I wanted to make a post about this diet for some time now. It was made famous by bodybuilding legend and guru…Vince Gironda. This diet has been proven to burn fat and build muscle and increase testosterone. It is probably the simplest diet to follow. You don’t have to count macros, meal prep, and eat small frequent meals all day. You basically eat steak and eggs twice a day, train, and thats it! I am sure it can get bland but with enough seasoning and creativity it can be done. I want to give this diet a serious try sometime.
A breakdown of the diet is as follows:
Eat just steak and eggs twice a day. What times you eat is up to you depending on your work and / or training schedule. You can basically eat as much steak and eggs you want in each meal. You can eat anywhere from 1/2 pound to 1.5 pounds of steak per meal and 4-6 eggs per meal. The eggs can be cooked anyway you like them. The key is to also cook both the steak and the eggs in butter! Yes, butter.
Fattier ground beef can be used instead of steak for budget reasons as well.
You eat these 2 steak and eggs meals for 4 days and every 5th day is a cheat day. You can eat anything you want all day on this cheat day. Even eat fast food, pasta, all the carbs you want.
The key is to buy the meat in bulk. You can get it pretty cheap especially looking for sales. Eggs are cheap so this diet won’t cost you a lot of money.
I also recommend a fiber supplement to help with digestion as well. This diet can be done for 2 weeks or 2 months. It depends on your goals.
An average day of the steak and eggs diet is around 2200 calories, 200+grams of protein, 120 grams of fat and 0 carbs. This can vary depending on how much or little you eat during the day.
So if you have 8-10 hours between meals, you have intermittent fasting for those who like to do that as well.
***Do not worry about cholesterol and all the fat. The fat is necessary for hormone production. Your blood work will be just fine. If you have doubts, see your doctor.
I’ve done something similar, but not as specific. For Jim Wendler’s “Building The Monolith” program, he has very simple diet advice that he insists you stick to. 1 and a half pounds of ground beef, and a dozen eggs, every single day. “I don’t care what else you eat, but that’s the required minimum.”
So for 12 weeks, I think it was, I was eating probably close to 10k calories per day, just off the top of my head. Some examples: Breakfast was an 8-egg omelet with cheese and vegetables, and a big bowl of pumpkin oatmeal. Lunch was some sort of egg/taco meat scramble in tortillas. Dinner was whatever I was cooking for my wife. Right before bed was 2 cheeseburgers, and some homefries if I felt like it.
I was keeping track of my weight and bodyfat measurements every 3 weeks. For the first 6 weeks, I put on weight, but actually lost bodyfat. But around the 7 week mark, I felt myself reaching the point of overtraining/under-recovering, I think stress+not enough sleep was getting to me. At the 9 week measure, I had stalled on all fronts, and at the 12 week mark I had put on more weight, but all of it was fat.
This is all totally anecdotal, but yeah, I was blown away by the results for the first 6 weeks.
I still say throw some spinach or kale and some onions of all kinds in those eggs or some asparagus or broccoli next to the steak. I don’t always need a ton to keep things movin.
May want to use lo-salt to get the potassium just a bit up. It seems like it’d be a bit low on this diet. I don’t fare well at all with low potassium intake, I find.
Yep. You can salt and season the eggs and steak how you want. In fact, using a lot of different seasoning is almost a must to break up the monotony of the diet. Mix it up a bit.
I’ve seen it said often, all that about needing cholesterol for hormone synthesis, but I don’t recall ever seeing actual data to back it up. Thus far, I think that’s actually just theory. I could certainly be wrong though.
That said, I think I may have seen something more reliable saying that lowering fat intake too law can compromise testosterone levels, but I’d definitely want to re-confirm that before I start talking out my ass.
Your body is able to make enough cholesterol for hormone synthesis, I’ve not seen any data supporting dietary cholesterol increasing testosterone either. At this point I am somewhat assuming brawn is talking out of his ass.
This is correct very low fat intakes can lower testosterone and other hormones, but this is not a major concern unless you are eating a very low fat diet(ie low single digit percentages), or have a low body fat percentage.
@Christianmelon I am not talking out of my ass. The data and studies are there… Increased fat intake increases testosterone production. Our bodies need fat for hormone production. In fact, some studies show that a diet with less than 20% fat, actually limits testosterone production. This diet is high in fats, thus is why you have the increase of testosterone. Pretty simple science.
I looked and couldn’t find them. At least no studies on the steak and egg diet, Which is why I had ask you to link or cite them.
So when you say “This diet” You mean “high fat diets, when compared to lower fat diets” not “This diet” and “has been proven” as, “has evidence supporting”.
I have already spelled it out for you. I can’t force the simplicity of this in your brain. Steak and eggs have fats in them, not to mention the butter you use in the diet. This is where the fats come from. I figured that was self explanatory but I guess it wasn’t.
The issue here isn’t what’s being said. The problem is you’ve offered no data to support what you’re saying. Do you have a link to anything showing that increased fat intake leads to increased testosterone synthesis?
If you are going to use the word “proven” and make statements like “Do not worry about cholesterol and all the fat.” You need to be able to back it up. Link studies supporting your claims or don’t make broad, authoritative health claims.
I am not debating that this diet provides fats, I am debating that the steak and egg diet does not have proof that it increases testosterone.
You are arguing that increased fat intake is associated with higher testosterone levels, which has evidence but you have yet to link any.
Regardless it does not prove that the steak and egg diet increase testosterone, it proves higher fat intake does.
Nice study. It sounds like they only compared high fat with a relatively higher proportion of saturated fats vs lower fat with a lower proportion of saturated fats. I’d like to see one or the other variable changed at a time to see individual effects. Anyway, it seems increasing fats from relatively low to relatively high, specifically higher in saturated fats could increase testosterone. But it remains to be seen if going from that 40% fat to an even higher amount would have any additional increase.
@Christianmelon@Jeremy I too enjoy reading studies, however, you can’t take studies as Gospel and stop there. They are not 100% fool proof. For every study, you can find another study with a different outcome. I don’t post a bunch of studies with posts because anyone can Google those studies if you want to read them. What I am saying is you can go by studies but you need to take a look at the “real” world and personal experiences that are out of a controlled environment. The posts I make are based not only studies but from what I have personally seen over the years through myself or bodybuilders that I know. I have and I have seen others follow different diets and do some crazy things and their health and my health is just fine. Blood work is all good.
Just like with anything in life, you can’t just read about and expect to know it all if you don’t ever implement certain things in life. You know the adage…practice what you preach.
I have been in this game for many years, I am 47 years old. I have seen a lot come and go and tried a lot over the years in nutrition, training, and supplementation. I have learned stuff everyday and continue to learn. I have personally tried a lot of different approaches to diets and training and have many friends who have as well. I have competed in bodybuilding, I have many friends who have competed in bodybuilding. I have witnessed a lot by personal experience and by friends so I just don’t make up blanket posts without having some type of knowledge as to what I am posting. That would be just plain dumb and careless…
The famous words of Kris Gethin that I love and have a shirt that says it…
I can appreciate that, but at the same time, research controls for outside variables to test the effect of a specific variable. They also have much greater statistical power vs. individuals’ personal experience. There’s value to both sides, but I’d take hard data over someone’s experience, even if I trust this person. That’s one major thing I do like from research is the blinding. If you’ve ever researched the placebo effect, you’d know how crazy of an effect the mind can have. In the “real world” most people know when they buy and take their supplements, and therefore their results could potentially be 100% placebo. If you find that hard to believe, just remember, even bpi gets positive reviews .
At the end of the day, you aren’t wrong. A study cannot be treated as gospel, but in the absence of conflicting evidence/interests, they should typically be taken as is. What should be kept in mind is each study needs to be kept in its own context. For example, a majority of the research done on exercise is done with overweight, sedentary individuals which won’t directly apply to most of us. But, if understood in that specific context, it does still provide data.
As a side note, while I haven’t been doing this as long as you have (I’m only 25 though!) I do still have 10+ years lifting experience. I weigh around 205, I sport well defined abs 24/7 year round and have for the past several years, while still getting bigger and stronger. In my last workout I benched 415. So don’t worry, I know my way around the gym .
Meta-analysis of 24 randomized controlled trials finds that eating ≥0.5 servings of red meat per day has no negative effect on blood lipids, lipoproteins, and blood pressure over a short period of time (2–32 wk).
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