They said "crunches" were good for weight loss, but… Just when I thought I'd seen every kind of "diet" under the sun, they surprise me again. This one's called the "Cookie Diet." It's an 800 calorie-a-day plan that features only one meal a day -- dinner (red meatless, of course) -- but half a dozen cookies that are specially formulated from oats, rice, bran, and other stuff to suppress hunger. Cookie-dieters are supposed to munch these whenever they get hungry throughout the day… Can you believe this nonsense actually made it onto "Good Morning America" a few weeks back? Obviously, this absurd plan relies on the unwillingness of most people's minds to associate cookies and healthy eating, thereby making the "diet" seem less dietary. But aside from that, is 800 calories of nearly all carbohydrate -- without any meat to balance it out -- really a good idea for most overweight people, nutritionally speaking? Nope. And there's no science out there that says it is. If you want to lose weight, lay off the fad diets -- like this cookie-based dud. Just slash your carbs and sugar across the board, get plenty of meat and the fat of meat and take up some moderate exercise -- without overdoing it -- and the weight will come off. Wait a minute -- doesn't that sound like the "fad" diet that's been working for 35 years? You know, the one Dr. Atkins discovered…
Telling it like it is,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
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