Trendy diets come and go. Lately, one of the hottest diets is dubbed some version of ‘the cookie diet’. As far as I can tell, there are three separate companies touting a version of the cookie diet. Each of these companies offer a similar plan. You buy their cookies which are, according to these companies specially formulated to curb your appetite and skip eating anything else until dinner. The diet ends up being low calorie so weight comes off.

The question is whether this really works. And if it does, can anyone stick with it for very long? To answer that question, we need to look a bit more closely. For example one of these companies is associated with a Florida doctor (Dr. Siegal) who claims to have offered some version of his own cookie diet to his patients since 1975. Claims on how many he’s helped range as high as a half million patients. But when you think about it, in order for this claim to be true, he’d have to have helped over 14,000 patients a year, every year for 35 years in order to have it that number. Seems like a bit of a stretch.

But more importantly let’s focus on his claim that he’s discovered some magic blend of amino acids that somehow eliminate hunger pangs. I have not been able to discover what specific amino acids are in these cookies that would cause that to happen. Two essential amino acids, phenylalanine and tryptophan do have some limited data supporting their role in suppressing appetite. The first, phenylalanine suppresses the appetite by increasing the production of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine. The second, tryptophan may help curb cravings for carbohydrates. But do these work when incorporated into a cookie with many other ingredients? And even if they do, are they present in sufficient quantity to produce a real effect?

What is more likely is that the instructions on this diet say to eat on cookie anytime you feel hungry and then wait for awhile until you eat the next cookie is more likely to give the body time to register that something has been ingested and naturally turns off the person’s hunger. On Dr. Siegal’s plan you get 6 cookies to eat before dinner so every couple of hours you eat another cookie which keeps your blood sugar levels stable and prevents huge hunger pangs from setting in. If you can live off of the six cookies, and you don’t over indulge at dinner (which means you eat a meal of lean protein and veggies) you will be significantly reducing your caloric intake and could see a significant drop in weight each month you can stay with it.

And ’staying with it’ is probably the biggest factor. Eating this way could get boring quickly. Also, as the body gets used to lower calories, your metabolism will get more efficient and also decrease the number of calories you burn each day. So weight loss is likely to trail off significantly after the first month. In the end, if you have a sweet tooth and are looking for a quick fix to drop some weight 4 - 6 weeks before a big event the cookie diet may work for you. But as a long term solution for someone obese, I think this cookie diet may crumble!

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