September 11, 2007

Guest Post: Sara from Healthbolt on The Cookie Diet!

Cranky Fitness is quite pleased to bring you a Guest Post today from Sara Ost! She hosts the amazing Healthbolt blog (which is a must-read for both Useful Information as well as Totally Weird but Strangely Addictive Off-beat Health news). And not only that--Sara is a frequent contributor and Important Person over at Mark's Daily Apple, another incredible resource for healthy living!

Sarah is going to give us her opinion about the Hollywood Cookie Diet--think she's a big fan? Hmmm, let's find out...



The Fact That They Aren’t Cupcakes Is Almost Beside the Point

Another fad diet is in our midst, friends: the Hollywood Cookie Diet.

Though it’s been around for several years, the cookie diet is experiencing a resurgence amongst certain celebrities hoping to shed what little body fat they have left. Which, collectively, is probably less than my left butt cheek.

The cookie diet – whether in its latest Tinseltown incarnation or not – is just wrong. Not because this diet of four to six* puny cookies daily adds up to only 800 calories (dieters must “supplement” with a portion of meat at dinner in order to avoid what is known in medical terminology as “agonizing starvation”). Not because a steady intake of cookies is about as nutritious as a can of Red Bull with a cocaine chaser. Not because this diet is expensive, or boring, or lacking in calcium, or impossible to sustain for the long haul. And not because cookies are not fruits, vegetables, or anything else that most people would consider part of a reasonably healthy weight loss plan. And not even because the cookie diet is fatally flawed.

Why would anyone subsist on the cookie diet when there are cupcakes in this world?

(I mean, come on: it’s a cake! In a cup! And it’s cute! What does cookie really accomplish, other than to further the general suffix confusion of the English language? There’s no tease with cupcake. It’s phonetic, and it’s wonderful. You know exactly what you’re getting: a warm, precious cup of fluffy sweetness, sized just for you. Note that Marie Antoinette did not say “let them eat cookies”. Technically, she did not say anything about cakes, either, but historical accuracy is beside the point. And the point is that cupcakes are better than cookies.)

But pesky issues of deficiency and malnutrition aside, the real reason the cookie diet is silly is because it ruins all the fun of cheating. In fact, even a cupcake diet would ruin one of life’s greatest joys: totally blowing your normally healthy diet at least once a month, preferably with a fat, fizzy glass of champagne. Failing that, a good roll in the hay.

The cookie diet is an assault on all that is delicious and decadent in this world. It’s been said, but evidently not nearly enough: If you’re going to have a cookie, have a cookie. I’m not sure why anyone would cough up their hard-earned cupcake cash to subsist on bad cookies (they’re made of oatmeal, wheat, bran, and rice, although the new starlet version does include a sprinkling of chocolate if you like). If the name of the game is cutting calories to get that My Diet Is My Religion look, you could easily live on cupcakes instead, and for less money. Why, you could even bake yourself up some chocolatey (chocolatie?), gooey, chewy cookies yourself and eat those if you’re partial to cookies. If you’re going to get osteoporosis, why not make it sweet osteoporosis?

But I digress. Treats are special because they are just that: treats. The cookie diet is the worst of both worlds: it ruins treats and it ruins regular waistline-minding meals. Besides, with so many delicious, sustainable, healthier ways to lose weight – the Sonoma Diet, the Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the just-eat-healthy-most-of-the-time diet – there’s just no need to subsist on glorified oat pellets your pet ferret would probably ignore. What say you, Crabby readers?


*six cookies on the original diet; four on the new Hollywood version

25 comments:

  1. Plus, cupcakes have frosting. Those cardboard cookies obviously don't. Mmmm frosting.

    Love the post!!:)

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  2. Cookie diet, huh? Just when you thought it couldn't get any stupider, someone finds a way.
    Entertaining post, Sara.

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  3. It's amazing how people can take a reasonable acceptable component of a healthy diet and turn it into its mainstay.

    "Oatmeal, wheat, bran, and rice." It sounds like they might be salvageable as a way to add fibre as a crushed topping of some sort.

    That's the way the cookie crumbles..

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  4. Mmmm, 4 cookies made from what we feed our horses. You can buy horse cookies at the local feed store that probably would be a good substitute - no, wait, they have molasses and flax in them. Dang.
    No wonder those starlets turn to drugs - they need something to ease the hunger pangs!

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  5. does it specify the size of cookies? can it be the giant starbucks ones? i'll gladly eat four of those a day plus a sensible dinner :D

    i did however love "the real reason the cookie diet is silly is because it ruins all the fun of cheating." best line EVER!

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  6. Cookie diet? I must really be out of the loop, because so far, I had managed to stay away from that silliness. Ah, the lengths to which some people might be ready to go, no matter how stupid... Somehow, that's amazing.

    And yeah, what's the fun of cheating then? That would ruin any cookie for me as well. If I don't die of starvation before. ;)

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  7. Man alive - I really want a cupcake now. This morning, no matter where I turn, there are images of cupcakes:
    -this site (well, that's normal, and i always wonder if i'm the only one who craves cupcakes when I click my way over here)
    -Meg at skinnify.blogspot.com
    -and now www.craftzine.com/blog, where I turn for NON-supcake related news.

    Maybe I should do get a cupcake for lunch!

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  8. COOKIE?!!!

    SOMEONE SAY COOKIE?!!

    FOR ME?!!!

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  9. So here's an interesting little tidbit. The definition of a cookie is "a small cake made from stiff, sweet dough rolled and sliced or dropped by spoonfuls on a large, flat pan (cookie sheet) and baked".

    Cookies, cakes. I'll take them all. Except for ones that taste of cardboard. Unless they are the "bread" of ice cream sandwiches. Then maybe. But better yet, an its-it.

    Cookie diet, dumb. I think the problem is in the name. I don't believe they are honest to goodness cookies. False advertising! It's giving cookies a bad name!

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  10. cookie diet? cookie diet! what is the world coming to. now i would understand if there was an apple diet, but cookie diet. urghh.

    good post.

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  11. Niiiice. One box is 19.95 + $10 S/H.

    So funny. And pathetic. And I have to admit there was a part of me for the briefest of seconds that thought, "Cookie diet? Sign me up!"

    Loved reading this!

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  12. I could subsist on nothing but cupcakes, but only when I'm having a really bad PMS-y week. Oh wait..

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  13. Treats are special because they are just that: treats. The cookie diet is the worst of both worlds: it ruins treats and it ruins regular waistline-minding meals.

    Amen! My loathing of all things Diet-related is only intensified by these attempts to create culinary Frankensteins. "BEHOLD: I HAVE CREATED...LIFE!" Dude, eat the real cookie. And then have a salad for lunch. Or work out or something. Quit trying to delude your body or cheat it out of sin without even getting the pleasure of actually sinning!

    But:

    Atkins diet

    Oh no you di-in't, girlfriend. *snap snap* Atkins raises just as much ire with me.

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  14. Those don't sound like cookies... those sound like hardtack. All you need is a little swill!

    As much as I like to labor under the delusion that Oatmeal Raisin cookies are 'healthy,' this seems just silly.

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  15. I'm with you guys: no frosting; sounds like horse feed; not an actual Treat you can enjoy; involves starvation; and it's popular with dumb celebrities! Uh, no thanks.

    (Though like Katieo, there was part of me that first heard 'cookie diet' and thought oh reaally? However it would have to be a Toll House Cookie diet before I'd be seriously tempted!)

    And yeah, suddenly I'm craving cupcakes too!

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  16. Ok, I am a total cookie lover and could scrap cupcakes.. .I know blasphemy on this site, but it's true. That being said, if I'm having a cookie I want a good cookie, it's gotta be worth my time and enjoyment. Plus I really enjoy feeling full, which I don't think a tiny cookie or any of the other million quick fix meal replacements I've seen will do for me.

    Now seriously, if someone could find a way for me to eat all the real good yummy totally made with butter cookies that I wanted and not gain weight, I'm on board.

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  17. Hey?! What's unhealthy about champagne? And rolling in the hay is both exercise and fun!

    By the way, I'm sure it is an undercover coke diet, just misspelled to fool you into believing there's something new in Hollywood.

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  18. I knowz why it is cookie diet and not cupcake diet.

    Kitteh can has all teh cupcakez!!

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  19. We could add Benefiber to beer and make omega-3 rich fish oil pretzel dip and create the Beer and Pretzel diet...

    On cupcakes, though: look at http://foodhoe.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/karas-cupcakes-ghirardelli-square/

    I came across this while walking off a 5K race. I thought i had died and gone to heaven.

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  20. The cookie diet? What a truly crumby idea.

    (Oh come on. Somebody had to say it. You were all showing far too much restraint ;)

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  21. A diet of cookies?
    Seriously?
    Perhaps it's necessary to weed out the population a bit...that's the silliest diet I've ever heard of. It doesn't help that I don't really like cookies too much...

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  22. The Real Cookie Diet
    After reading your blog I Googled "Cookie Diet" and discovered that there's a "real" weight loss program by that name that was created by a fairly well-known doctor named Sanford Siegal. Unlike the knock-off products that popped up recently, Dr. Siegal's diet has a long history.

    Here's what I found:

    Wikiepedia Article
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_diet

    Good Morning America
    http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125395&page=1

    Fox News
    http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail;jsessionid=5CBBBF3C06889DDC71229FB64DEBF7DC?contentId=2925006&version=3&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1&sflg=1

    The Cookie Diet Web Site
    http://www.cookiedietonline.com

    Dr. Siegal's Web site
    http://www.drsiegal.com

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  23. I have been on the smart for life cookie diet for over 2 months and have lost 20 pounds. I understand the diet sounds odd eat cookies lose weight but truthfully it does work. You mention the 800 cal version of the diet but there is also a 1200 cal version and this is the one I have been using the cookies are not oreos but are quite good, There is also more then just cookies, they offer shakes soups and even muffins. I say instead of just talking about the diet with out knowing anything about it give it a try. Here's there site https://www2.cookiedoctor.com/

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  24. The cookie diet might sound silly but SMART FOR LIFE is the most fabulous program out there. Natural, organic, no preservatives, a great support team and awesome tasting cookies that are good for you. Who could ask for more, my friend lost 99 pounds in 6 1/2 months and went from a size 22 to a size 2. She looks great and feels better than she looks. Get info at SmartForLife.com BUT be warned, all cookie programs are not the same so make the right choice.

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  25. Smart For Life has fresh cookies and an assortment of different product to substitute for your cookies its great you wont get bored. I am a patient at the Jupiter, Fl location and i love it! I have lost 25 pounds so far, with the help of the doctors and the staff i feel confident i can loose the weight i want and keep it off with their maintenance program. If you would like more information just go to http://www.smartforlifedietcookie.com its worth it if your read to loose weight

    ReplyDelete

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