Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

Which Presidential Hopeful is a Weight Loss Success Story?

In my mind, the act of taking control of your personal health and losing 100 pounds seems like a pretty good talking point for a political candidate. I am a bit out of the loop, but I am still surprised that I didn’t see this bit of trivia in the news coverage during all these months of campaigning. I would like all my regular commentators to let me know if they already knew. Also, if you don’t know, take a guess. I’ll give you one hint. It’s not Obama.

A New Weightloss Device

I tagged this post with the term weight loss surgery, but this device is actually put in place without surgery. It is a very simple idea. The Endobarrier is a liner for the first 24 inches of a patients lower intestine. It is put in place endoscopically and is easily reversible.

Right now, the trial procedures are being done on people who are scheduled for gastric bypass. There is already some data showing that it works. I assume that patients need to supplement some nutrients and vitamins. I had a misconception corrected while fact checking. I had assumed that there was some amount of absorption of simple sugars in the stomach, but most sources say that water and alcohol are the only things that are absorbed in significant amounts by the stomach.

Afforable Health Insurance

Canadians and Americans talk to each other quite a bit online on forums and such. I have noticed that there are occasionally threads that get of on a tangent about health care and especially insurance. Often you can read threads where it is obvious that people are confused and have no idea what the other people are talking about. The Canadian system is unique and individuals and small businesses need unique products like the PHSP from BrockHealth.ca. It allows you to pay all your medical expenses tax-free. Americans sometimes have the misconception that Canadians just don’t pay for medical expenses. It is much more complicated than that, and don’t even get me started on kids dental expenses. A Private Health Services Plan covers the majority of things that are not taken care of by our highly overrated (by some) system.

Good News about Weight Loss

There is good news this morning. A medical study has concluded that moderate weight loss in overweight adults improves heart health. It further indicated that the benefit was there whether you chose diet, exercise or a combination. The best part of this is that benefits are immediate and apparent. People who know that they need to lose several pounds do not seem to take late onset diabetes and high blood pressure as a call to action. If you are conclusively told that you will feel younger if you lose weight, is that enough motivation?

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.

Hair Restoration.

If you are ever searching for hair transplant surgeons, you should be aware that, in many areas, anyone with a license to practice medicine can take up the lucrative niche of hair transplant surgery. There are a few associations like the IAHRS that strive to create a high standard of care. My advice would be to ask your prospective doctor about his or her association memberships and then check out those associations online. The members of the International Alliance of Hair Restoration Surgeons are selectively screened. The have to have a high level of skill and also sound ethics before they can be given membership status. The association is devoted to protecting consumers from enduring the expense and disappointment of having substandard hair restoration surgery. Obviously, since this is surgery, you could potential suffer more than just disappointment.

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.

Your Body is a Temple

Here is the first in a series of videos chronicling a weight loss challenge between three Christian Ministers. I don’t know how it ends. I’m posting this after only watching the first two videos

Another weight losing minister was on Fox news recently. He gained attention because he was admonishing his congregation about their obesity in an effort to get them to make positive changes. If you are someone who believes that the Bible is the word of God and that your body is a temple, you should have a spiritual as well as practical motivation to eat a healthy diet and work towards an optimal weight.

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.