The cookie diet is every dieter's dream: eat cookies all day, lose weight, and stay skinny forever. With Dr. Siegal's cookie diet, that is exactly the goal. But like many fad diets, it is restrictive and may be hard to follow.
Origin
Dr. Sanford Siegal created the cookie diet in 1975 in order to help his patients control their hunger and sustain their diets. He recently expanded, selling his cookies to the general public, rather than to patients only. According to his website, cookiediet.com, Dr. Siegal remains very active in the company by continuing to make all of his cookies by hand.
The Cookie Diet
The diet is based on the premise that hunger is the main reason for cheating on diets. Dr. Siegal's cookie diet provides you with cookies he claims can help promote weight loss by controlling your appetite. You are supposed to eat six cookies a day, which are intended to replace breakfast and lunch. For dinner, you are supposed to eat a cup of vegetables with 6 oz. of lean poultry or seafood.
Cookies
According to Dr. Siegal, the reason his cookies can successfully control appetite is due to the scientific blend of amino acids they contain, which may work because eating protein may reduce appetite more than eating carbohydrates or fat. Made of whole wheat flour, bran and oats, each cookie contains 90 calories. Varieties available include oatmeal raisin, chocolate, blueberry, banana and coconut.
Calories
The cookie diet restricts your daily caloric intake to fewer than 1,000 calories, including the cookies and high-protein dinner. Once you are satisfied with your weight loss, you can maintain your weight by eating a bigger dinner while continuing to replace breakfast and lunch with cookies. If you already are at a healthy weight, Dr. Siegal recommends eating his cookies as a snack.
Precautions
According to the MayoClinic.com, if you follow the cookie diet, you likely will lose weight. However, the weight you lose probably will be due to restricting yourself to a 1,000-calorie diet, which can be hard to follow and does not provide you with all the nutrients you need. The MayoClinic.com also states that such a restrictive diet can make it difficult to keep weight off once you increase your caloric intake.
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