Breakfast options

Our goal with the low-carb challenge is to make it as simple and tasty as possible.

Scrambled eggs is a perfect breakfast for any day. Here are things you can add to your scrambled eggs. Choose one option, several or all of them:

  • Fried bacon (you may have to buy some extra to add this on weekdays too)
  • Butter on top of the eggs
  • Smoked salmon (additional shopping required)
  • Cheese on top of the eggs (sliced or grated, let melt on top)
  • ½ – 1 avocado (additional shopping required)

Other options

Feel free to switch breakfast at any time – every day if you want – to any of the recommended below. Some extra ingredients may have to be bought (see below).

Additional shopping required for the options above:

  • Bacon & eggs: You may need to buy additional bacon, if you want this on weekdays too
  • Scrambled eggs with spinach and smoked salmon: Requires buying some spinach and smoked salmon.
  • Egg muffins: Requires buying a couple of additional scallions, some more bacon or chorizo, more shredded cheese and possibly extra pesto.
  • Boiled eggs: Buy additional avocado or asparagus if you want to add.
  • Dairy-free latte: Buy coconut oil, vanilla extract and ground ginger.
  • Fried eggs with tomato and cheese: Buy a tomato and more cheese.

More breakfast options with additional shopping

These breakfasts require some additional shopping; pickled jalapeños for the mexican scrambled eggs, and fresh spinach for the frittata.

Not fond of eggs? Choose a ketogenic breakfast from our top egg-free low-carb breakfasts (additional shopping required).

The no-breakfast option

nobreakfastSkipping breakfast is normally fine on a low-carb, high-fat diet – as long as you’re not hungry.1 It may speed up weight loss and diabetes reversal.2

However, we do not recommend starting this habit during the two-week challenge. It’s better to change one thing at a time – what you eat.

Once you’ve gotten used to eating low carb – which normally takes several weeks – you may be ready to add intermittent fasting, like skipping breakfast.

  1. The old idea that breakfast is important for health or weight control is mainly based on observational studies, a notoriously weak form of evidence.

    When tested this idea does not appear to hold up, at least not for weight loss. A recent meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials found that people assigned to skip breakfast ate less overall and lost more weight than those assigned to eat breakfast daily:

    British Medical Journal 2019: Effect of breakfast on weight and energy intake: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials [strong evidence]

    Even the observational data is inconsistent, for example with findings like in the study below: “compared to breakfast eating, skipping breakfast was significantly associated with better health-related quality of life and lower perceived stress.”

    International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2018: Eat or skip breakfast? The important role of breakfast quality for health-related quality of life, stress and depression in Spanish adolescents [weak evidence]

  2. To our knowledge, there are still no randomized trials exploring the effect of true (zero calorie) intermittent fasting on type 2 diabetes. Here are the best existing studies:

    BMJ Case Reports 2018: Therapeutic use of intermittent fasting for people with type 2 diabetes as an alternative to insulin [very weak evidence]

    JAMA Network Open 2018: Effect of intermittent compared with continuous energy restricted diet on glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomized noninferiority trial [moderate evidence]

    Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice 2016: The effects of intermittent compared to continuous energy restriction on glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes; a pragmatic pilot trial [moderate evidence]