Spring Break
The Daily OrangeToback: Cookie Diet and lose-weight-quick methods not so sweet
By Rebecca Toback
Posted: 10/29/09, 3:31 AM EST Section: Feature
One of my friends told me about a new diet she was trying called the "Cookie Diet." She explained she would eat six of Dr. Sanford Siegal's cookies a day and then would have one meal - dinner - each night.
I tried it after she told me about the success she was having a few weeks into the diet. One week after ordering a few boxes of cookies online, I was so sick of them that they didn't really taste much like cookies at all. So, I called it quits.
According to the diet's Web site, though, 500,000 people have lost weight on Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet. But the cookies don't provide the proper nutrition other diets offer.
"I am not in favor of these kinds of diets," said Lynn Brann, a Syracuse University assistant nutrition science and dietetics professor. "It seems as though the diet is based on limiting your calorie intake. If you take in fewer calories than you need, then you should lose weight. It doesn't really matter where those calories are coming from. However, (on the diet) you are not consuming other important nutrients in foods if you are only eating cookies and drinking shakes."
According to a New York Times article last week on the Cookie Diet, Dr. Siegal expects revenue to be up $6 million from 2008 due to endorsements from celebrities such as Kelly Clarkson, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Hudson.
The diet has become so popular in the last few years that imitator cookie diets have emerged on the market. The Hollywood Cookie Diet, Smart for Life and Soypal Cookie Diet are now competing with the original.
In 1975, Dr. Siegal created the Cookie Diet for his own patients and supplied them to about 200 other doctors and their patients as well, according to the Cookie Diet Web site. Until a few years ago, interested dieters could only buy the cookies online or by ordering them. They are now also available in stores.
The diet aims to control hunger and eating habits. The six cookies that dieters get to eat each day on the Cookie Diet are not designated as specific meals but can be eaten whenever hunger strikes.
I tried it after she told me about the success she was having a few weeks into the diet. One week after ordering a few boxes of cookies online, I was so sick of them that they didn't really taste much like cookies at all. So, I called it quits.
According to the diet's Web site, though, 500,000 people have lost weight on Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet. But the cookies don't provide the proper nutrition other diets offer.
"I am not in favor of these kinds of diets," said Lynn Brann, a Syracuse University assistant nutrition science and dietetics professor. "It seems as though the diet is based on limiting your calorie intake. If you take in fewer calories than you need, then you should lose weight. It doesn't really matter where those calories are coming from. However, (on the diet) you are not consuming other important nutrients in foods if you are only eating cookies and drinking shakes."
According to a New York Times article last week on the Cookie Diet, Dr. Siegal expects revenue to be up $6 million from 2008 due to endorsements from celebrities such as Kelly Clarkson, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Hudson.
The diet has become so popular in the last few years that imitator cookie diets have emerged on the market. The Hollywood Cookie Diet, Smart for Life and Soypal Cookie Diet are now competing with the original.
In 1975, Dr. Siegal created the Cookie Diet for his own patients and supplied them to about 200 other doctors and their patients as well, according to the Cookie Diet Web site. Until a few years ago, interested dieters could only buy the cookies online or by ordering them. They are now also available in stores.
The diet aims to control hunger and eating habits. The six cookies that dieters get to eat each day on the Cookie Diet are not designated as specific meals but can be eaten whenever hunger strikes.
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Dr. Sanford Siegal
posted 10/29/09 @ 6:06 AM EST
Thank you for writing about us, Rebecca. Looks like your future career in journalism is off to a good start.
It's tempting to summarily dismiss Dr. (Continued…)
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