HOUSTON -- You're asking Amy if you can really lose weight by eating dozens of cookies.

It seems to contradict everything we know about weight loss; but many of you have seen local celebrities and entertainment magazines pitching "The Cookie Diet."

Many of you want to know if it really works. KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Amy Davis opens the lid on the cookie jar to give you an inside look at the program.

When Irene Markantoni stepped her scale, she didn't like the number she saw. It read 197 pounds.

It took a trip to the doctor for Kingwood resident Monty Free to get motivated to lose weight.

"I was overweight," said Free. "My cholesterol was high. It was time to start something."

What Markantoni and Free both started was a steady diet of cookies.

They're not just any cookies. They turned to these diet cookies made by Miami doctor Sanford Siegal.

"I've been doing this for 34 years," said Siegal.

Siegal said he came up with the perfect combination of ingredients to make the cookies low calorie,  filling and fairly tasty.

But will Marlantoni agree?

"I'm impressed," said and unconvincing Markantoni, after her first bite of one of the cookies.

"So you could suffer through this?" Davis asked.

"I don't know, but I'm going to try," Markantoni answered.

She volunteered to try the cookie diet for one month. We armed her with a full supply of cookies of every flavor: chocolate, oatmeal raisin, banana nut. coconut and blueberry. Each cookie is 90 calories. You can eat six each day in place of breakfast and lunch, then a low calorie dinner.

Markantoni said she knew the diet would be a challenge because she loves to cook and eat rich Greek food with her two children.

"I'm not your burger girl or a pizza girl," said Markantoni. "We're not hot dog people."

But the cookie doctor says it's less about what you eat and more about how much.

"In order to lose weight, you have to be on a low calorie diet," said Dr. Siegal.  "There is no other alternative. Our cookie enables someone to eat this very low calorie diet because we control their hunger."

But Free says, as with any diet, it's not easy.

"If you're used to eating and feeling that sensation of full, you don't get that," said Free.

What Free did get was results. He dropped 30 pounds in less than four months.

"I feel really, really good," said Free.

But we wanted to see it work first hand, so  Markantoni agreed to be our cookie diet test case.

"I don't know," she said.  "I hope it's a wonder cookie."

Markantoni agreed to keep a video blog, capturing her dieting ups and downs with a "Cookie Cam."

On day one, she confessed to the Cookie Cam, "Around 4:30, I really needed to eat something solid so I had a grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy's."

 "I've been eating OK," she said on the third day. "I'm not as hungry."

Day 10 brought big news.

"I got on the scale this morning and I lost 9 pounds," Markantoni said.

And at the end of one month, we returned for the big reveal. Markantoni says she found some extra room in her size 12 jeans by keeping a food journal and giving herself more slack than Siegal prescribes.

"I had my Mexican nights," Markantoni admitted. "I had to have them. I would say, maybe once a week,  I would have my cheat day."

Even with some cheat days,  Markantoni says she dropped 13 pounds from 197 to 184.

"That's a huge difference," she said, excited to stay on track.

Siegal says the diet works best and quickest if patients stick to a 1,000 calorie a day diet. The cookies account for 540 of those calories.

Free and Markantoni actually ate between 1,200 and 1,700 calories a day;  but they say it was still significantly fewer calories than they were consuming without the cookies.

The cookies come with a supply of multivitamins to provide you with the nutrients you miss from essentially skipping a healthy breakfast and lunch.

Free even said he saved money on the diet. A week's supply of the cookies cost $59. The cost comes out to $4.20 for each meal that you replace with the cookies.

You can order the cookies online at www.CookieDiet.com or purchase them at any GNC store.  The Walgreen's at 3317 Montrose Blvd. also sells the cookies.