Most people with high LDL can still eat eggs in moderation, but eggs do push LDL up a little, so the amount and what comes with them matter. A meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials in healthy adults by Li and colleagues (2020) found that adding eggs raised LDL cholesterol by about 8 mg/dL on average, while HDL barely changed. The rise looked similar at one, two or three eggs a day, and every trial lasted less than a year.

People respond differently. About 70 percent show little or no rise in blood cholesterol when they eat more of it, according to a review by Fernandez (2006). In the rest, LDL and HDL both go up. The only way to know which group you're in is a blood test before and after a change.

The long-term heart studies are reassuring at moderate amounts. Drouin-Chartier and colleagues (2020) followed 215,618 US nurses and male health professionals for up to 32 years and found no higher risk of cardiovascular disease at one or more eggs a day than at less than one a month, and their updated meta-analysis of 1.7 million people agreed. A pooled analysis of six US cohorts by Zhong and colleagues (2019) did link each extra half egg a day to a 6 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease. That link disappeared once the cholesterol from all foods was accounted for. The American Heart Association's 2020 science advisory on dietary cholesterol advises focusing on overall eating patterns, such as Mediterranean and DASH-style diets, rather than a single cholesterol number.

Diabetes deserves its own note, because it raises heart risk. In the DIABEGG trial by Fuller and colleagues (2015), 140 adults with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes ate 12 eggs a week or fewer than two for three months. Blood fats didn't differ between the groups, and the high-egg group felt less hungry after breakfast. Australia's egg industry funded that phase. In the trial's weight-loss and follow-up phase (Fuller and colleagues, 2018), 128 adults followed a reduced-calorie diet on the same high-egg or low-egg plan, and both groups lost about 3.1 kg between month 3 and month 12, with no differences in blood sugar or cholesterol markers.

If your LDL is high, a reasonable default is about one egg a day, the amount the large cohort studies tied to no extra heart risk, unless your doctor advises otherwise. Use extra egg whites when you want a bigger plate, and watch the saturated fat that often comes along with eggs, like butter, bacon, sausage and cheese. If you have diabetes, heart disease or an inherited cholesterol disorder, ask your doctor what fits your numbers.

Whole Eggs or Egg Whites for Weight Loss?

Egg whites win on calories. Three large whites give about 11 grams of protein for about 52 calories, while two whole eggs give 12.6 grams for 143. Mixing a whole egg or two with extra whites is an easy way to add protein to a breakfast without adding many calories.

The yolk isn't wasted calories, though. It holds most of the egg's choline, vitamin D and lutein, and it may help your muscles use the protein. In a crossover study by van Vliet and colleagues (2017), 10 resistance-trained young men ate 18 grams of protein from either whole eggs or egg whites after a workout, and the whole eggs stimulated more muscle protein synthesis. Over 12 weeks of training, Bagheri and colleagues (2021) found that 30 trained young men gained the same lean mass whether they ate three whole eggs or six whites after each session, with larger gains in leg and grip strength on whole eggs.

For weight loss, a sensible middle ground is one or two whole eggs, plus whites when you want more food on the plate.

How Many Eggs a Day Should You Eat to Lose Weight?

For most healthy adults, one to two eggs a day fits the evidence. That's the range most of the weight-loss trials used, and up to one a day showed no link to heart disease in the large cohorts. More eggs only help if they replace foods with more calories. If your LDL is high or you have diabetes, ask your doctor how many fit your numbers.

Best Time to Eat Eggs for Weight Loss

Breakfast is the best-supported time, because it's the only meal the weight-loss trials tested. The reason is practical. Many people's usual breakfast is low in protein, so swapping a bagel or cereal for eggs moves protein into the meal where it's missing. We found no trial that compared eggs at breakfast with eggs at lunch or dinner, and an egg works just as well as an afternoon snack. If you've seen the viral routine that pairs a 30-gram protein breakfast with a morning walk, our page on the 30-30-30 rule looks at what the evidence says about each part of it.

Whenever you eat them, cook them. Evenepoel and colleagues (1998) measured how much egg protein five volunteers with ileostomies absorbed and found that about 91 percent of cooked egg protein was digested, against about 51 percent of raw egg protein. Raw eggs blended into a shake deliver only about half of their protein.

What This Means for You

Eggs are a good weight-loss food for most people. They're quick, filling and easy to cook, and they give you a lot of protein for few calories. In the trials, they helped when they replaced a lower-protein breakfast during a calorie deficit, and they did nothing on their own. So the plan is simple: two eggs with another protein food and some fiber at breakfast, cooked without much fat, inside a deficit you can keep. Skip the boiled egg diet. It mostly moves water, and it ends.

Food is the easier half. The harder half is training often enough to keep the muscle that protein protects, and that's where plenty of plans quietly stop. Jim, 26, lost 24 pounds in three months, and he put it this way: "I kept telling myself I'd start Monday. FitCraft made me start on a Wednesday and I haven't stopped." If showing up is your sticking point, our roundup of the best workout apps for weight loss compares the apps built to keep you training. FitCraft's 3D AI coaches demonstrate every bodyweight and dumbbell exercise and say your name while you train, and streaks, leaderboards and a new seasonal quest each month give you a reason to come back tomorrow.