Cookie Diet

In the world of fad diets almost nothing can be more absurd than the cookie diet. This diet is based on a mixture of amino acids baked into a cookie designed to control a patient's hunger.

Fad diets seem to be everywhere these days. In general a fad diet is a diet which is designed to last for short periods of time, during which large amounts of weight can supposedly be lost. Often times, like the cookie diet, these diets rely on one miracle food with amazing properties for weight loss. In this sense they are something like the old traveling medicine shows, in which a slick talking salesman would expound on the virtues of some magical formula created by a Guru of some type.

The cookie diet was created by a physician named Sanford Siegel in 1975 while he was researching a book on the effect of natural foods on hunger. This cookie diet consisted of patients eating six cookies each day in place of meals, then eating a reasonable dinner. There were about 500 calories combined in the cookies, and the dinner could be 300 calories in the evening. Very quickly the cookie diet became a huge success, with 14 clinics in Florida and 10 in Latin America expounding this amazing weight loss formula. In the middle 1980s over 200 doctors were prescribing Dr. Siegel's cookie diet in their own practices. It was at this time that shakes and soups were added to the mix, these also containing the amino acids that control hunger.

There is another version of the cookie diet referred to as the Hollywood cookie diet because it became popular with many Hollywood stars. This diet received a great deal of media attention in part because of the PR efforts of attention grabbing stars and starlets. This diet is similar to the original in that it consists of a cookie for breakfast, a cookie as a snack in the morning, a cookie for lunch, a cookie as a mid-afternoon snack, and then a reasonable dinner. Each cookie contains approximately 150 calories, loaded with fiber, protein and 13 vitamins and minerals.

Do yourself a favor ? avoid the cookie diet. If you want to lose weight, or maintain a healthy eating lifestyle, simply lower the amount of calories you eat from everyday foods and add some exercise. In general this is a much healthier way to lose or maintain weight than relying on some fly by night miracle food, even if it is endorsed by someone you recognize from a movie.