Smart for Life Weight Management - West Bloomfield, MI Review

This diet has pros and cons.  Pros would be:

1. Ease - buy the products, eat the products, lose weight.
2. Effectiveness - I lost 5 pounds in about 10 days.

Cons would be:

1.  The cookies are AWFUL. First, they aren't really cookies - they are really, porrly made scones.  They have this spongy consistency that turns to sludge as you try to eat them.  No amount of water changes that.  You can eat them with water, creating pasty mush in your mouth that is easier to swallow.  And contrary to what the maker says, you will never get used to it or crave them.
2.  Palm Oil is used in the cookies - last time I checked, Palm Oil was a high source of saturated fat.  If you microwave a cookie for 10 second, then wrap it in a napkin and press it, it leaves an oily stain.
3.  The first ingredient in the soup is maltodextrin.  I am allergic to maltodextrin in high quantities, so I can even eat the soup. My wife ate it - it tastes like water with some flavor that she couldn't define, obviously unpleasant.  The shakes are no better.  Oh, and 1 shake = 2 cookies.
4.  Hydrogenated cellulose - I am guessing this is the key ingredient in the cookie to that awful texture.  Why did they even put it in, except as a filler?  And if that's the case, why put a filler into a diet product?
5.  No matter how much water I drink on this diet, it results in constipation and bloating.  I am drinking 84 oz of water, plus a cup of coffee, each day.  Somehow, that's not enough to keep things... regular.
6.  You will be hungry.  These cookies, shakes and soups, in the quantities you are permitted, will leave you hungry - no ifs, ands or buts about it.  But most diets leave you hungry during the first couple of weeks, because your body is craving the foods that got you to the point where you need to diet.  I only mention this because the Smart for Life people tell you that the "cookies will fill you up".  Don't believe it!

I liked the idea of this diet, that by reducing fats and sugars, I would get my body to process my own stored fat and therfore lose weight.  But in reality, I think this diet works because it is simply a low calorie diet.  When you only take in 500 calories a day and maintain a moderately active lifestyle, you are bound to lose weight.  If I set myself up on a low calorie diet that restricted fats and sugars, I would probably lose the same amount of weight, save the money and save myself from having to eat those awful cookies.