14 DAY TRIAL // Not long ago, we were telling you that, in her approach to weight loss, television personality and socialite extraodinaire Kim Kardashian had found a very strong ally in Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet. She was not the only one to discover this special diet that places emphasis on calorie control for the most extraordinary results, since almost anyone who’s anyone in Tinseltown has tried it, from singer Mandy Moore, to Oscar-winning Jennifer Hudson, the original American Idol Kelly Clarkson and even acclaimed British movie director Guy Ritchie.
In other words, Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet is the hottest thing in Hollywood right now and, from what testimonials say, it works just as it promises. It basically consists of eating a bag of the Cookies a day, as they act both as hunger suppressants and come to replace other unhealthy snacks that might tempt the dieter throughout the day. At 90 calories each (a bag contains six such cookies), the Diet also allows for a low-calorie meal in the evening, of no more than 300-800 calories.
Since this sounds almost too good to be true, we managed to reach Dr. Sanford Siegal who has been kind enough to answer a couple of questions for us, meant to dispel whatever doubts we might have still had about this particular diet. Below is the Softpedia Q&A with Dr. Siegal, as well as several helpful tips on how to achieve sustainable weight loss.
Softpedia: They say Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet is a favorite with celebrities, and countless testimonials can sure verify that. Because of all the media attention, many could easily be deceived into believing that this is yet another diet fad. Would you be so kind as to explain to our readers how this particular diet is different from any other – how you came up with it, how many years of research and practice it took to bring the diet to where it is now, what else you tried before it.
Dr. Siegal: I hear the term “fad diet” a lot. All I can say is that, after 34 years and more than 500,000 dieters, if Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet is a fad it must be one of the longest running fads in history. The reason why this diet has been thriving for more than three decades is that it works. On a 1,000 calorie diet, everyone loses weight, and because hunger is kept in check, people are able to stick to such a diet.
Softpedia: What goes in a cookie from Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, and how is it different from any other slimming, low-calorie product/snack on the market?
Dr. Siegal: The cookies contain a proprietary mixture of proteins that I developed in the early 1970s while writing a book on the subject of foods that are effective at controlling hunger. I decided to try to engineer a food that people could eat in place of typical snacks that were higher in calories, fat, and carbs. Hundreds of thousands of people have been able to stick to a low-calorie diet by eating six of my cookies a day when hungry and a reasonable dinner. My formula is still a secret known only to my wife and me.
Softpedia: Speaking of different diets, how is Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet better than the rest? Nutritionists constantly warn us that most diets will bring about the yo-yo effect, which, in the long run, is as unhealthy for our body as it is disheartening. Does this happen with your diet as well?
Dr. Siegal: No weight-loss diet produces permanent results. How could it? It’s what we do after we reach our proper weight that determines whether or not we gain back the weight. I just wrote a book that talks a lot about this subject. It’s called “Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet Book” and it will be available on CookieDiet.com, Amazon, and in book stores around June 1st. In the book, I address the ‘nutritional nonsense’ with which we are constantly bombarded. The fact is that the way one loses weight and the way one keeps it off are not the same. I’ve learned in treating hundreds of thousands of patients that the faster one loses the better because motivation is critically important. Once the weight is off, I switch gears and emphasize a permanent lifestyle change that includes exercise and sensible eating.
Softpedia: Countless women strongly believe dieting is the only way to approach weight loss. Surely, you must be aware that many who come to see you do it precisely because they think you hold the secret to a perfect figure with minimum effort. What do you say to them when they do? What’s the best advice you give to a woman who has a weight loss and health goal? What would you tell a woman who has tried it all to shed the weight and her only hope is Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, which she’s yet to start?
Dr. Siegal: I don’t give my patients false hope. I warn them that, under the best of circumstances, dieting is nobody’s idea of fun. However, it’s a picnic compared to the horrors of lifelong obesity. As for dieting being the only approach to weight loss, for most people it’s the only practical one. Let me illustrate with an example of a woman who has 50 pounds to lose. If she doesn’t want to diet (that is, to reduce her daily caloric intake), she’ll have to engage in extreme aerobic exercise for two hours a day, seven days a week, for approximately six months, to lose the 50 pounds. By contrast, if she adheres to a 1,000 calorie a day diet with little or no aerobic exercise, she’ll lose the 50 pounds in about the same amount of time. Which approach do you think is more practical for the vast majority of people? Exercise is important for lifetime weight maintenance. For weight loss, however, dieting is more practical and effective.
Softpedia: Most diets come with pros and cons, one of their biggest disadvantages – which is also the one most criticized by health specialists – being that they deprive the body of essential nutrients, which is why they are not recommended in the long run. How did you manage to overcome this obstacle?
Dr. Siegal: I didn’t overcome it because there’s nothing to overcome – the obstacle doesn’t exist. Whoever said that a diet that’s highly effective for quick weight loss is one that should be followed “in the long run?” You didn't hear it from me! Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, on which most people consume about 1,000 calories a day, is not a diet that people follow indefinitely. They follow it until they reach their goal weight. If they stayed on it forever, losing about 10 pounds a month, they’d waste away to nothing. Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet, like any diet that creates a caloric deficit, is for losing weight. For maintaining weight, I emphasize a permanent lifestyle change.
Softpedia: Celebrities are reportedly dying to try out your Cookie Diet. Can you name some of them (other than Kim Kardashian) for our readers, as well as detail a bit the progress they made while on it?
Dr. Siegal: The United States has laws that prohibit physicians from sharing information about their patients without explicit permission. When we made Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet products available to the general public on CookieDiet.com a couple of years ago, I decided to apply the same rule to our retail customers. If I were to go around identifying our celebrity customers, I doubt we’d have celebrity customers for long. Of course, there’s no need for me to speak on the matter because the media is quite diligent in reporting celebrity doings. I’m told that there are usually paparazzi sitting in their cars in front of the Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet store on North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills.
Softpedia: The questions you must always stumble upon in any interview: what’s the most impressive Cookie Diet success story and did you ever have a case where the diet did not work, even if all the recommendations/instructions were followed to the letter?
Dr. Siegal: There have been so many amazing success stories over the years. I love the ones where people reached their goals together, such as a parent and child or a husband and wife. If I had to pick a favorite success story, it would be Josie Raper, a young mother from Phoenix who lost 120 pounds – half her body weight – on Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet. I dedicated my new book to Josie. Her mother, Yvonne, lost more than 50 pounds, too. They both appeared with me last year on The Morning Show with Mike & Juliet on Fox Television. In January of this year, Josie appeared on the cover of People magazine’s “Half Their Size” issue.
As for patients who failed even though “all the recommendations/instructions were followed to the letter,” there aren’t any. Not a single one in the 34 years since I created Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet. It would mean that someone maintained her weight on a diet of 1,000 calories or less and that’s biologically impossible. I’ve had failures, of course, but they were the folks who did not follow my instructions.
Softpedia: If you were to resume the principle of a healthy life in just a couple of words, which also implies not being overweight, what would this be? Where does modern man err in his approach to weight loss and, ultimately, a healthy diet?
Dr. Siegal: I couldn’t begin to give any meaningful advice in just a couple of words, but in 320 pages, I did try to answer the question of where modern man erred in his approach to a healthy diet. In “Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet Book,” there’s a chapter called “Our Carnivorous Ancestors” in which I make the point that, in evolutionary terms, man only started eating plants yesterday. I think it’s safe to say that, back when we had no choice but to chase down and kill our food, excess weight wasn’t an issue.
