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Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book by Physician, Author, and Weight-Loss Expert Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., Available May 22nd

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 April 2009, 04:30 CDT

In his first book in nine years and the first about his internationally popular cookie-based diet, Dr. Sanford Siegal combines specific instructions for hunger-free weight loss with a fascinating, entertaining history of weight-loss diets through the Ages

MIAMI, April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book (Hyde Park Publishing Ltd., 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-9822728-3-19999) by physician Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., will be available in hardcover beginning May 22nd. Although he has achieved notoriety for his books on subjects such as high fiber diets, hunger control without drugs, and hypothyroidism, Dr. Siegal is best known as the Cookie Doctor(R) behind the venerable Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET(R) weight-loss program and the hunger-controlling cookies that make it possible to follow. Next week, Dr. Siegal, 80, kicks off an ambitious, three-month publicity tour of North America and Europe.

"Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book is unlike my previous ones which were traditional diet books, serious and all business," said Dr. Siegal. "I wanted Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book to stand on its own, whether or not the reader intends to follow the diet. Therefore, while Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book is a diet book that provides specific instructions that have helped a lot of people lose weight, there's much more to it. Even readers who don't intend to follow the diet should be entertained by the extensive history of diets from past centuries, and by the debunking of some of the ivory tower nutritional nonsense that has made 65 percent of us overweight."

Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book is divided into five sections. In Section One, Dr. Siegal endeavors to establish his credibility before asking the reader to "make a leap of faith" and follow his admittedly unusual-sounding diet plan. He reveals and accepts the tendency for some to "summarily dismiss" Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET(R) based solely on its eminently catchy, even gimmicky name. He acknowledges the need to explain the basis for his diet before asking the reader to "trust [me] when I tell you that [you'll] lose weight by eating cookies all day." In the chapter entitled "500,000 Anecdotes," Dr. Siegal reveals the omnipresence of "anecdotal evidence" in every practicing physician's work, and he explains how his own observations of more than a half million overweight patients support his approach to weight loss.

Section Two is the most scholarly part of the book and, perhaps paradoxically, the most entertaining. In the lengthiest chapters in the 320-page volume, Dr. Siegal takes the reader on a fascinating, occasionally hilarious journey through centuries of improbable weight-loss diets and nutritional wisdom. An avid collector of diet books (his collection includes hundreds of volumes dating back to 1727), Dr. Siegal resurrects for the reader's pleasure a plethora of largely forgotten diets that, in their day, were widely accepted. Among the most popular of these was "Fletcherizing," the creation of "The Great Masticator," Horace Fletcher, who insisted that the secret to good health was to chew each mouthful of food 32 times (once for each tooth) and then spit it out. Fletcher's system gained a massive following during the early 20th century.

"Lately, it seems that every time I pick up a magazine or turn on the news, people are talking about how this or that celebrity is on Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet. I wonder if people realize that every generation going back a couple of hundred years has had its share of diets with famous followers. Fletcher's diet had no shortage of eminent disciples including Mark Twain, John D. Rockefeller, and Upton Sinclair."

In Section Three, which is certain to be the most controversial, Dr. Siegal includes a series of myth-busting chapters in which he enthusiastically blasts the nutritional advice with which the public is constantly bombarded by well-meaning but misguided "experts" who, more often than not, have never treated an overweight person. He charges nutritionists, diet coaches, and even some of his fellow physicians with propagating impractical and theoretical advice that is too complicated or demanding for real people to follow.

"I take a practical approach to losing weight," Dr. Siegal explained. "The world is full of well-intentioned nutritional advice. While much of it is nonsense, some would benefit anyone who followed it. But almost nobody follows that kind of advice because it comes out of an ivory tower and is too complicated and demanding to be useful in the real world. I want results, not unrealized good intentions."

Dr. Siegal offers several opinions that run counter to conventional wisdom, and he also confirms or refutes a number of popular urban myths. Chapter titles from Section Three include "The Great Calorie Theory," "The Last Ten Pounds are the Hardest," and "Faster is Better."

Section Four is the diet part of this diet book. It contains recipes, meal guidelines, and detailed instructions for following Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET(R), a three-step program that Dr. Siegal and approximately 200 other physicians have used in their medical practices since 1975. The first step is to take an at-home, self-test called Dr. Siegal's 28-Day Calorie Burn Rate Self-Test that estimates one's daily caloric maintenance level. The second step is to use one of two free, web-based calculators (they're in the Resources section at www.CookieDiet.com) that Dr. Siegal created to help dieters set a realistic goal weight and goal date. The final step is to follow a strict, 1,000 calorie diet using Dr. Siegal's cookies to control hunger.

The last section of Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book contains just one chapter called "For Your Doctor's Eyes Only." The chapter is intended for the reader's doctor who, Dr. Siegal advises, should monitor his patient's health on any weight-loss diet.

ABOUT SANFORD SIEGAL, D.O., M.D.

Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., is a practicing physician whose South Florida medical practice, Siegal Medical Group, has treated more than 500,000 overweight patients. Although he has achieved notoriety for his books on subjects including high fiber diets, hunger control without drugs, and hypothyroidism, he is best known as the Cookie Doctor(R) behind the popular Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET(R) weight-loss program and hunger-controlling foods. Dr. Siegal is frequently in the news and has been profiled by dozens of media including Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Today Show, National Post, and Forbes.

MEDIA INQUIRIES AND REVIEWER COPIES Hyde Park Publishing Ltd. 888-870-0213 (U.S., toll-free) 001 202-664-1172 (Worldwide)

SOURCE Hyde Park Publishing Ltd.

Source: PR Newswire

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