Cookie Diet May Be 'Half-Baked'
Cookies Contain Appetite Suppressants
UPDATED: 10:27 am CST February 3, 2003
CLEVELAND -- Can you lose weight by eating cookies? According to some experts, there may be a possibility.
The diet isn't just about eating cookies. It's really about baking an ingredient in the cookies that suppresses hunger."I did this diet for about four and a half months," said Ela Prieto, a cookie dieter. "I lost my 51 pounds. In April, it'll be two years that I have been just very careful what I eat and watching my weight and I've been fine."In addition to the cookies containing an appetite suppressant, dieters only eat one meal a day -- dinner. The rest of the day they eat a cookie.Dr. Sanford Siegal said he bakes certain ingredients into the cookies to suppress appetites. "Well, it's mainly protein, but it's the particular mixture of protein to which it owes its hunger suppressing quality," he said.Nutritionist Mary Beth Kavanaugh from University Hospitals in Cleveland shared her thoughts about the diet. "Nutritionally, it's really pretty bad," she said.She added that the cookie diet is not a bad jumpstart for a couple days, because the cookie diet only allows 800 calories a day."If you ate 800 calories of anything for whatever length you could lose weight," she said.But some experts believe the concept is "half-baked.""Nutritionally, it's just not the way to go," Kavanaugh said. "Permanent weight loss is really very simple. Eat less, move more."Experts advise anyone planning to dramatically change eating habits to talk to a doctor first.
The diet isn't just about eating cookies. It's really about baking an ingredient in the cookies that suppresses hunger."I did this diet for about four and a half months," said Ela Prieto, a cookie dieter. "I lost my 51 pounds. In April, it'll be two years that I have been just very careful what I eat and watching my weight and I've been fine."In addition to the cookies containing an appetite suppressant, dieters only eat one meal a day -- dinner. The rest of the day they eat a cookie.Dr. Sanford Siegal said he bakes certain ingredients into the cookies to suppress appetites. "Well, it's mainly protein, but it's the particular mixture of protein to which it owes its hunger suppressing quality," he said.Nutritionist Mary Beth Kavanaugh from University Hospitals in Cleveland shared her thoughts about the diet. "Nutritionally, it's really pretty bad," she said.She added that the cookie diet is not a bad jumpstart for a couple days, because the cookie diet only allows 800 calories a day."If you ate 800 calories of anything for whatever length you could lose weight," she said.But some experts believe the concept is "half-baked.""Nutritionally, it's just not the way to go," Kavanaugh said. "Permanent weight loss is really very simple. Eat less, move more."Experts advise anyone planning to dramatically change eating habits to talk to a doctor first. Distributed by Internet Broadcasting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
