Cookie Diet

Weight loss is a combination of controlling what you eat and burning more calories by way of exercise. It is hard working and perseverance that makes permanent weight loss a possibility. But not everyone is able to make time for exercise. So, in these instant times, there are even the equivalents of instant diets. These are called fad or crash diets. There are many fad diets that are popular methods to lose weight.

The fad diets are usually inclusive or exclusive of food groups and work on the basic method of reducing the number of calories you eat. The fad diets only mention what you can and cannot eat.
One such diet is the Cookie Diet. It is rapidly gaining popularity. It is a diet that emphasizes fiber through particular cookies and reduces protein. A Cookie Diet is known for promoting cookies as the only food you can consume on this diet. These are cookies with fixed ingredients but a patented recipe. The Cookie Diet includes a plan of eating a fixed number of cookies in a day along with one fixed meal. These cookies are available only online and till recently, in a number of stores across America.

The Cookie Diet was created by Florida-based Dr Sanford Siegal in 1975 when he introduced cookies made by an ingredient mix which had been researched. This mix, which is a proprietary mix, contains certain amino acids that act as hunger suppressants. Cookies made from this cookie mix were to act as hunger controlling meals. Along with these cookies, he also made shakes which had a similar role to play.

The Cookie Diet says you can eat up to six cookies in one day, one every time you are hungry. Each cookie contains about 500 calories. There are no fixed meal times but that you can eat whenever you feel hungry. You are allowed one meal of six ounces of meat or some lean protein with a cup full of vegetables, all of which should not exceed 300 calories. The aim is to consume 800 calories. The aim of the Cookie Diet can also be about 1000 to 1200 calories but it can be lesser depending on individual medical history. The cookies are healthy alternatives for dieters in fat, carbohydrates and calories. The cookies are available in flavors of oatmeal raisin, chocolate, blueberry, banana and coconut.

The aim of this diet is simple. It controls the calories you consume and control the hunger that would otherwise interfere with trying to maintain the diet. You can use these cookies to control your hunger in other calorie-based diets too but it works most effectively with the Cookie Diet rules. Dr Siegal has also suggested in his book that this diet is a way to find out whether your thyroid is misbehaving. If you follow the 800 calorie Cookie Diet for a few weeks and do not see a quick weight loss, you can be sure it is your thyroid misbehaving. Of course this is not a diagnostic test and in case you think the cookie diet is indicating your thyroid is not behaving itself, you should talk to your physician or a doctor.

These cookies are available online and are considered expensive as they are the only way to following this diet. The main ingredients in these specialized cookies are eggs, whole-wheat pastry flour, uncooked bran and dry oats, orange juice, unsweetened applesauce, non fat milk powder, honey, raisins, nuts, brown sugar, canola oil, vanilla extract, orange extract, baking powder and soda.

There are many critics of the Cookie Diet, like all fad diets have. There is a strong missing nutrition component in this diet. Researchers and nutritionists say since it is dependent on one kind of food there are chances it will create deficiencies in the person following this diet. AT 800 to 1000 calories a day, it has too little nutrition and has very little by way of fiber from fruits and vegetables. The kind of food or rather cookies you consume concentrate on killing hunger rather than burning energy. Therefore it is not suited to people who are working out and maintaining their diet.

Also the cookies that help in suppressing hunger are believed to be doing so because of the high content of fiber in them. Nutritionists have often wondered whether oat cakes or rice cakes or other bakes goods that are high in fiber. Eating these exclusive cookies can be an expensive proposition for a diet. Sticking to this diet on a long term basis can be very damaging causing a lot of long lasting damage to you and your body and your eating habits.

There are many celebrity endorsers of this diet in USA who have lost many pounds following this cookie diet. There are many who have lost half their weight by just following this diet. This is also called the Hollywood Cookie Diet in which 4 cookies plus a lean protein dinner of 500 calories is consumed. This has been criticized even more than the regular cookie diet seeing as how little is eaten by way of food.

Unlike most diets, this diet only helps lose weight. It plays no part in maintaining the weight loss. This makes it a slightly inefficient way to lose weight. Most diets tell you how to lose weight and how to maintain it once you have lost the weight.
Some of the other popular fad diets are Atkins Diet, South Beach Diet, Zone Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet and many others that focus on singular aspects of eating. But all these diets, like the Cookie Diet, only help you lose empty calories. It is not usually a successful weight loss program if you lose it with the help of a fad diet as you will certainly put on that weight back again once you go back to eating normally. Nothing is as good a substitute as eating healthily and exercising, even if it is a simple exercise as walking for 30 minutes every day.

Submitted on January 16, 2014