The Cookie Diet

Losing weight and eating cookies do not appear in the same sentence very often.  That could be part of the appeal of the Cookie Diet.  Actually, there are several cookie diets (the Siegal Cookie Diet, the Hollywood Cookie Diet, and the Cookie-a-Day Diet), and they all depend on (wait for it) EATING COOKIES! So how does a person lose weight while eating cookies, you might ask?  Well, here is the scoop!

Back in the '90s, Dr. Sanford Siegal was studying the relationship between hunger and natural foods. Over time, he developed a formula of amino acids that he put into cookie dough to create a cookie that actually suppressed the hunger pangs suffered by his weight loss patients.  A diet craze quickly ensued.  By eating Dr. Siegal's cookies every time hunger hit, remarkable weight loss was reported.  Dr. Siegal was really on to something.

By the mid 2000's, Dr. Siegal had cookie, shake and soup mixes for sale that all contained his proprietary formula for quelling hunger pangs.  He had also opened dozens of franchised weight loss centers that leveraged his cookies and his now-famous name. Sadly, as quickly as fame came to Dr Siegal, it also left.  By the end of the decade, his network of weight loss centers were bankrupt and his name recognition plummeted.

The doctor's cookies remain, however, along with the diet guidelines. The cookies are intended to help you keep to an 800 calorie a day diet.  That means eating cookies morning and noon, and reserving your non-cookie calories for a satisfying dinner every day.  Your dinner menu is made up of lean meats and one cup of vegetables a day.  Cookies are wonderful, but they lack nutrients typically ingested through vegetables and fruits.  With the cookie diet, you only eat one "real" meal a day, so your intake of healthy foods is naturally restricted.

This is a diet without a maintenance mode.  Dr. Siegal never intended for the Cookie Diet to become a lifestyle, but rather a quick way to shed pounds while you learn better eating habits at the same time.  The real trick is to avoid regaining weight after you have reached your goal weight and stop the diet.

Is this the right diet for you?  With the 800 calories per day restriction, you will probably lose weight, but this is below the generally accepted minimum intake for a healthy diet.  Even with a multivitamin and nutritional supplements, you will probably be robbing your body of important nutrients.  But then again, you WILL be eating a lot of cookies and that's worth something.

Have you tried Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet?  Click on the Comment button and give us your take!

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