Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Jimmy

I’m guessing that about 0.2% of the people that end up reading my title will react by thinking to themselves Jimmy who?

Jimmy is a low carb weight loss success story who went on to become a pro blogger and the host of a vibrant free low carb community. He has a lot of personality.

Jimmy spent months as a Kimkins affiliate and drew harsh criticism for a part of that time. His audio interview with Kimmer (who at that time was not admitting to her identity as Heidi Diaz) was a defining moment of this saga. I think you can pinpoint the moment when he stopped giving Kimmer the benefit of the doubt. He asked her if the picture of the woman in the red dress was, in fact, her. She said it was, in a tone of voice very much like the one that Heidi Diaz would later use to say No Comment to Chip Yost. The popularity of the audio interview with Jimmy Moore meant that thousands of people had absolutely no doubt that Heidi Diaz was Kimmer as soon as she spoke on camera. Surprisingly, Kimmer continued to deny being Heidi Diaz for some time after that.

Eat Your Vegetables

I am curious as to whether anyone has published any succinct advice for people who are transitioning from the Kimkins WOE to something better. I know that Jimmy Moore repeatedly welcomed all comers to his free forum and I suspect that there is a lot of detailed discussing about tweaking diets there.

I am not a dietitian or even an experienced dieter. The best advice I can offer is that vegetables are our friends. About.com has a convenient list of vegetables in listed in order of carb count. I know that it is the middle of the winter in the northern hemisphere now, so price and quality aren’t optimal for some of the better vegetables. I would suggest that you take a relatively long ‘wish list’ to the grocery store and take home what is of good quality and a reasonable price.

Use Caution when Supplementing Pet Diets

Most foods for dogs and cats are nutritionally complete. Adding anything else to their diet can throw it out of balance. While looking at old stuff related to Kimkins, I was reminded of the Egg White challenges. This reminded me of something that I learned about feeding cats recently. You should NEVER add egg whites to cat food because a protein in the egg white inhibits biotin absorption. You can add the occasional yolk to dog and cat food.

The best plan for feeding pets is to use a good quality complete food and adjust portion size so your pet maintains an ideal weight.

Weightless Workouts

I just finished reading through a post about weightless workouts over at www.weightloss-hq.biz and I was so inspired that I actually tried a few exercises right on the spot. Just to be practical, I used laundry folding as my warmup. The weightless workouts described by Kenny aim to achieve muscle overload rather than muscle exhaustion. If I had exhausted my chest muscles rather than overloading them, I might not be typing this post right now. As it is I am feeling the heat, and I am almost but not quite sore.

Exercise that does not require special equipment or trips to the gym are a great way for dieters to maintain or increase muscle mass.

WeightLoss-HQ.biz has a lot of information about various weight loss strategies and from what I have seen they appear to be well balanced reviews. For example, when there are pharmaceuticals for which weight loss is an off-label use that has not been FDA approved the reviewer was very forthright about it. Personally, I wouldn’t be interested in going that route.

Anti-Kimkins Blogs of Note: Kimorexia

Let me put this in the simplest of terms. Heidi Diaz did some smart branding with the Kimkins Experiment. Now that we know she was not actually subjecting herself to this experiment, you have to question the methodology and the conclusions as well as the validity of the results. You have to wonder about the people who swallowed the kool-aid and said Kimmer lied, but the diet is not a lie.

Kimorexia delivers the ‘information, revelation, references, quotes, debates and more concerning the “Kimkins” crash-diet and/or its advice’ that it promises. Using information to combat the disinformation about diet and health over at Kimkins is a recurring theme. There are also a lot of outgoing links to interesting corners of the Anti-Kimkins community/cause.

Is Kimkins a Cult?

We generally associate the word cult with religion, but the definition is actually broader than that. Wikipedia describes a cult as a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream. So, yeah, I think you could argue that Kimkins is a cult.

I think the one saving grace with Kimkins is that its devotees are not in the physical care and control of their leader. I recently read some anecdotal information from an anti-kimkins blogger who knows some people who are still following Kimkins. The impression I got was the some Kimkins defenders who argue that it is a safe and viable diet actually cheat regularly on their diet.

Success and Frustration

I came stumbled upon an interesting weight loss story today. First off, let me direct you to a page that converts ’stone’, a ridiculous and archaic measure of weight, into pounds, a somewhat less ridiculous and archaic measure of weight.

Stone to Pounds

That will help when you read the dramatic weight loss story. The sad part is that the man who lost so much weight cannot afford plastic surgery and he has an arguably debilitating amount of loose flapping skin. His mother sold her house to pay for his gastric bypass surgery. He would probably be dead now had he stayed at his astoundingly large size.

Vegan Athletes

People who are undergoing rigorous physical training have a much higher protein requirement than moderately active people. I just finished reading an article that profiles an NFL player who made a decision to go Vegan. Conventional training involves eating a lot of meat, fish and dairy as part of a balanced diet. Critics of vegan diets question whether an athlete can be competitive when these foods are off the table. Research shows that a vegan diet that is designed carefully and followed correctly can meet the needs of athletes and not impair their performance. There is no solid evidence that they can improve their performance by going vegan.

Tony Gonzalez was concerned about his longterm health. He heard about The China Study from a stranger on a plane and tried going vegan prior to the beginning of his training season. He was discouraged when he found that he had perceptibly lost some strength and also 10lbs. Rather than give up on his new diet he got advice from a few experts and ended up breaking records during the NFL season. His wife didn’t think he could do a whole season without any cheeseburgers.

Queen Latifa Talks About Weight Loss and Health

My favorite part of this video is at 1:45. For some reason People used a headline that read 200lbs & Loving It! when the Queen was on the cover. She was quick to announce that she weighed more than that. I think it is bizarre and shameful the way the media and celebrities lie about the numbers. I’m sure a lot of people who read this blog felt some pretty strong emotions when Oprah was going along with Kirstie Ally’s claim that her highest weight was 200lbs. It’s nice to see a celebrity that’ll admit to being heavy, even if she wasn’t coming right out with a real number.

Kimkins Exposure

The tangled web that is the Kimkins Controversy was given the cookie-cutter treatment of television journalism a few days ago. It is great that countless people who may have never heard of Kimkins got the basic messages that it is a fraud and that it is not a well researched and safe way of eating.

Actually, I am curious as to how many people would have seen this item on Good Morning America. I was surprised to learn that the TV show is aired in Europe, the Middle East, the Philippines and Australia. The show spent a lot of years as the #1 morning show in America. In November 2006, GMA averaged 5.1 million viewers. It has been a close second to The Today Show for many years.

So it’s quite likely that millions of people saw this news item. The only website that was mentioned and shown on television was Heidi’s site. It may be a bit early to look for the effect of the television exposure on her traffic, but so far it seems to have been minimal.