You will not find a dieting book or formal diet program named the hard boiled egg and banana diet, but these two foods can help you in losing weight. Both foods offer you nutrients and relatively few calories that benefit you when dieting. However, a diet of only hard-boiled eggs and bananas will not enable you to automatically lose weight or teach you how to live a healthier lifestyle.
Identification
A hard-boiled and banana egg diet restricts your food choices in an unhealthy manner, as does any other fad diet. Colorado State University recommends analyzing a potential weight-loss program by asking whether the plan offers realistic weight loss, adequate nutritional variety, promises a fast cure or goes against accepted medical guidelines for weight loss. Because a fad diet involving just hard-boiled eggs and bananas is unhealthy if followed for any length of time, use an approach with more nutritional variety when losing weight.
Calories and Nutrients
A low-calorie diet can help you lose weight. A hard-boiled egg contains only 78 calories, 1 cup of sliced bananas has 134 calories and a small whole banana has 90 calories, according to the USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory. Foods low in calories can help you lose weight provided you maintain a caloric intake lower than your body needs. Bananas contain over 500 mg of potassium per cup, which is over 10 percent of your needs. You will consume about 6 g of protein with one hard-boiled egg, and about 1 g of protein with the banana. Protein serves your body's tissues, provides satiety and helps retain muscular strength. While the nutrients in both hard-boiled eggs and bananas are beneficial, neither provides you with adequate fiber, the full array of vitamins you need or the calcium your body requires. Bananas have a trace amount of fat, while a boiled egg has over 5 g of fat.
Benefits
Incorporating these two foods into your dietary plan can help you meet your weight-loss goals. Eating a 78 calorie boiled egg rather than a 190 calorie, 3 1/2-inch chocolate chip cookie gives you more protein, fewer calories, less fat and no refined sugars, which makes it a good food choice. Fresh fruit such as bananas may help your weight loss process because of the low-calorie, yet filling nature. Easily pack one or both foods as a snack for work. Use bananas in baking or for smoothies and add eggs to sandwiches, wraps or make deviled eggs with reduced fat-mayonnaise.
Cautions
If you have heart disease, do not eat boiled eggs every day, according to the American Heart Association. The more than 186 mg of cholesterol compromises more than 60 percent of the standard cholesterol intake recommendation and over 90 percent of the 200 mg recommended for people with high cholesterol or heart disease. Avoid using hard-boiled eggs and bananas as your main nutrient sources. Instead, work on eating a low-calorie diet that features foods from all the food groups, including meats, vegetables, grains and dairy.
References
- Colorado State University: Recognizing Fad Diets
- USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory: Hard-Boiled Egg, Banana, Commerciall Prepared Cookie
- Harvard School of Public Health: Protein: Moving Closer to Center Stage
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Can Eating Fruits and Vegetables Help People to Manage Their Weight?
- American Heart Association; Frequently Asked Questions About Some Common Foods; September 2010
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