Eat cookies and fit into your swimsuit? Well. Yes. Sort of.
Could a cookie be the answer to the effortless weight loss we’ve all been …waiting for?
You know, it’s not all HolyMoly for me. Sometimes I do read The New York Times, when hungry for a bit more stimulation and a more highbrow take on the world…
Today, I found a piece on The Cookie diet.
Not just any cookie diet.
Dr. Siegal’s Diet involves eating six prepackaged cookies a day, plus one ‘real’ meal — which is standard Victoria Beckham stuff, skinless chicken and steamed vegetables.
The New York Times reports that 500,000 people who have lost weight on the diet — according to Dr. Siegal. The promise is simple: Eat HIS cookies and lose up to 10 pounds a month.
The ingredients in the pre-packaged cookies are kept a closely-guarded secret, but the doctor alludes to a secret amino acid, which he claims is his wonder weight-loss ingredient.
Cynicism.
Of course you are going to lose weight if you eat less than 1000 calories a day. (Add up his yukky cookies plus one Victoria Beckham dinner and that’s how many calories you will end up consuming.)
Whether those calories are made up of cookies or quinoa will make no difference wrt weight.
A calorie is a calorie.
But, by including a food that is mostly forbidden on more conventional diets, Dr S has a very clever proposition.
…and an imminently marketable commodity.
After all, The New York Times is writing about his diet!
According to the article: “In 2006 Siegal started CookieDiet.com. This year he began selling his cookies at Walgreens and GNC, and opened his first Cookie Diet store in Beverly Hills, Calif. He expects 2009 revenues to be $18 million, up from $12 million in 2008, thanks in part to endorsements from celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Hudson and Kelly Clarkson.
In fact, the cookie diet business has proved so lucrative that other companies have popped up: Smart for Life (six 105-calorie cookies a day; a 35-day kit costs $279); the Hollywood Cookie Diet (one 150-calorie cookie three to four times a day, plus a light dinner; $14 to $20 a box); and Soypal Cookies, marketed as “the most popular diet in Japan” (about 22 calories each; $49 a box).”
Yes. There is money (loads of it) to be made out of promising a short cut to weight-loss.
And there is loads of money to be lost trying one quack product or diet, after another.
Eat less calories than you burn, and you will lose weight.
Not easy. But simple.
The only smart cookie, here, I’m afraid, is Dr Siegel, himself.
