The Cookie Diet: How Sweet it Sounds

It has been said that the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes. I propose another certainty in life: fad diets. Inevitably, a trendy new diet crops up every year and takes our overweight nation by storm. Just a few years ago, at the height of Atkins Diet mania, it wasn't uncommon to hear someone order a BigMac with "no bun please... I'm on a diet."

This year the new diet craze is the so-called Cookie Diet. First conceived in 1975 by a grandfatherly-looking man named Dr. Siegal, the cookie diet has allegedly helped a half-million people lose weight by eating cookies for breakfast and lunch.

With the holiday season just around the corner, I thought it might be a good idea to lose a few pounds before Halloween candy, Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas ham have had a chance to add a few. Basically, my weight loss plan was to break even by New Years. And the cookie diet sounded a lot more appealing than some of the other fad diets I've tried in the past: the bitter and boring grapefruit diet and the noxious-gas-producing cabbage soup diet, to name two unsuccessful attempts.

Dr. Siegal has a web site on which you can order his special "diet cookies," but at $60 per week, that was a little rich for my blood. So I went on-line and found several nutritious, low fat cookie recipes. After baking a batch of oatmeal raisin and cranberry fig cookies, I was ready to begin my experiment with the popular cookie diet.

The first day went smoothly, three cookies for breakfast and three for lunch. For dinner, I ate a grilled chicken salad and went to bed feeling full with my sweet tooth thoroughly satisfied. Day two was the same: cookies for the first two meals followed by a nutritious dinner. After seven days, I'd lost two pounds ... and I did it eating cookies!

There's was just one problem: I was really, really tired of eating cookies. By day seven, oatmeal-- cookie or not-- felt like inedible gruel in my mouth as I mechanically chewed my breakfast that morning, longing for a bowl of cereal or some scrambled eggs. Also, it was getting harder and harder to maintain my afternoon work-outs on cookie fuel alone. Not to mention, I was pretty sure I was getting a cavity.

By the 10th day, I never wanted to eat another cookie again, even though I'd lost another pound. I quit, happy to be three pounds lighter and cookie-free ... at least until Christmas.