Cookie diets are great! Maybe? For a while? Anyway, here’s how they work

Booster Shots is noticing much online chatter this morning about recent weight loss by the New York Jets’ Kris Jenkins -- weight loss attributed to Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet. Ditto similar weight loss by Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of “Jersey Shore.”

Here’s Jenkins’ explanation of his success, as shared with the Associated Press: Cookie monster: Jets’ Jenkins losing weight before training camp with unconventional diet. And here’s information on Polizzi’s lost poundage from That’s Fit on AOL: Jersey Shore: Another Season, Another Fad Diet.

Put them together and what do you have? A fine time to revisit the Health section’s analysis of cookie diets! The story explains how the diets (there’s more than one) work, the potential pitfalls, the history, the appeal (well, yeah, “cookies”) and the like.

Here ‘tis: The cookie diet: Trade meals for cookies, and lose weight -- it’s a dieter’s fantasy. The lesson here is portion control. But will results stick?

The last paragraph of the story promises the full results of a taste test, but -- alas -- the online record of that test no longer exists. But I remember ... Oh, yes, I remember...

In any case, note the related story: The science behind those cookie diets. It states, and I quote: “While scientific studies of cookie diets are notably lacking, research does offer limited support for some of their claims.”

If you’d tasted them all, that sentence would have bittersweet relevance for you too.

-- Tami Dennis