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
