(This article appears as a chapter in Dr. Siegal's new book, Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book)
I believe in free enterprise, at least in principle, and no one ever said that an idea had to be original to make somebody a lot of money. But when it comes to Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet and the growing number of “copycat” products it has spawned, I’m less enthusiastic. It’s not that I mind competition, per se. It fuels innovation (well, sometimes); I can think of many good ideas that were made better by an enterprising entrepreneur.
Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet isn’t one of those ideas.
I've included this chapter (which I adapted from an entry I posted on my CookieDiet.com blog in April 2008) to help people distinguish between the original cookie-based diet that has received so much publicity and acceptance over the past three decades and those that have arrived very late to the party.
From 1975 to 2002, Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet existed without significant copiers. Yes, over the years, there actually were a few halfhearted attempts to capitalize on my idea. For example, in the early 1980s, there was a doctor to whom I’d been supplying my cookies for use in his own practice. He bought a lot of cookies; then suddenly the weekly orders stopped coming. I soon learned that the budding entrepreneur in him had awakened and decided that he could make more money by stealing my idea than buying my cookies. Fortunately for me he was wrong. Nobody wanted his cookies because that’s all they were—garden-variety cookies. In addition to underestimating the complexity of food manufacturing, he forgot one important thing. The reason Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet works is that the cookies satisfy hunger without the usual calories that are found in common snacks. The particular mixture of proteins (with the particular distribution of amino acids) incorporated and the method of combining the ingredients are a secret known only to my wife and me at this time. Many are surprised to hear that we, in solitude, with our own hands, combine some of the ingredients that go into every cookie, thus preserving the secrecy and the uniqueness of my product.
Of course, whenever a product is successful, there will be imitators. It took 30 years for them to start arriving on the scene, but today there are at least three companies that recently started to offer products or services that use the words cookie diet in their marketing.
Six Cookies, One Meal a Day, 800 Calories, and Hypothyroidism
The essence of my system as used in my practice is quite simple. First, my patient undergoes a typical medical history and examination, including an EKG and various laboratory tests. She (most of my patients are women) then begins an 800-calorie-a-day diet that includes six of my cookies (more on those in a moment).[1] During her first month on my diet, my patient carefully tracks her weight loss. At the end of the first 28 days, I use the data she has gathered and a test that I developed to help me assess whether she has a sluggish metabolism caused by a condition called hypothyroidism. I estimate that about one quarter of the patients who come to me have this condition but don’t know it, though many suspect that something is wrong with them. It’s difficult to lose weight if you have hypothyroidism, and yet it is easily corrected with medication. If you suspect that you have an underactive thyroid even though conventional lab tests and your own doctor say otherwise, see Chapter 13 or, for even more information, read my book, Is Your Thyroid Making You Fat? (Warner Books, 2000).
Enter Smart for Life Weight Management Centers
In late 2001 I was contacted by a charismatic Canadian doctor who requested and received my permission to open weight-loss clinics called Siegal Weight Management (later renamed Siegal Smart for Life Weight Management Centers) that used my six-cookies-a-day weight-loss system and hunger-controlling foods. Based on his initial success, he came back to me and obtained the right, as my franchisee, to sell sub-franchises. Within a few years, there were dozens of Siegal Smart for Life centers in such metropolitan areas as Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, Tampa Bay, and Quebec.
An important part of my agreement with him was that his centers could not use any foods for weight loss other than mine. My system had been working very well for the last 27 years and I did not want its reputation to be tarnished with inferior products.
In August 2006, despite our agreement and the fact that Siegal Smart for Life was growing rapidly, I received a letter from him announcing the immediate end to our agreement. Suddenly, Siegal Smart for Life was just Smart for Life and was offering its own brand of cookies, shakes, and soups. Thankfully, I never had shared my secret formula with that doctor, and it has, therefore, never been found in his products.
The story doesn’t end there. It made the news, and if you’re interested in the fascinating conclusion, I’ll direct you to two excellent articles on the subject. The first was published in the April 17, 2008, issue of the Broward/Palm Beach edition of New Times. The lengthy article provides a remarkably detailed account of my entire relationship with that franchisor from the beginning up until the recent time (April 2008). The second article appeared in the November 17, 2008, issue of Forbes magazine. Links to both articles are posted under In the News on CookieDiet.com.
In September 2008, I learned from the Web site of the South Florida Business Journal that my former franchisee had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Hollywood Cookie Diet
As I recall, it was sometime in June 2006 that a self-proclaimed “diet guru” named Jamie Kabler began selling a box of cookies under the name Hollywood Cookie Diet. You may have heard of Kabler. He’s the same fellow who previously brought you the Hollywood 48-Hour Miracle Diet (and later, perhaps for those in a hurry, the 24-Hour version). These earlier products are blends of fruit juices that have used “Lose Up to Five Pounds in 24 Hours” as a slogan. Now I’m just a practicing physician, not an ordained diet guru, but it seems to me that any juice that produces five pounds of weight loss in 24 hours is flushing away a lot of material of which body fat is not a significant component.
As for his so-called Hollywood Cookie Diet, I have to commend Kabler for not making false claims for it, at least as of this writing. In fact, except for occasional uses of words such as miracle and magic, I wasn’t able to find any claims at all on his Web site. There’s no specific information about how the cookies aid in weight loss. The product’s marketing slogan is “The First Delicious Way to Lose Weight!”
If you believe that true weight loss can be achieved through magic, miracles, and the consumption of delicious foods, then I believe your prospect for success is the only thing that will ever be slim.
And This Just in from Japan
Very recently a product called Soypal Cookie Diet popped up online. I don’t know anything about it. However, I will infer from its name that it may contain soy protein. If that’s the case, then beware of this. Based on my experience with my own patients, I estimate that low thyroid function is a contributing factor in the excess weight of about one in four overweight people. Why is that relevant? Because recent published studies have linked low thyroid hormone levels to the consumption of soy protein. For that reason, I have intentionally left soy protein out of all Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet products[2]. Furthermore, in my own practice, we discourage patients from consuming soy protein.
Cookies Don’t Make People Lose Weight
Losing weight is nobody’s idea of fun even under the best of circumstances. It takes discipline and determination to achieve your goal. I’ve used Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet to help more than a half million people lose weight. The weight loss that those people experienced was not the result of eating cookies. It was the result of adhering to a reduced-calorie diet that was made possible with the use of a particular cookie—my cookie.
1 In my own practice, my patients follow an 800 calorie diet. For those who are not my patients, I advocate a 1,000 calorie (or more) diet.
2 On the Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet product packaging you’ll notice that I use soybean oil. There is no contradiction. According to the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, soybean oil does not contain soy protein.