There are hundreds of diet regimens that claim to make you lose weight faster than you ever expected, and each of these programs promises to produce better results than the other. But only a few work in the long run and the suitors will just take the excess water out of you and then you will go back to your previous weight.

Only time and reputation can prove the effectiveness of a diet regimen. And such a regimen exists only in the name of Dr. Siegal’s cookie diet. This diet regimen refers to a low-calorie diet based on a substitute to control hunger in the form of cookies. Dr. Siegal’s diet requires only 4-6 cookies a day in addition to other foods or meals.

Today, there are already several cookie diets on the market. But Dr. Siegal’s recipe is still the best seller among its competitors. This is probably due to its long standing reputation and satisfactory results among the doctor’s patients and consumers. It is due to the effectiveness of this diet that the recipe for it has been around for more than three decades.

It was in 1975 when Dr. Sanford Siegal was doing research for a book on the effects of natural food substances on hunger and satiety that he developed his blend of specific amino acids that are now his cookies. The author and weight loss doctor from South Florida tried to bake cookies with this special formula and used them to control his patients’ hunger. His patients were instructed to consume a maximum of six cookies per day to control their cravings, plus a large meal for dinner consisting primarily of six ounces of chicken, turkey, fish, or other seafood. Cookies are estimated to be around 500 calories plus dinner, which should ideally be around 300 calories to offset an 800 calorie intake per day.

The weight loss doctor’s innovation was an immediate success. In a matter of years, the number of his patients has grown dramatically and so have the success stories after using the (then) new diet. His name and his diet program spread throughout Florida, expanding his clinics, 14 of them, in the state and another 10 in other parts of the United States (the number may have decreased after the separation with the franchisee). Less than a decade after obtaining the prescription, more than 200 physicians were already using Sanford Siegal’s creation and program for their own patients. Shortly after, Dr. Siegal devised new products such as shakes and soups with the same properties as his already famous cookies.

His cookies, baked in his own Miami bakery, are now available in five different flavors: oatmeal raisin, banana, chocolate, blueberry and coconut. He didn’t market his cookies until two years after discovering them when his son convinced him to do so. The formula for these hunger-suppressing cookies has been kept secret from the public to prevent copycats from duplicating the product and naming the recipe for themselves. However, this hasn’t stopped them from imitating the product, and since they don’t work, they only give the real product a bad name.