The Cookie Diet - which recommends swapping daily meals for SIX biscuits - launches in UK: But is it just another fad?



Dr Sanford Siegal's Cookie Diet is a popular Hollywood eating plan

Diet involves eating low-calorie meal-replacement biscuits



Claims diet has helped half a million people lose weight since 1975



Denise Richards, Jennifer Hudson and Guy Ritchie have followed

Costs from £41.50 per week and claims to help you lose 10lb a month



Imagine a diet on which you were permitted to stuff your face with biscuits while still losing weight.

Have you imagined it? Right. Well, now you can stop imagining, because there is one eating plan that claims to let you do precisely that.

The only catch is that you're only allowed six, specially formulated biscuits per day. So no reaching for the custard creams. And the biscuits are instead of meals. So put down that cutlery.



Dr Siegal's Cookie Diet, founded by Miami-based weight-loss expert Dr Sanford Siegal in 1975, is a retro, meal-replacement eating plan of the same ilk as Slim-Fast. And it's coming to Britain.

Can you lose weight by eating biscuits? Dr Siegal's diet claims to let you lose weight by eating low-calorie meal-replacement biscuits

The diet involves swapping breakfast, lunch and any snacks in between for just six of the brand's special 90-calorie biscuits - available in flavours including butterscotch, cinnamon oatmeal, chocolate brownie, blueberry, banana and maple syrup - or nine of the little 60-calorie ones.



You are permitted to eat a healthy, sensible dinner - just so long as your daily calorific intake does not top 1,200 calories.

The cookies - which, according to Madonna, made her then-husband Ritchie lose his sex drive in 2008 - are made from fibrous grains such as oats, fruit and amino acids. A week's supply will set you back upwards of £41.50, and the diet claims to help you drop 10lb per month.



Weight loss made easy? The diet claims to enable you to lose 10lb per month

But nutritional therapist Jo Lewin doesn't believe that nutritionally restrictive diets of this nature are the key to long-term weight loss:



Speaking to MailOnline, Jo said: 'Eating six cookies a day, with only one proper balanced meal is not seen as a healthy approach to weight loss.



'This looks like another fad diet which is misleading to the public. Restricting the diet and food choices like this is more like to hinder our health than help it'

'Restricting calories on a diet like this is unlikely to lead to long-term weight loss and may result in nutritional deficiencies. Since when has balanced nutrition been represented by a biscuit?



'This looks like another fad diet which is misleading to the public. Restricting the diet and food choices like this is more like to hinder our health than help it.



'For sustained, healthy weight loss you need adherence and compliance with a pattern of eating that works for you over time.



'You're better off starting a food diary, watching portion size and cutting out high sugar snacks than reaching for the cookie jar.'

Durable and portable: Dr Siegal says he chose to make his low-calorie food take the form of a biscuit because they are easy to carry and fit in a handbag

Speaking to MailOnline about whether he believes his diet is a healthy way to lose weight, Dr Siegal said: 'Decidedly, yes. Any diet that safely takes weight off someone and gets them to their proper weight is a safe diet, because nothing is more unhealthy than being overweight.

'People on the Cookie Diet are not getting the nutrition they need, but that's the purpose. To lose weight you need to eat fewer calories than your body needs'

'People on the Cookie Diet are not getting the nutrition they need, but that's the purpose. To lose weight you need to eat fewer calories than your body needs.

'But there's no question they are getting the vitamins and minerals they need becasue one of the instructions is to take a multivitamin - and in the US we give free vitamins with packs of cookies.



'As far as remaining healthy I have enough evidence of that over the years. I've been treating obesity for 50 years and using the cookies since 1975. I've treated half a million patients and we have yet to have the first case of someone not getting enough vitamins.'

Dr Siegal, right, and his son Matthew, CEO of the Cookie Diet, say the diet is healthy and provides clients with all the vitamins and minerals they need

Dr Siegal's son Matthew, CEO of Dr Siegal's Cookie Diet, added: 'As long as you're eating fewer calories than your body needs to maintain it's weight, you will lose eight.

'One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to losing weight quickly is that once come off the diet you will regain the weight immediately. That's just silly'

'And as for whether people will regain all the weight they lost when they resume "normal" eating.... well, if "normally" means their previous eating habits that got them overweight to begin with, then of course they will gain weight. But I'm a big believer in exercise as a means of maintaining goal weight.

'One of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to losing weight quickly is that once come off the diet you will regain the weight immediately. That's just silly. Once you reach your goal weight the only thing that will determine whether you gain weight is what you do from that point on.



' The method by which you lose weight has nothing to do with whether you go back to being overweight after .

'The Cookie Diet takes you to a goal weight quickly and safely, but what you have beyond that is a lifetime of weight maintenance through healthy eating and exercise. '

Dr Sanford Siegal with a batch of his weight-loss cookies

Writing on his blog, Dr Siegal said: 'In the early 1970's, after treating overweight patients exclusively for more than a decade, I came to the conclusion that hunger is the primary cause of diet failures.



'Through trial and error, I had determined that 800 calories a day produces the fastest rate of true fat loss and is quite safe under the supervision of a trained physician.



'I chose a cookie because it's durable; doesn't need refrigeration; fits in a purse or briefcase; and is enjoyed by nearly everyone. I was careful to make my cookie taste good but not too good'

'Of course, without strong hunger suppression, an 800 calorie diet would be difficult to follow due to hunger. I knew that, if I could control their hunger, I could help my patients faithfully follow the low calorie diet that I favored.

'I decided to try to create a food that was particularly controlling of hunger while relatively low in calories. After several years of experimentation in my home kitchen, I developed a blend of particular amino acids (food proteins) that proved to be quite hunger suppressing and I baked it into a cookie.