Cookie Diet: Sweet Solution to Unwanted Pounds?

If you’d rather snack on cookies than carrots, Dr. Sanford Siegal has good news for you: the trendy Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet includes six prepackaged cookies a day, plus one “real” healthy meal. But is the diet safe and effective?

The company was created in 1975, when it was only available to patients in Dr. Siegal’s Miami medical practice. A website and several celebrity endorsements later, Dr. Siegal claims that 500,000 people have successfully lost weight on the program. According to the doctor, a secret mix of proteins curbs hunger and meet dieters’ nutritional needs.

But cookie diet skeptics claim that weight-loss plans that curtail calories to under 1,000 per day are unsafe and ineffective in the long run. Others believe that the Cookie Diet joins a long line of questionable fad diets that eventually fade from popularity. If you choose to chow down on Dr. Siegal’s cookies, take a multivitamin and carefully monitor energy levels. In this case, falling off the diet might mean a return to traditionally healthy fare.

AUTHOR: Annette Hulbert