Hollywood Cookie Diet Review

Cookies aren’t supplements but because the Hollywood Cookie Diet  is marketed for weight loss, I think this review is appropriate to do. I first heard of the Hollywood Cookie Diet via XM Radio but it’s also sold at various retail outlets like Rite Aid an Vitamin Shoppe to name a few. Let’s now dissect these Hollywood Diet Cookies and see if they can help people lose weight.

There are many cookie diets out there. While the cookies may differ in ingredients, they all work basically the same way.

Whats in A Hollywood Cookie?

According to the Hollywood Cookie Diet website, 1 weight loss cookie (cranberry orange flavor) has the following main nutritional ingredients:

• 140 calories (35 calories from fat)
• 4 grams of fat   (6% daily value)
• No saturated fat or trans fat (that’s good!)
• 150 mg sodium (6% daily value)
• 22 grams of total carbohydrate (7% daily value)
• 4 grams of dietary fiber (16% of daily value)
• 5 grams of protein

How does the Cookie Diet Work?

If you do the Hollywood Cookie diet you are to eat 3-4 cookies a day in place of foods you would normally eat at breakfast and lunch. Let’s say each cookie has 140 calories (it can actually range from 140 – 150 depending on the flavor you used). That’s 140 x 4 = 560 calories. So, until you eat dinner, you are going through your day with only 560 calories.

Suppose you really pigged out at dinner and ate 1000 calories. That means you would be eating about 1560 calories for the day. This is LESS than what people normally eat.

This means that the Hollywood Cookie Diet is a LOW CALORIE diet. The diet’s website actually says dinner should be 800 calories so if you followed the diet to the letter you’re eating even less food! This is enough to cause weight loss in most people.

The diet cookies are fairly high in fiber but pretty low in protein. Specifically, one cookie only has 5 grams of protein. So if you ate 4 cookies a day, that’s only 20 grams of protein.

To determine your RDA for protein multiply your body weight (in lbs.) by 0.4. That’s the amount of protein you need to stay healthy. Subtract 20 (20 g protein) from whatever you calculate and this is the amount of protein you will need to eat at dinner to stay healthy. Remember, this is only an estimate. If you exercise (or are older) you will need more protein than this.

Protein can help you maintain muscle during dieting –that’s really important! I was surprised that the cookies in the Hollywood Cookie Diet were so low in protein.

How much Fat is in the Cookie Diet?

From the nutrition facts, we see that one weight loss cookie is 140 calories and 35 of those calories comes from fat. This means that a single weight loss cookie is 35/ 140 =  25% fat. Technically, that means this is a “high” fat diet cookie. When evaluating food labels, remember that anything that is 5% or less is “low” in a nutrient and anything that is 20% or more is “high.”

The cookies don’t have any significant saturated fat or trans fats which is good. This leads me to believe that the fat in the cookies is probably either monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats or a combo of the two. These are both healthy fats.

What about Exercise?

To their credit, the Hollywood Cookie Diet does advocate exercise. The problem is that if you only consumed 560 calories in cookies (prior to dinner), how much energy would you have to exercise? Not very much. In fact, I’d guess that after a week or so on the diet, your ability to exercise would probably greatly diminish.

How Much Does the Cookie Diet Cost?

I think the cookie diet is expensive. According to the Hollywood Cookie Website, a box contains that contains 12 cookies is $19.95. That is enough to last for 3-4 days.  That’s about $80 a month! The website does have “specials” like buying 3 boxes and getting one box free for $59.97  –  but still, they're just cookies! Here is the Hollywood Cookie Diet on Amazon for those who want to compare prices.

Does the Hollywood Cookie Diet Work?

As mentioned above, the Hollywood Cookie Diet consists of eating 3-4 cookies a day in place of  breakfast and lunch You then eat a sensible dinner.

Have we heard this story before?  I sure have!!

Have you heard of these other diets:

• Special K diet: eat 2 bowls of Special K cereal and eat a sensible dinner
• The Slim Fast diet: Drink 2 Slim Fast shakes and eat a sensible dinner
• Right Size Smoothie diet. Drink 2 Right Size Smoothie weight loss shakes & eat dinner. For more information, read my in-depth review of Right Size Smoothie weight loss shakes.
• The Subway diet: Jared eats 2 foot long Subway sandwiches a day (about 1400 calories) and loses weight.

There is a reason why so many diets have you replacing food with some low calorie alternative – it works. It works because it gets you to eat fewer calories. So, based on logic, I do conclude that the Hollywood Cookie Diet will work if you follow it to the letter.

Contrast the cookie diet with actress Kirstie Alley's diet.

But, in also keeping with this logic, why not just make up your own cookie diet?

For example try this:

• The Oreo cookie diet: you eat only 4 Oreo cookies a day and eat a sensible dinner
• The Nestle chocolate chip cookie diet: You eat only 4 a day and eat dinner.

These “other cookie diets” will work just as well –and these cookies are cheaper! I'm very serious about this. Think about it, if you only ate 560 calories in Oreo cookies or 560 calories from those of the Hollywood Cookie Diet and ate the same dinner, you would lose the same amount of weight.

I'm saying this, not to be sarcastic or preachy, but because I know there are a lot of people out there who really want to lose weight – and will try and do anything to achieve this. I just wanted to give people something to think about.

There are many roads to weight loss and I have no doubt that some people have lost weight with the Hollywood Cookie Diet – some have may have lost a lot. I just think that there are other, more logical paths to weight loss, that that don’t cost as much – and that people can do for a lifetime. For those who are interested and want to compare prices, here is the Hollywood Cookie Diet on Amazon.

What do you think?