According to revealing personal papers published on Saturday, as the Iron Lady prepared herself for her first national battle in 1979, she decided she had to project a slimmer image.
AP
Margaret Thatcher, then the leader of Britain's Conservative Party, arrives in Scotland by helicopter on April 25, 1979.
Thatcher put herself on a crash diet that included spinach, grapefruit, steak for dinner and black coffee and tea. A personal Thatcher favorite, the occasional shot of whiskey, was also allowed as long as it was taken with meat. Otherwise, alcohol was totally off the menu.
But it was high-protein eggs – one or two for breakfast, and a couple at lunch – that formed the basis of what was known as the Mayo Clinic regime, widely regarded as a precursor of the Atkins Diet.
Thursdays were the yolkiest day of the week. On that day eggs were on the menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Every day, the papers show, Thatcher ticked off each item on a typed sheet that she kept tucked inside the cover of her Economist pocket diary.
Two months before her victory in the election, she said in an interview with The Sun that she had "no special dieting regime." But it's clear from the papers, newly published by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, that she had a change of heart.
A historian with the foundation, Chris Collins, said: "I think she was looking to get in trim for the cameras. She probably thought, 'They're going to be on me the whole time; I'll lose some weight.'"
He added: "But she is not somebody who had a problem with weight at all. She is on the move the whole time, she burns energy."
Other more political issues have also come to light with the publication of the papers, including a statement in 1977 to an adviser, Alcon Copisarow, that "I have already come to the conclusion that I shall have to take most of the major decisions myself."
Some 25,000 pages of the private papers from Thatcher, now 84, and those of her press secretary, Bernard Ingham, can be viewed online.
But the question remains: Would 28 eggs a week work in today's diet-obsessed world?
Many are concerned about eggs' high cholesterol content, but not all dietitians agree that eating them has such a direct impact on blood cholesterol as it was once thought. Eggs are also high in minerals and vitamin B12, and they provide nearly a third of a day's need for vitamin D.
Still, 28 a week? Thatcher only tried it for two weeks, and it's unlikely that most doctors today would recommend following in those footsteps.
