Eating eggs might help you crack open new potential, but could you stomach 30 a day?
Joseph Everett, creator of the popular “What I’ve Learned” YouTube channel, devoured 900 in a month to test bodybuilding legend Vince Gironda’s bold claim that eating 36 eggs a day is just as effective for bulking up as a steroid shot.
“The science on this is really limited, so instead of trying to dig up all these papers on eggs, I figured I’d just go ahead and eat 30 a day for a month and see what happens,” Everett explained in a YouTube video before diving in.
Eggs are considered one of the most nutritious foods, packed with protein, healthy fats and essential nutrients like choline, iron and vitamins A, B12 and D — all while being low in calories.
Everett ate 30 eggs a day for a month, including egg-white omelets and raw yolk smoothies. He also supplemented his diet with rice, beef, yogurt, fruit, honey and occasionally a protein bar.
In addition to the meal plan, Everett followed a weightlifting routine and documented his progress in a video that has racked up more than 783,000 views.
While Everett didn’t consider himself a “serious lifter,” he said he regularly lifted weights for fitness before taking on the challenge. He recorded his starting strength with exercises like barbell lifts, deadlifts, squats and bench presses.
He also took baseline measurements of his weight and underwent blood tests to track key markers like testosterone and cholesterol levels.
By the end of the month, Everett had gained 13 pounds of muscle mass. His blood tests showed a notable drop in triglycerides, a harmful fat linked to strokes and heart attacks. On the fitness front, he was able to lift 44 more pounds than when he started.
Everett said that, overall, he found the challenge relatively easy. But it wasn’t without its hiccups. On night five, he admitted, “I had so much gas I couldn’t sleep.”
“My girlfriend asked me to sleep on the sofa because the flatulence was keeping her awake,” he joked.
One thing Everett kept a close eye on was his cholesterol, given that eggs are high in the substance, which can be harmful to your heart. The American Heart Association recommends that healthy adults eat up to one egg per day, while older healthy people can eat up to two daily as part of a balanced diet.
Surprisingly, after a month of consuming 30 eggs daily, Everett’s blood tests showed minimal changes in his “bad cholesterol,” while his “good cholesterol” levels actually increased.
Everett also focused on the amount of saturated fat he was taking in. He hypothesized that the fats and cholesterol from the eggs might be converted into testosterone, which, when combined with strength training, could boost muscle growth.
Around day nine, he began noticing changes in his behavior, which he speculated could be due to a potential rise in testosterone.
“I felt more focused, had tons of energy in and out of the gym, my libido was higher, and I was a bit more driven and unrestrained,” he told viewers. But, surprisingly, his final blood work showed no change in testosterone levels.
By day 14, Everett grew tired of cooking and choking down egg whites, so he switched to drinking all 30 eggs raw each day.
“The food sat on my stomach better, I felt lighter, less bloated and my performance on the toilet was great,” he wrote in a Substack post.
But by day 20, things took a turn.
“I found myself stuck in the bathroom for over an hour, really constipated and cramping up,” he recalled in the video. “Standing up made the cramps even worse, but I had to get up because I also needed to puke.”
With 10 eggs left and 300 more to go, Everett had to figure out what was causing his digestive issues. He traced them back to raw eggs’ high levels of trypsin inhibitors, which can cause stomach problems.
Once he started cooking the egg whites again, his stomach troubles subsided.
While Everett isn’t sure if the egg-only method is as effective as steroids for bulking, he said he might try it again — though next time, he’d swap the egg whites for red meat.
