Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book Cracks the Amazon Top 500

Latest book by Miami obesity expert Sanford Siegal, D.O., M.D., reached a peak
position of 428 on Amazon.com yesterday

MIAMI, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- South Florida weight-loss expert Sanford
Siegal, D.O., M.D., has scored a hit with his latest book, Dr. Siegal's Cookie
Diet Book: How a Doctor and His Cookie Helped 500,000 People Lose Weight Fast
(2009, Hyde Park Publishing Ltd., 320 pages, ISBN 978-0-9822728-3-19999),
which yesterday reached its highest position to date, 428, on Amazon.com. The
book has also enjoyed brisk sales on the web site CookieDiet.com.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20091024/FL98390 )

"I'm delighted that my book has caught on so quickly because I think it helps
the reader to realize that, despite its catchy, flashy name, Dr. Siegal's
Cookie Diet is a serious, sound approach to weight loss that's based on two
hundred years of medical and scientific research," said Dr. Siegal. "It took
me fifteen years to write this book, and more than fifty years of treating and
observing overweight patients, to acquire the anecdotal evidence upon which
Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet is based."

The surge in sales of Dr. Siegal's book is due to a number of recent media
profiles:

ABC's Good Morning America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9fuI9yzx4o

The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/fashion/22Skin.html?_r=2&hpw

The Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/breaking-news/story/1281450.html

Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book is divided into five sections. In Section One,
the author endeavors to establish his credentials before asking the reader to
"make a leap of faith" and follow a regimen that Dr. Siegal freely
acknowledges bucks the conventional wisdom. Dr. Siegal addresses the tendency
for some critics to "summarily dismiss" Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET® based solely
on its unquestionably gimmicky name. He accepts his obligation to explain the
origin and underlying principles of his diet before asking the reader to
"...trust me when I tell you that you'll lose weight by eating cookies all
day..." In Chapter Two, entitled "500,000 Anecdotes," Dr. Siegal reveals the
import role that "anecdotal evidence" plays in every practicing physician's
work, and he explains how his personal observations of more than 500,000
overweight patients support his approach to losing weight.

The second section is the longest and most scholarly part of the book and yet,
perhaps paradoxically, the most fun to read. In the lengthiest chapters in the
320-page volume, Dr. Siegal takes the reader on an entertaining, occasionally
hilarious journey through two centuries of weight-loss diets and nutritional
wisdom. An enthusiastic collector of diet books (his private collection
includes hundreds of volumes dating back to the early 18th century), Dr.
Siegal resurrects for the reader's pleasure an array of mostly forgotten
weight-loss schemes that, in their day, were enormously popular and considered
medically sound. Perhaps the most memorable of these was "Fletcherizing," the
inspiration of Horace Fletcher, famous in his day as "The Great Masticator,"
who argued that the key to sound health was to chew each mouthful of food 32
times (once for each tooth), and then spit it out. Fletcher's system had a
massive following during the early 20th century.

"At the moment, the world seems fascinated to know whether this or that
celebrity follows Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet, and I find that amusing. What
people don't know is that every generation for at least the past 200 years had
its share of diets with famous followers. Fletcher's diet had countless
eminent disciples such as John D. Rockefeller, Mark Twain, and Upton
Sinclair."

In Section Three of Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book, which is undoubtedly the
most controversial one, the author pulls no punches as he blasts the
nutritional pseudo-wisdom with which the public is constantly bombarded by
well-meaning but misguided "experts" who have rarely helped an actual
overweight person lose weight. Dr. Siegal accuses diet coaches, nutritional
counselors, and even some of his fellow doctors with propagating impractical,
theoretical advice.

"I take a practical approach to losing weight," Dr. Siegal explained. "The
world is full of well-intentioned nutritional advice that 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 expresses some opinions that run counter to the conventional wisdom
as he confirms or refutes a number of popular urban myths. Chapters in 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 includes recipes, meal
guidelines, and detailed instructions for following Dr. Siegal's COOKIE DIET®,
a three-step program that Dr. Siegal and several hundred other physicians have
used in their medical practices since 1975.

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

Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet Book available online at CookieDiet.com, Amazon.com,
Borders.com, and BN.com; at Barnes & Noble stores in the United States; and
throughout Canada at Indigo, Chapters, World's Biggest Bookstore, and Coles.

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® behind the popular Dr.
Siegal's COOKIE DIET® weight-loss program and hunger-controlling foods. Dr.
Siegal is perpetually frequently in the news and has been profiled by dozens
of media including The New York Times, ABC's Good Morning America, The Today
Show, Toronto Globe & Mail, 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.

Hyde Park Publishing Ltd., +1-888-870-0213, +001-202-664-1172 (Worldwide), or
media@cookiediet.com