Cookie Diet – Miracle or Health Risk
The Cookie Diet is back in the news again, and has been generating a lot of hype recently. If you haven’t heard the buzz about this fad diet yet, it is a weight loss technique where you only eat one meal – dinner. The rest of your daily meals are replaced by a ‘miracle cookie’ which is designed to suppress hunger. While there are many varieties of this diet, the version developed by Dr. Sanford Siegal has been the most popular over the years.
Not Just Cookies – Dinner Recipes are Critical
Siegal’s version of The Cookie Diet emphasizes a very structured dinner plan as well as only eating cookies throughout the day. In Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet Book
Does the Miracle Cookie Diet work?
The question many people ask is whether or not the cookie diet actually works. This question is a little bit more complicated than that. Of course if you consume 800 calories a day you’re going to lose weight, if you can stick to this strict diet you are going to shed pounds quickly. Dr. Siegal’s advertisements say you can lose 15 pounds a month, which seems to be believable. The reason why so few people succeed on this diet is that while a cookie diet sounds good in theory, that isn’t all your body wants and needs.
The majority of people who try this diet start to ‘cheat’ within the first 2 weeks. While the cookies are tasty at first, soon you want more. Also, since the dinner recipes are so strict it makes eating out with friends and family impossible. For most of us, our biggest challenge is not eating out so much, and for those of us who struggle with eating out we should not even waste our time with this diet. Another problem many dieters have on The Cookie Diet is that when they change back to their normal diet routine they gain the weight back quickly. When you only consume 800 calories for a couple of weeks your body enters into ’starvation mode’ and begins to conserve nutrients more. When you immediately jump back up to 1600 calories a day your body isn’t prepared for it and doesn’t fully utilize the additional nutrients you’re consuming.
Cookie Diet Side Effects
In addition to gaining the weight you just lost back, some people who try The Cookie Diet will experience other side effects. Dizziness and loss of energy are the most common side effects of any ultra-low calorie diet. Taking nutritional supplements and vitamins may help alleviate these side-effects, but until your body becomes used to that lack of food you may still experience these conditionals. Additionally the cookies do not agree with everyone, suffers of IBS (Irritable Bowl Syndrome) may be especially susceptible to diarrhea and stomach cramps. Before beginning this, or any other diet I would highly recommend you discuss it with your physician. Since your nutritional intake will change significantly you may be at a higher risk for disease or illness if you don’t supplement your diet with the proper nutrients. If you take Acai Berries or similar supplements while on this diet you may be at a higher to experience upset stomach, nausea, or diarrhea.
Smart for Life Cookie Diet
The Cookie Diet which has recently caught the attention of the media is the Smart for Life diet. Like Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet you buy a supply of cookies to eat each day to hold you over until dinner. The plans are very similar if you choose the Smart for Life Cookie Diet
If you or anyone you know has had success with, or experienced side affects from The Cookie Diet other readers would be interested to hear about it. Please leave a comment describing your experience with The Cookie Diet so other readers can be well informed about their diet choice.
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Wow! that looks yummy and helpful for weight loss too. I have read your articles and links, they are really nice and I appreciate it,
I just saw an ad on TV for the cookie diet and it sounded like a diet I could stick with. I did some searching and found a lot of people saying the Cookie Diet is a Scam!. I was just wondering if anyone else has had experience witht he cookie diet. People are saying that the doctoers aren’t licensed, and they dont’ help you anyway. They say the office visit is a complete waste of time and they don’t tell you anything helpful. If anyone has tried this diet I’d really like some input. Is the cookie diet just another scam diet?
Joan, I haven’t personally tried the cookie diet. I’ve just done a lot of research online about it. To me the scamwith this diet is that it isn’t designed to be a lifestyle diet. Their goal is to have you stay on the ‘diet’ for a month or two, then when you quit you gain the weight back. Hopefulyl some of the other readers will be able to give you more input on whether the office visits are a scam.