The base number
A large egg (50 g) carries about 72 calories: roughly 6.3 g of protein, 5 g of fat, and almost no carbs. Size moves the number a little — a medium egg is ~63 kcal, an XL ~80. The yolk holds most of the calories (55 of them) and nearly all the vitamins; the white is essentially 17 kcal of pure protein. That split is why egg whites top the protein-per-calorie league while whole eggs win on satisfaction.
What cooking actually adds
- Boiled or poached: +0. Water is free. Two boiled eggs = ~145 kcal, 12.6 g protein.
- Fried: +20–50 kcal per egg depending on how much oil or butter stays in the pan versus on the egg. A "quick fry" in a teaspoon of oil lands ~90–100 kcal.
- Scrambled: the wildcard. Dry-pan scrambled is ~75 kcal; café scrambled — whisked with butter, cream and optimism — can hit 150–180 kcal per egg. Restaurant scrambles are the most underestimated breakfast item there is.
- Omelette: eggs + everything. Three eggs (~215) plus cheese (~110) plus butter (~50) is a 375+ kcal dish before the toast arrives. Still decent — just log it as what it is.
The pattern: the egg is never the problem. The fat it's cooked in and the sides it brings are where breakfasts quietly double. "Two eggs" can be 145 kcal or 500 depending on the pan and the plate.
Why eggs earn their place in a deficit
Egg breakfasts have real satiety research behind them: in controlled trials, people eating an egg breakfast ate meaningfully less at lunch than people who had an equal-calorie bagel breakfast. Six grams of protein per 72 kcal, minimal prep, and they survive a lunchbox — for a calorie deficit, that's a workhorse. Two boiled eggs plus fruit is a ~230 kcal breakfast that keeps most people quiet until lunch, which no pastry has ever managed.
Counting eggs the lazy way
The trouble with egg math isn't the egg — it's the moving parts around it. Calfit's photo scanner reads the whole plate: two fried eggs, the sourdough, the smear of butter, the ketchup. One snap, one estimate, one tap to fix, and breakfast is logged before the coffee's cool. Pip approves of eggs. Pip approves of anything logged, honestly — that's rather the point.